Chapter 7 Heaven: The Home of Love
Chapter 7
Heaven: The Home of Love
When you’re in love, waiting is hard.
It’s as true now as it was two thousand years ago. Just ask Judith, a young Jewish maid who lived in the hills beyond Jerusalem, and Nathaniel who grew up in the city.
For Judith, the romance began long before her betrothal to Nathaniel. She was just a little girl drawing water at a well outside the city walls of Jerusalem when they met, and the smiles between them caught the eyes of their parents. The years passed, their friendship grew, and it wasn’t long before the families of both Judith and Nathaniel were happily contemplating a wedding. The parents made the decision, while Judith and Nathaniel freely consented. That was the custom. That was the Jewish way.
The wedding bells started ringing for the two of them when Nathaniel took the first step. Leaving his home in Jerusalem one morning, he traveled to Judith’s village to speak with her father about a betrothal. As he approached her home, Nathaniel got sweaty palms—Jewish tradition treated the betrothal as more important than the wedding itself!
He knew there were two things to discuss regarding the establishment of a betrothal covenant. First, he would ask Judith’s father for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Then he would negotiate concerning the price to secure his bride, a dowry that showed Judith’s family that he, Nathaniel, had the means to be able to properly care for her. He loved Judith so much he was ready and willing to commit a large sum—he and his dad had talked it over, and they both agreed Judith was worth whatever it took.
That morning Nathaniel was not disappointed. Judith’s father was glad to give his daughter’s hand in marriage and a dowry was agreed upon. Nathaniel happily purchased his new bride and the betrothal contract was sealed. That afternoon, in a formal ceremony, the bride and groom confirmed their covenant by drinking together from a cup of wine. It was a beautiful symbol of their marriage covenant, and Judith’s family spread hugs, kisses, and tears all around. Nathaniel and Judith at that point were officially married, a union that could not be dissolved except by divorce. However, it would be a long time before they would actually live together.
Nathaniel, full of happy anticipation, excused himself late that afternoon and traveled back to his father’s house. As Judith watched her groom leave, she realized both of them had a great deal of work to do to get ready. Nathaniel was returning to his father’s house to prepare a place for them to live. She knew he would be constructing a nice, large addition onto the home where they would live under the same roof with Nathaniel’s family. In all probability, it would be an entire year before her groom would return for Judith and take her into his own house. She could hardly wait!
Weeks and months dragged by for the bride-in-waiting, but Judith knew he’d be faithful to his promise. She busied herself by gathering items for her new house, learning all she could about being a good wife, and daydreaming with her bridesmaids about what married life would be like. In private moments, though, when she was alone in her room, she pined for Nathaniel. The separation between them seemed endless.
One morning Judith woke up and realized a full year had almost passed. She knew Nathaniel could be coming for her at any time. She also knew he and his groomsmen would come for her at night. That was another custom. Which night? She had no idea and that made it all the more exhilarating. Judith spread word to her bridesmaids to be ready at any moment.
One evening after dinner, as she was leaning on the window sill, Judith heard a faint voice in the distance, “The bridegroom is coming! He’s coming!” This was it! She quickly jumped up and ran to her room to gather the things she had packed, hoping all the while that her girlfriends in the village also heard the shout. Meanwhile, Nathaniel was marching toward the village with his friends in a torchlight procession. As more bystanders recognized the wedding party, they took up the call of celebration and cried out the good news, passing the word from block to block. The bridegroom was on his way!
The bridesmaids caught wind of the warning and hurried to Judith’s home to help her get dressed in her bridal garment. In a matter of moments, the torchlight processional halted outside her home. Judith peeked out her window. The oil lamps threw off flashes of light as they dangled at the end of their long wooden poles held aloft. Her bridesmaids heard laughter and singing in the street below and began singing a song of their own. She took one glance in the polished metal mirror before she and her family and friends rushed outside to meet Nathaniel and his groomsmen.
When the bride dressed in her gown stepped through the door and onto the street, the wedding party cheered. Amidst singing and laughter, Nathaniel took Judith’s hand and together, with the party, they walked by torchlight back to the home of Nathaniel’s father, where the wedding guests were already waiting. When they arrived at the house, Judith and Nathaniel greeted the guests and welcomed everyone to the wedding banquet. The time had finally come for them to consummate their marriage, so, after excusing themselves, they moved to the bridal chamber. While the groomsmen and bridesmaids waited outside, Nathaniel took the hand of his beloved, and they entered the chamber alone. In the privacy of the room, he took her in his arms, kissed her, and after a time, laid with her in their bed, fulfilling the covenant they had made the year before. For the two of them, it was ecstasy and the long waiting period only made their lovemaking sweeter and more pleasurable.
After a while, Nathaniel left the bridal chamber and announced the consummation of his marriage to the other members of the waiting wedding party. Word spread like wildfire to the other guests at the banquet table, and the real feasting and celebration began—there was dancing, music, and laughter up and down the street where Nathaniel lived. During all this time, though, Judith remained hidden in the bridal chamber. This was a Jewish custom, as well, known as “the days of hiding.” But at the very end of the seventh day of the wedding feast, the groom brought his bride from the chamber with her veil removed. “Please greet the wife of the groom,” Nathaniel’s friends announced, and everyone wildly applauded the new couple.
The two of them had longed for this moment all their lives, and, from that day on, Nathaniel and Judith lived happily ever after.1
Behold the Bridegroom!
I brushed off the dust from this story depicting the ancient Jewish custom of betrothal not to give a history lesson, but a spiritual one. The romance between Judith and Nathaniel is jam-packed with glorious symbols for you and me as we wait for heaven. Symbols that explain why I long for and actually miss my Savior.
John 3:29 tells me that “the bride belongs to the bridegroom,” and, unlike the situation in modern marriages, I’m His possession. My life is hid with Christ in God, and who I am won’t appear until He appears. My life is wrapped up in the One who redeemed me. Redeemed me in love. So, naturally I’m going to pine for Him and feel homesick to be with Him, especially when I know where He is and what He’s doing: “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:2–3).
These are the words of a Lover. The Lover of my soul. Maybe at one time the meaning in this verse eluded me, but when placed in the context of Him as Bridegroom, and me as bride, it has me packing my trousseau and getting ready to go.
My love for heaven is energized because I know how He feels about me: “The Lord will take delight in you…As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:4–5). Ponder that for a moment. He rejoices over you, and don’t say that word like a plaster-of-paris saint in a less-than-amazing tone of voice. It’s a jump-up-and-down, clenched fist, throw-your-head-back, and yell out loud, “Rejoice!” Jesus is brimming with heartfelt love for you when He says in Song of Songs 2:14, “Show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” This is a God in love.
It’s not a matter of sweet words. No. He gave his life as His dowry, and the Cross shows me that He and His Father agreed on an exorbitant price. Every time I drink from the communion cup of wine, I remember the covenant between my Bridegroom and me. And I’ve promised Him I will drink from that cup in remembrance of Him until He comes.
Until He comes. That’s the hard part.
Waiting is so hard. It’s even harder when you love someone.
Like Judith in our story, I sometimes find myself leaning on the edge of time’s windowsill, wondering when, oh, when will He return? It makes me wonder about the rest of the marriage symbols between Judith and Nathaniel. Do the shouts in the city street represent the shout of the archangel heralding the coming of Christ, the Bridegroom (1 Thessalonians 4:16)? Does the sudden arrival of the wedding party mean that He will surprise us and come like a thief in the night (Matthew 24:42–44 and I Thessalonians 5:2)? Jesus drops a hint in Revelation 16:15 when He says, “Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake.”
What about the bride and His groomsmen waiting in the street? Is this a symbol of the Lord rapturing us from our homes and meeting us in the clouds? For “the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). There are some who say that the Wedding Feast of the Lamb will be celebrated during the seven years of tribulation, and, just as the groom brought out his bride after her seven “days of hiding,” so, after the seven years of tribulation, Christ will return with His bride to crush His enemies and set up housekeeping on earth. Is this the meaning behind these symbols?
I don’t know. And I don’t need to know. My responsibility as the betrothed is to be prepared and wait.
Be Prepared…the Pure and Spotless Bride
I want to see the face of my Savior.
You may not realize it, but you do too. We want to see. We find it hard to rest comfortably in a relationship—with God, with anyone—when we cannot see the face of the one we adore. This is why I paint in my head the faces of friends I care deeply about, especially when I’m away from them. The essence of who they are is held in the eyes, the mouth, the smile. The face is the focal point of personality.
When it comes to brides and bridegrooms, full intimacy comes between a man and a woman face-to-face. And when the Bible speaks of longing for God, it speaks in terms of wanting to see His face. The psalmist pleads with God, “Make your face shine upon us,” and “Do not hide your face from us.” Ultimately, “in righteousness I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness” (Psalm 17:15).
To hold the gaze of God is to find love, acceptance, and satisfaction.
Well, yes and no.
There is still a thick shield between God and us. We cannot see what our heart longs to because as 1 Timothy 6:16 says, “God lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen nor can see.” When Moses pressed hard upon God to see His face, he would have been glad to use thick glass coated with UV block and grab a quick peek at God through his fingers. But, no. Moses was only permitted to glimpse the backside of God’s glory, for the Lord warned, “My face must not be seen” (Exodus 33:23). God didn’t say this because there was nothing for Moses to see; He said it because He knew His light would kill. No man can see God and live. The Lord’s glorious radiance would have snuffed Moses out in a nanosecond.
Even when Isaiah “saw” the Lord high and exalted on a throne, he did not behold God’s face. He only glimpsed the periphery of the radiance of God. The sight threw Isaiah so deeply into despair over his sin that he cried, “Woe to me!…I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5).
Sin is the problem. Sin is more than a thick shield between God and us, and acknowledging our stockpile of iniquities won’t make it go away. No amount of confessing our sin will help us see God. That’s backward. We don’t have a clue as to the heinous nature of our sin until first we glimpse God’s radiance, and then the words come tumbling out, “Woe is me!” The closer the apostle Paul got to God, the more he cried, “I am the chief of sinners.” I used to think this was a pompous, grandstanding thing for Paul to say, but not any more. It’s the cry of the saint sensitized to sin.
Our longing to see God is a longing, whether we know it or not, to see our sins exposed and to be cleansed by God Himself. Just as guilt will cause a child to hide in shame from her daddy’s face, our deepest desire is to be clean, be free, to be transparent before the Father. And it won’t happen until we see His face.2
This is a living paradox. We desire to see the face of God, but we cringe at seeing the face of God. We are cleansed from our sin, but we’re still unclean. We’re justified before God, but we’ve got miles of sanctification to go before we sleep. We’re in the household of God, but not home yet. Our eyes have been opened, but we can only see through a glass darkly. It’s frustrating!
This is partly why it’s so hard to muster strong feelings about heaven. You and I going to heaven for a wedding? Our wedding? “His bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean” (Revelation 19:7–8, fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints). Righteous acts! We glance down and see stains and smudges all over our wedding gown, which, by the way, is tearing at the seams and missing a few pearls and fasteners. Little wonder we cower at seeing our Bridegroom.
It’s one thing to have funny feelings about a heavenly wedding, but I actually felt this way at my earthly wedding.
On the morning of the big day, my girlfriends laid me on a couch in the church’s bridal salon to dress me. They strained and grunted to shift my paralyzed body this way and that, fitting me into the huge, cumbersome wedding gown. When I got back in my chair, an usher brought word that the guests were seated, and it was time to line up. We reached the glass doors of the church, they swung open, and the blast from the organ gave us goose bumps.
Just before the wedding march, I glanced down at my gown. I had accidentally wheeled over the hem. It left a greasy tire mark. My bouquet of daisies were off-center on my lap since my paralyzed hand couldn’t hold them. No amount of corseting and binding my body gave me a perfect shape. The dress just didn’t fit. It was draped over a thin wire mesh covering my wheels, but it still hung clumped and uneven. My chair was spiffed up as much as possible, but it was still the big, clunky gray thing with belts, gears, and ball bearings that it always was. I was not the picture-perfect bride you see in magazines.
My last bridesmaid began her walk up the aisle, and I inched my chair closer to the last pew to catch a glimpse of Ken at the front. I saw him waiting at attention, looking tall and stately in his formal attire. He was craning his neck to look up the aisle. He was looking for me. My face grew hot and my heart began to pound. Suddenly, everything was different. I had seen my beloved. How I looked no longer mattered. All that mattered was getting up to the front of the church to be with him. I could have felt ugly and unworthy, except that the love in Ken’s face washed it all away. I was the pure and perfect bride. That’s what he saw, and that’s what changed me.
Years later, somewhere around our tenth wedding anniversary, I asked him, “What were you thinking on our wedding day?”
His answer delighted me. He said, “I woke up so early that morning, excited that I would see you in your wedding gown. And even though I knew there would be hundreds of people in the church, I knew my eyes would be for you only. In fact, I’ll never forget that wonderful feeling when I saw you wheeling down the aisle in your chair. You looked so beautiful.”
“You mean, you didn’t think much about my wheelchair? My paralysis?”
He thought for a minute, then shook his head. “No. Really, I just thought you were gorgeous.”
Our entrance into heaven may be something like this. One look from God will change us. And earth is just the dress rehearsal.
True, we presently see stains and smudges all over us, and we cower, thinking, He’ll never see anything lovely in me. But still, we ache to see Him. And so, like Judith in the story, we live in hope. God will find us and He will not always remain beyond our sight. Our Bridegroom desires that I long and look for Him “while we wait for the blessed hope.” And “everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).
It’s called “being prepared,” all you saints in your torn bridal garments, and “it teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:12–14).
One day He will come for us and look into our eyes. We will hold His gaze. And all the stains and smears of sin will be purified out of us just by one searching of those eyes. It will be more than we dreamed of, more than we longed for.
Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face,
Here would I touch and handle things unseen;
Here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
And all my weariness upon Thee lean.3
Waiting on the Groom
We may be separated from our Savior, but that’s no reason to sit around killing time until He comes. Jesus explains what brides ought to be doing while they’re waiting for their groom:
At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
At midnight the cry rang out: “Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!”
Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.”
“No,” they replied, “there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.”
But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. “Sir! Sir!” they said. “Open the door for us!”
But he replied, “I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.”
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” (Matthew 25:1–13)
Foolish virgins are those who think that the betrothal is just one big insurance policy guaranteeing them access to the Wedding without lifting a finger. Wise virgins understand that the betrothal carries with it big responsibilities. They recognize they are married, albeit separated from the groom, and so they act like they’re married. They watch. They work. They stay awake. They see the kingdom of heaven as the “pearl of great price,” as the treasure in the field that—quick—must be purchased and plowed. They don’t sit around on their hands. They pour their heart into the marriage covenant. In short, they act like they are loved and in love.
Before you rush to assume this means doing something, remember it means being someone. To wait is an occupation of the heart. To wait on the Lord is to love Him with spirited affection. With passionate delight. To wait on Him is to fix your eyes on those converging points in eternity: Jesus.
The Bridegroom invites us to know Him this intimately. Jesus presses home the point about this intimacy more dramatically in John 6:53–57: “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you…For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.”
It’s no wonder language like that sent the disciples scattering! But remember, He’s talking about a spiritual intimacy.
Now, I’m not one to pipe up and call myself a wise virgin. But, thankfully, I’ve got some help with this thing about spiritual intimacy. My wheelchair. I get exhausted after a long day of sitting in my chair, and so most evenings I have to lie down at around 7:30. Lying in bed paralyzed, I have all the time in the world to wait on Jesus, to focus the eyes of my heart on those heavenly coordinates. My bedroom is a quiet place and softly lit. No music. No TV. The clock ticks. If there’s a breeze outside, the wind chimes tinkle. Our dog, Scrappy, may curl up at the edge of the bed and softly snore. It’s a place where I cannot do anything,…I can only be. And I choose to be the wise virgin who pours my love into the marriage contract.
I press my heart heavenward, maybe singing to the Lord a song just for His listening pleasure. Perhaps this one…
Loved with everlasting love,
Led by grace that love to know;
Gracious Spirit from above,
Thou hast taught me it is so!
O, this full and perfect peace!
O, this transport all divine!
In a love which cannot cease,
I am His, and He is mine.
Things that once were wild alarms
Cannot now disturb my rest;
Closed in everlasting arms,
Pillowed on the loving breast.
Doubt and care and self resign,
While He whispers in my ear,
I am His, and He is mine.4
After an hour or so, Ken will amble in from the living room to check on me. Sometimes he gets concerned that I’m alone, or I should say, choose to be alone. But he doesn’t need to worry. He finds me “boasting all the more gladly about my weakness” and “glorying in my infirmity,” grateful that the paralysis affords me such a luxury: most women I know are doing the second load of laundry at 7:30 P.M. or putting the third child to bed. Their healthy bodies are at work, while my paralyzed one is forced to rest. What else is there for me to do but…wait?
Lying there, looking at the ceiling, I squint my eyes of faith to focus on unseen divine realities and their future fulfillments. I set my heart and mind on heavenly glories above. And in the face-to-face intimacy I enjoy with my betrothed, I take Him at His word and “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood.”
Feeding on Him? I “taste and see that the Lord is good” as I ingest favorite Scriptures (Psalm 34:8).
Drinking His blood? “[His] love is more delightful than wine” in praying and singing hymns (Song of Songs 1:2).
Within a short time, I’m in the heavenlies, picturing myself kneeling on the throne room floor where Jesus is seated. Maybe one evening I’ll imagine I’m His handmaiden, at the foot of His throne to serve. Another evening, His fellow intercessor kneeling next to Him against the rock in the Garden of Gethsemane. On another night, His sister. Sometimes His child. If I’m under spiritual attack, I go to Him as the Captain of the heavenly hosts.
When I relate to Him as the Lover of my soul, I’ll quote out loud to the Lord a few verses from the Song of Songs. I’ll tell Him He’s the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Valley, the Fairest of Ten Thousand. “This is my lover, this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem…He has taken me to the banquet hall and his banner over me is love…his left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me…strengthens me…refreshes me…for I am faint with love” (Song of Songs 2, 5). And then, maybe I’ll sing another hymn of love…
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O Light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.5
This intimate spiritual union is a two-way street. Occasionally, I’ll picture Jesus whispering something to me that the Father said to Him in Isaiah 42:1: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.” Earth is one big premarital session for heaven, and although Jesus wants us to love Him passionately and single-heartedly, He more than matches it with love, pure and fervent.
On some evenings, He’s the father running down the trail to embrace me, the prodigal, before I can speak a word of contrition. At other times, He is the mad farmer showering on me a full day’s wage when I’ve hardly worked. On other evenings, He is the Master forgiving me, the sinful woman, before I realize I’ve done anything wrong. He’s the king lavishing on me a banquet when I’m not even aware I’m malnourished. This is a God whose love for us is so active and so strong that most would say He was mad.6
While the Groom Is Absent
It is “heaven” to know Jesus this way. And I mean that literally. Because “this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life is knowledge of God. When we deepen our relationship with Jesus, we get a head start on our eternal life here on earth. Heaven is already happening to us.
However, there are two kinds of knowledge. Just ask the wise and foolish virgins. If you asked a foolish virgin, “Do you know Jesus?” she would probably say, “Yes, I gave my heart to Him at a retreat in 1962, so I’m saved and going to heaven.” She’s reading a statement right off her insurance policy.
What would the wise virgin reply? “Yes, I know Jesus. I’ve given my life to Him, and I enjoy such wonderful intimacy with Him in prayer and studying His Word. Let me tell you about some of the experiences we’ve shared together…what kind of Person He is. Honestly, spending time with Him is the highlight of my day.”
The apostle Paul knew Jesus and knew Jesus. He wrote in Philippians 3:8–9 of “the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” Here Paul is talking about his position with God. He’s talking about God doing something for him on His ledger, pronouncing, “You are forgiven.” It’s wonderful to have this kind of right standing (that’s what righteousness means), but there’s more to knowing Christ than this.
There’s the bride/bridegroom thing. It’s a different kind of knowledge. Paul touches on this deeper knowledge in the next verse when he yearns, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10–11).
I love those words “to know.” Scholars explain that in this passage “to know” implies learning about someone through a deep, personal experience. It’s the same sort of intimacy alluded to in the book of Genesis where it says that Adam “knew” his wife, Eve. Theirs was a deep, personal experience. A level of relationship beyond head knowledge. It is also a physical illustration of the level of spiritual intimacy that God desires with us, something even more deep and personal.
God covers His end of the relationship when He positions us in Christ. Positioning is His responsibility in factoring us into heaven. We cover our end of the relationship on earth as we experience the depths of knowing God. Experiencing is our responsibility in fitting ourselves for heaven. It’s what wise virgins do while they wait.
Right now, the bridegroom is absent. But, oh, I can hardly wait for the day when I break through to see the face of Jesus and once and for all know Him: To pass through Him, be united with and receive Him, “to share in the divine nature.” To be overpowered, enraptured, and caught up in Someone grand and glorious beyond myself. To be swept and wrapped up in His joy. To no longer be hid with Christ in God, but be turned inside out, and appear face-forward with Him. For time to stand still in a heavenly ecstasy in which I forget myself and yet find myself. Like Elijah’s chariot carrying me away to the wedding banquet!
“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalm 42:1–2).
The Wedding Gift
It’s common practice for newlyweds to give gifts to each other. I suppose when I finally see my Savior, my gift to Him shall be whatever bits and pieces of earthly obedience I’ve done as evidence of my love. He said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching” (John 14:23), and I’m sure these bits and pieces will sparkle and shine like diamonds.
But what shall He give to us?
He will give the joy of heaven. Isaiah 35:10 is a peek at the gift: “They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” To have my head crowned with everlasting joy is one of those earthly images that looks askew, but I don’t mind. People caught up in ecstasy don’t worry about such things. Suffice to say, it’s a gift. A crowning gift.
Look at the gift with me for a moment. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit and that means it has in it the essence of eternity. When joy grips us, it always appears new, like a surprise. At the same moment, it seems ancient, as though it had always been there. Joy always has in it a timeless, eternal element. Pleasure and happiness may come and go, but joy seems to remain. Happy feelings have nothing of that air of eternity about them that joy has. That’s because joy, in its essence, is of God. He is “the Lord of joy.”
Whether experienced in shadow here or in light, there, joy is dynamic. It cannot stay stagnant or bottled up. Joy flows. Actually, it overflows. It floods back to God in gratitude, out to others like a fountain, and rushes through our own hearts in a torrent. This is why people weep for joy. We human beings, all finite and compacted, cannot contain the overflow. We are too small for how big joy is, and so we must weep. This also explains why joy breaks our heart. For like love, joy cannot be contained. Remember when I said that lovers “in love” find themselves enveloped by something gloriously larger than themselves? Joy is the same. It will overtake us, Isaiah 35:10 says. This will be heavenly ecstasy.7
As an artist, I see something else about joy. It happens whenever I look at a certain painting that hangs on the office wall opposite my desk. It is a rendering of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Gabriel, the angel. Whenever my mind is at rest and my desk is clear of work, I find myself drawn into that painting. I lose myself in it.
This may happen to you, if not with a painting, then with a great symphony. You’re sitting in the symphony hall, your eyes closed, the music swells and surrounds you, and before you know it, you are lost. You’re gone. You have become one with the sounds of the orchestra. There are times when I have listened to Schumann’s Romanze that I would say I’ve “become one” with the music. A friend once discovered me crying in my art studio as I was listening to Romanze. I looked up with wet eyes and said, “This music is me.” Have you experienced this? A Brahms melody that breaks your heart? A Mendelssohn waltz that fills your eyes with tears?
Or if you’re a left-brained person who isn’t into art or music, how about that exhilarating moment when, during the 1982 Winter Olympics, the U.S. hockey team pulverized the Russians? Whether in front of the television, in the stands, or on the ice, we all became “one” in the euphoria of victory. My strong, he-man father once told me about a time he was standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking Yellowstone Falls—with tears in his eyes, he described how he became one with the deafening roar of the water.
If you have experienced any of this, it’s an inkling of the joy that will overtake us when we take just one glance at the Lord of joy. We will lose ourselves in Him. We will become one with Him. We will be “in Christ,” we will have “put on Christ” at the deepest, most profound and exhilarating level. The Lord’s wedding gift to us will be the joy of sharing totally in His nature without us losing our identity; no, we shall receive our identity. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
This is why heaven is more than just a place of pleasure and happiness. If that were so, heaven would be boring. Pleasure is always seeking satisfaction. Happiness is finding satisfaction. But whether reached through pleasure or happiness, there is still something inert about satisfaction. It’s a little too “still.” That’s why joy is satisfaction that is always moving. It bursts beyond pleasure and happiness; it calls for rejoicing out of sheer generosity. It is the real energy of praise. If we are to be praising God for all of eternity, which we shall be, then joy will be the dynamic.
Peter Kreeft writes:
This state of mind is like light: traveling faster than matter, yet making no sound, no perturbation. Pleasure is the restless mind moving along a line, never reaching the end. Happiness is the mind resting at the end. Joy is the mind eternally moving at the end, motion at a point: the cosmic dance. Pleasure is moving; happiness is still; joy is moving while still. Pleasure is like work, happiness is like sleep, joy is like play. Pleasure is like action, happiness is like rest, joy is like contemplation. Pleasure is a river running to the sea; happiness is the full, calm sea; joy is a great and glorious storm on the sea.8
I like Kreeft’s comment that “joy is like play.” It happened to me earlier this year at another one of our JAF Ministries’ family retreats.
One night, during the evening ice cream social, I powered my chair over to little red-haired Nicole in her wheelchair, Tiffany, her friend, and Rachel, standing next to her in her leg braces. After a couple of comments about the ice cream, we were soon playing a game of tag. Wheelchair tag. Before long, a kid in a walker joined us with his sister. And then a child with Down syndrome and her brother. Weaving in and out around the legs of the adults, we giggled and screamed as our foot pedals clunked together, bumping and bouncing like Dodge’m cars.
After the ice cream began to melt, John, our retreat director, looked at his watch and tried to herd the families back to their cabins. But we kept playing. We were so caught up in the game that I lost all track of time. Only after we waved goodnight to each other, exhausted, did I realize it was like heaven. It was heaven because of the play and the joy and the sense of timelessness. Right before I entered my cabin, I looked up to the stars and thanked Jesus for the sneak preview of heaven’s joy. I had to smile at His answer from Matthew 19:14: “Let the little children come to me…for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
As I laid in bed that night, the entire experience of joyful play kept echoing. The kingdom of heaven belongs to giggling, happy, carefree children. I kept thinking and straining my ears—or was I trying to open the eyes of my heart—to hear or see more. I knew there was much more than just play in that experience. I had touched a moment of great happiness and wisdom. I didn’t realize it then, but I had touched eternity in time. Months later I came across another quote by Peter Kreeft that nailed it:
When we touch eternity in time, it’s like an echo. We smell the salt air of the sea, even here, far upstream in the river of time. Whenever we touch wisdom or love, we swim in salt water. Earth is God’s beach and when we are wise and loving, we are infants splashing happily in the wavelets of ‘that immortal sea.’ But when we are spiritually full grown, we will buoyantly plow its breakers of wisdom and be borne up by its bottomless depths of love. Boredom, like pain, will be remembered only as a joke when we are drenched in joy.9
The Bridegroom Cometh!
And so now, we wait. We wait for our bridegroom. “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning” (Psalm 130:6). We lean on the windowsill of eternity, look to the sky, and whisper, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”
Oh, when will He come?
And every once in a while, when our heart grows weary of waiting, the Lord revives us with snatches of joy, such as the kind I experienced at that retreat. It is a preview of the joy that will overtake us when, finally, “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).
And it will all happen in the twinkling of an eye.
Before we realize it, if we are blessed to be living at the time of His return, we shall find ourselves in the embrace of our Savior at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. Heaven will have arrived. The Lord’s overcoming of the world will be a lifting of the curtain of our five senses, and we shall see the whole universe in plain sight. Life and immortality will no longer be dim thoughts, but vivid and strikingly real. At first, the shock of joy may burn with the brilliant newness of being glorified, but in the next instant we will be at peace and feel at home, as though it were always this way, that we were born for such a place. At that moment, earth will seem like a half-forgotten dream, pleasant enough, but only a dream.10
I imagine great multitudes of people rushing from jungles of roses, down banks of violets, pulsing with light and songs of birds and the voices of angels.
“Are all here?” someone will shout.
There will echo, “Yes, we are all here!”
Now, enjoy an unseen divine reality. Rev up your heart and picture yourself taking a seat at the Wedding Supper. Open the eyes of your heart and marvel at the crystal-clear glory, the dazzle of light that just is. A holy city, the New Jerusalem sparkling like a prism. And a banquet hall resplendent with banners, color, stunning with jewels and light-and-joy-filled music. The celebration will kick off with a loud and resounding “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready” (Revelation 19:6–7).
As you pull up a chair to the banquet table, take a look at what’s on the menu from Isaiah 25:6–8: “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.”
There’s no mistaking. This is a real banquet. And a specific one too. They won’t be serving bologna or Spam. It won’t be USDA-approved meat; it will be “the best of meats.” And the beverage selection will not be Kool-Aid or cheap wine, but “aged wine…the finest of wines.”
I get a charge just thinking about it! I wonder who will sit next to me, or across from me. I glance down the table and there’s my friend, Verna Estes, mother of seven, swapping baby stories with Susanna Wesley, mother of seventeen. There’s her pastor-husband, Steve, getting the low-down on Romans 6 from the apostle Paul. There’s Moses toasting Martin Luther. Billy Graham doing a do-si-do with a junior-high Sunday school teacher. My husband, Ken (whose lifelong ambition it was to fly an F–14 fighter), cornering astronaut James Irwin. St. Augustine giving a bear hug to that jungle missionary who labored long and hard, unknown and unnoticed. At the other end of the table, Fanny Crosby is doing harmony on one of her hymns with the widow who faithfully played the rickety piano at the nursing home every Sunday. As for me, as soon as I see my friends who spent years getting me up in the morning—Carolyn, Francie, Judy, Jay, Bev, and Irene—I jump up and grab a platter of meat. I just can’t wait to serve them something.
Then I’ll look up and walking toward me will be Dad. And Mother. He’ll give me his ol’ thumbs-up and a wink, my mother will start giggling, and before you know it, we’ll break up into uncontrollable laughter. We will laugh and cry with a kind of tears that never flowed on earth. We will wipe our eyes and try to stop, then break up again, crying and laughing and pointing at everybody. “Look at this! Can you believe this? We’re here! They are here! I knew it was true, but not this true!”
Since we always sang together as a family on earth, I’m sure we’ll break into song right there around the table, harmonizing through our tears…
When we shall say good-bye to earth
We’ll gather with the family ‘round the throne,
We will burst with joy at our Father’s welcome
“Glad to be at home!”
We’ll praise the Father, praise the Son,
We’ll praise the Spirit three-in-one,
We will celebrate that on this date
“Forever” has begun!11
Now stop the music. Stop the moving picture and let’s retrace an earlier question. Will there be plates, knives, and forks at the Wedding Banquet? Will someone be back in the kitchen shuffling pots and pans to cook stuff in? Will there be mixers and trash compactors? And what about the meat? Certainly there won’t be slaughterhouses in heaven! Will Arabs eat with their fingers? Will Asians use chopsticks? Will people in hell do cleanup duty?
These questions seem ridiculous now. In light of the glorious celebration, who cares? I’m sure it’ll be made plain. All I care about is that it is real.
A real streamers-and-confetti celebration that death has died.
A real ticker-tape parade announcing victory over sin.
The whole earth will join in the party, and “you will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12). Christ will open our eyes to the great fountain of love in His heart for us, beyond all that we ever saw before. It will hit us that we, the church, are His bride. Not just individually, but together. United. One with each other, and one with Him. Suddenly, our joy is multiplied a millionfold.
Most poignantly, when we’re finally able to stop laughing and crying, the Lord Jesus will really wipe away all our tears. And then, we join hands around the banquet table, and “in that day [we] will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation’” (Isaiah 25:9).
And the party is just beginning!