Not Forgotten

I was seven years old when my father left home one December morning for a regular day at work as a  crewman in a B-29 bomber.  It was also the first day he went to work and did not come home.  Instead, there was a collision in the air with another plane involved in the training mission and everything about life changed by the time night had fallen.  And, as I remember those days, they were also the first days that I came to believe that there was a heaven.  To think otherwise was unthinkable..   

It has always seemed a bit strange that something so full of theological mystery would warrant so little attention in the church.  Of course, it gets plenty of attention in most places on Easter Sunday, though such cannot be guaranteed.  And, most funerals are accompanied with multiple assurances that the one being laid to rest is surely in heaven.  Still, it seems that something so large and so filled with eternity would receive pulpit time on at least a few other Sundays during the course of the year.   But, the truth is, it is a forgotten, or omitted part of the preaching which comes from most pulpits.  

The one thing preachers and churches do not want to do is to appear to be other worldly.  Those who speak too much about heaven, or even any at all, are likely to hear voices criticizing them for ignoring the suffering realities of the world that is here.  Why it has to be either or is a troubling mystery.  There is room through the course of the year for both.  And, as much as folks want help in the day to day stuff, they also seem to have a desire not to know the details of heaven, but to have the way toward that eternal home pointed out to them and even celebrated as a very real part of the spiritual journey.