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A Glimpse of Heaven              Revelation 7: 9 –17                        April 29, 2007

Bob Woodruff, the former co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight, as most of you remember, I’m sure, was horribly injured by a roadside bomb – an Improvised Explosive Device, or “IED” in the jargon of the military – in January of 2006, while he was working as an “imbedded” reporter in Iraq.  In their best-selling book, In An Instant, Woodruff and his wife, Lee, talk about their marriage, their children and their life, before and after Bob’s injury.

I can only imagine what it must be like to get a phone call in the middle of the night when your spouse is more than halfway around the world, working in such a dangerous place.  Such phone calls never bring good news, and the one Lee Woodruff got from Iraq that night of Bob’s injury, obviously, was no exception.

“You can’t know how you would behave in a crisis until it drops out of the sky and knocks you down like a bandit:  stealing your future, robbing you of your dreams, and mocking anything that resembles certainty,” Lee writes at the very beginning of the book. “Sudden tragic events and even slow-burning disasters teach us more about ourselves than most of us care to know.”

She’s right, of course.  You and I can’t possibly know how we would behave in a circumstance like this.  So much comes at you from so many directions that it probably takes all the energy you have just to stay rational and aware of what’s happening around you.

The rest of the wonderful, touching, book – if you read it, by the way, keep a supply of tissues nearby – is essentially about what the tragedy teaches them, as Lee references in the passage I quoted a second ago.  It’s a series of flashbacks, first from Bob’s perspective and then from Lee’s perspective, focusing the relationship between the two of them, on what happened in Iraq, on what happens in the hospital and on what happens in the family between the time the couple first met and fell in love in 1986 and their return to a “normal” (in quotes) life after Bob’s year-long recuperation and recovery.

But there is one brief section of the book that stands out, perhaps above all the rest:

“I never saw the IED explode and I don’t remember what happened around us after that,” Bob writes, “I do have a very distinct memory that was so beautiful, and so profound, it is hard even to put it into words.  After I fell back into the tank, I saw what I think must have been heaven.  I was bathed in a calming white light.  It was soft, not glaring, and it was peaceful, enveloping.  I was floating somehow.  I could see my body below me as I hovered, slowly, peacefully, and completely without pain.  I remember being surrounded by and immersed in pure bright light.  There was no conscious feeling of urgency that I had to go back somewhere.  I don’t even think I knew I’d been attacked or hurt.  The white light just felt good, like soft welcoming arms.  I reveled in those arms.”

“That vision of the white light” Woodruff goes on to explain, “was the clearest memory I had.  I want to believe that ‘place’ was heaven.  To this day, because of what I experienced, I have no fear of death.  Whether or not fear will creep back eventually, I don’t know, but for the moment I am comforted by the thought of what will come next.”

Actually, Bob Woodruff’s description of what happened to him immediately following his injury is not unlike those recounted by literally thousands of others who have had near-death experiences. Common themes include floating, white light and a sense of calm and tranquility.

The Near Death Experience Foundation – yes, there really is a Near Death Experience Foundation – documents research that suggests that 774 NDEs, as they call them, happen every day in the United States.

Frankly, that number makes me really skeptical.  If you do the math, it means that roughly one out of every one thousand people in the United States has a near death experience each year.  Makes the whole thing sound fishy.

Nonetheless, Bob Woodruff is one of the truly credible, mainstream public figures who had a near-death experience and not only describes it beautifully, but does so calmly and in a matter-of-fact fashion, making it totally believable.  Woodruff hasn’t jumped off the deep end or joined a cult.  He’s back at ABC News, doing his job and acting and sounding much the same as he did before.

I think Bob did get a glimpse of heaven that afternoon in Iraq.  From my reading of the scriptural accounts and my understanding of what an eternity in the immediate presence of God must be like, his description was very close. His images of being bathed in a calming white light and feeling soft welcoming arms all ring true.  If heaven is like that, I can see why it is known as paradise.

Moreover, the picture the scriptures give us of our heavenly relationship to God – the Catholic Church calls it, aptly, a Beatific Vision – is a lot like the vision Bob describes in the book.

There is one important thing that is missing, however.  One essential element that is clearly described in the biblical descriptions of heaven that Woodruff’s experience misses.  This element is also missing from most of the encounters described by the most of the others who come close to death and return to talk about it.

The essential element I’m referring to is clearly described in our text for this morning, which, like last week’s Lectionary passage, is taken from the Book of Revelation, chapter 7.

Before we look at this passage, let’s first briefly examine the context – the action, if you will, from the earlier chapters.  Last week, you may recall, we focused on Revelation chapter 5, in which the heavenly chorus of elders and all living creatures were rejoicing, singing praise to the slaughtered Lamb, who now is sitting on the throne.

Next, in Chapter 6, the Lamb opens a series of seals, unleashing horses of different colors and causing all sorts of apocalyptic stuff to happen– famine, pestilence and horrible, cruel things called, in summary, “the wrath of the Lamb.”   Pretty clearly, the Savior is not at all pleased with creation, at this point in John’s account, and is prepared to wreck havoc and cause what is generally called a tribulation – a great tribulation. 

This chapter, by the way, is the focus of endless theological speculation and sometimes even ferocious debate on the part of the literalist wing of Christianity.  I must admit, I find all that debate to be fruitless.  There is simply no way to know for sure what John was getting at with this description of his vision.   For our purposes this morning, we’ll just leave this chapter and move on.

Which brings us to our text in Chapter 7.  To our glimpse of what heaven will be like for those who survive the tribulation.

“These are they who have come out of the great ordeal;” John writes. “they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.” 

And here’s the best part: “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

This is a comforting passage.  It paints a picture of a place not unlike the one that Bob Woodruff writes about.  But the picture painted here is more complete.  It includes the essential element that all of the “secular” accounts of life after death seem to miss. 

You see, heaven, for John, as he describes it in this vision we call Revelation, is first and foremost about worship.  Yes, it is also about experiencing a state of being where everything we know has been changed, but more important, the great multitude that has come through the ordeal – the ones who have been changed – don’t just sit there and bask in the glow of it all.  They react to this changed state by worshipping – by singing day and night. The power of this passage – its central message – is in its description of heavenly worship.  For John, heaven is, above all, about worship.

As always, the question for us, today, is “What on earth do we do with this information?”   The answer, I think, can be found by journeying back, for a moment, to the time when John wrote the words we just read. 

The people whom John was addressing were people who had heard the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Moreover, these people were doing their level best to follow the risen Christ, even though doing so was very costly.

Most likely, these early Christians were suffering the consequences of their faithfulness, on a daily basis.  So much so that some of them were beginning to wonder if, in fact, the suffering was ever going to stop.

John, in writing to this community of Christians, gave them a great gift. John gave them a glimpse of what was going on in heaven. A glimpse of those who, like themselves, had endured "the great ordeal" Who had kept the faith, and who now, vindicated by God, were in heaven praising and glorifying God's holy name.

This was John's way of saying, to them and to us: Have courage, you who strive to follow Christ.  There will be sacrifice, but there will also be resurrection. 

So, should we, as followers of the Lamb, sit by, 20 centuries later, and wait for all of this to unfold?  Not even close.  This vision of heaven is not just “pie in the sky in the sweet by and by.”  On the contrary, it is very much real world.

Author and preacher Kimberly Bracken Long puts it this way:  “The real world is the one in John’s vision,” she writes.  “The real world is the reign of God that Christ has already begun with his resurrection.”  “This vision is no waste of time.  It is a vision that gives us a truth to stand on and a pattern for the living of our days.”

You and I are not called to look away from what goes on around us in this world. And we are certainly not called to wait around for some future events to trigger our action. If we follow the example of the great multitude pictured in John’s Revelation, we will respond to the sacrifice of the Lamb, right now, with worship.  Continuous worship.

Finding a way to continually worship is our mandate.  It is something we are called to do – in the parlance of today – on a 24/7 basis.  Occasionally with our words, but mostly with our actions.  Our actions toward one another and our actions toward the rest of God’s children.

When we gather together as we are this morning, it is just practice for the rest of the week.  The tricky part is taking the joy we experience here – again, much like the heavenly joy described in our text – and letting it seep into the way we live our lives the rest of the time.

Thankfully, God’s Spirit guides us in our efforts.  And thankfully, what we do here today – our corporate worship – can help to equip us for the task.

And friends, there is probably no better way to worship than to sing.  So sing we will, now, with joy and thanksgiving.           

                                                                                                            AMEN