"A Glimpse of Heaven"
Acts 7:53-60
First Presbyterian Church
The Reverend Donald E. Ray
April 20, 2008
Easter 5
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Several years ago—actually many years ago when I
was pastor of a church in a rural
“I saw an angel,” he stammered excitedly. “It was sitting on the hood of the truck going over the bank. I saw it there! Right in front of me!”
“You mean you were driving that truck,” I said.
“Yea! I saw an angel on the hood! It saved my life,” he replied.
Fearing for his life as the truck careened out of control, he had a glimpse of heaven.
Relieved that I was not going to find a battered body in or under the truck at the bottom of the road bank, but also aware that this man had not been doing very well at living, I think I said something like: “Wow, you have been blessed. You have another chance at life.” And I believe I added; “I hope you make good use of it.”
But he didn’t, in my judgment, make good use of his new lease on living. I never saw him in church or involved in anything for the good of the community. I think he was at the bar that evening, likely trying to calm his nerves and wash the whole experience away.
Interest has waned now, but a decade or so ago there was a fascination with “out of body” -- “near death” or “death” experiences. Reports of such experiences came from persons successfully resuscitated after cardiac arrest—their hearts had stopped beating and they were in fact “dead.” Descriptions of such an experience included the sense of looking down on one’s body and the persons working to revive it; seeing a light; visions of and communicating with persons who had died or with angelic beings. Those who relate such experiences generally also have such comfort from it as to no longer have a fear of death. The assumption is that such experience is common in dying, even for those who do not survive to tell of it. Dying persons do sometimes look beyond those by their bedside and speak as it were to persons who have preceded them in death.
I guess I believe enough that there is that about our existence which is much greater than our senses and our minds can apprehend, to not doubt or discredit such an experience. And I think it may take being relieved of our senses that we can be in touch with what we call spiritual, or heaven, or God. And I guess I am also so pragmatic that I wonder what difference such a renewed lease on living makes. Being relieved of the fear of death doesn’t seem sufficient.
Stephen, in our text from Acts, is identified and venerated as the first Christian martyr. The same word in Greek can be translated “witness” or “martyr” “Martyr” became the more common because of the era in which many “witnesses” for Christ were sacrificed in the effort to destroy this radical new faith movement.
As I find my self all too frequently discovering, the stories in Scripture are not always what I have long assumed. Stephen’s vision of heaven, I had learned, came as the stones were falling and consciousness and life were ebbing away. That is not however the sequence of the event in Luke’s story. In the story, Stephen’s glimpse of heaven does not appear as his consciousness fades under the stone blows. It is Stephen’s description of his glimpse of heaven that so riled the establishment they dragged him out of the city where they stoned him to his death.
It was a glimpse of heaven that marked the beginning of this faith movement we call Christian. The Gospel writers tell us that “when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” (Luke 3:21-22)
Jesus was then led by that Spirit into the wilderness from which he returned to identify with Isaiah’s prophecy:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to
the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To let the oppressed go free,
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
(Luke 4:18-19)
Before Stephen was famed as a martyr, he served food at the local soup kitchen. There was an identified gap in the communal lifestyle of the early Christian community. Some were being left out in the day to day distribution of food.
It would seem the Apostles still suffered from the elitist claim of James and John to a place at the side of Jesus in what they perceived would be the Messiah’s kingdom. The twelve Apostles now determined their responsibility was to the ministry of word and sacrament. The community should select others to do the menial duties. Stephen and six others were named; Stephen first so he may have been the manager. But even the CEO of a soup kitchen doesn’t rank very high on the scale of importance.
The whole biography of Stephen in the sixth and seventh chapters of Acts is recommended reading. Stephen is described as “full of grace and power, and did great signs and wonders among the people;” (Acts 6:8) all this while ladling soup at the local home for poor widows. Strangely, those Stephen first offended were of the synagogue of the Freedmen. It would seem these now released slaves had so easily forgotten where they had once been. In his defense, Stephen likely not himself of Jewish lineage, sketched the thread of following the Spirit from Abraham through their whole history. “It was Solomon,” Stephen said, “who built a house for God. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands; as the prophet (Isaiah) says,
Heaven is my throne,
And the earth is my footstool,
What kind of house will you build for me,
Says the Lord.
Or what is the place of my rest?
Did not my hands make all these things?”
(Acts 7:47-50)
Stephen’s accusers are tied to that establishment that turned a deaf ear to the voice of the prophets and runs counter to the Spirit.
As I was writing this sermon, I went to the Archives on our church web site and re-read Tom’s sermons of this Easter season. I was chagrined at first to see that Tom had already said much of what I was trying to put together for this morning. I took some comfort in noting that he had been saying pretty much the same thing each Sunday. And then I realized there is only a single Easter message for today. In the church of today, we must reclaim resurrection from the death bed to be the glimpse of heaven by which God’s Spirit can lead us each day to live in love, serving, peace making, and caring for our neighbors.
Several years ago, a
friend of Karen’s left her job, gave up her house and possessions to volunteer
at a mission in the Kensington area of
After dinner Barb took us to the house the mission operates that afforded a shelter for women trapped in the abuse and drugs of their life on the streets. She talked of the glimmer of hope offered to these women and children in their otherwise dark, dark, world. As she humbly talked of her work there, it was evident Barb had seen a glimpse of heaven—that God’s Spirit led her there and continues to move in her each day for now more than decade.
When Karen and I first volunteered to be part of the prison program, I did some reflecting on this new venture. I knew immediately I had to set aside any idea of our being the “good guys” taking something special to these misguided souls. We took the opportunity this past Thursday evening to sit with some of these men. One of the questions we discussed was: “Can you share a moment when you have known Christ’s presence with you?” Since we went the other way around the circle from me, I had time to reflect and it was clear that when Jesus said, “I was in prison and you came to me;” that indeed here among these men there was a glimpse of heaven as their faith in Christ was a source of strength to cope with their present and a hope for building a better life ahead.
Matthew repeatedly quotes Jesus saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” A window into whatever lies beyond when we are on the threshold of the end of our life here may be comforting. But whenever we look for Christ in those who are in need; when we see Christ in those who are caring for others in their need; when ever we see those who seek to do justice to the presence of Christ by working for peace and for the good of all; wherever we see the church looking to the lead of God’s Spirit today and taking that more seriously than the established traditions from the past; we see a glimpse of heaven—at hand.
Amen.
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