Bowhead whales can live up to 211 years making them one of the longest living animals on earth. (1)

Our life, which at most is scarcely more than 100 years and usually less, seems short compared with the bowhead whale, but we live longer in the end!  Nobody knows what happens to whales when they die but we do know that we, after death, live for ever and shall never stop thinking.

Disbelief in a future life

There are some people who think that death is the end of everything: so an old Roman poet once wrote, “For us, when once our little day has reached its setting, there waits an endless and unbroken night of sleep”. (2)

Actually, this is a very dangerous thing to believe, because if you think there is no life after death you will not bother to get ready for it.  If red squirrels thought that the summer and the autumn were all that there was and that the winter would never come, they would never bother to get ready for winter by collecting nuts for a winter store.

Misbelief in a future life

There are other people who believe in a future life but have very odd ideas about what it is like.  For example, you’ll have heard the silly idea that in Heaven people do nothing but sit on a cloud playing a golden harp!  Many people think of Heaven as a kind of summer holiday that lasts for ever.  In other words, many people think of heaven without  God which, of course, is complete nonsense.

Everlasting life

Heaven is where God is seen.  St John had a vision of Heaven as the City of God which needs neither sun nor moon to give it light because it is filled with the light of God’s very Presence (Revelation 21:23).  A city is a place where many people live and so in Heaven, if we get there, we shall live with God and with the angels and the Blessed Saints.

In this life our happiest times are those we spend with people we are fond of, our relations and friends.  But Heaven will be happier than anything we have ever known before, because God is more wonderful than we can imagine and to see him and know him and to be loved by him will be unimaginable joy.  And this joy will last for ever.  All the things that spoil this life will be gone, never to return.  So in his vision St John heard a voice say, “See, the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (NRSV, Revelation 21:3,4).

The resurrection of the body

But the full life of glory in Heaven is still to come.  When Jesus comes again to judge the human race, then our souls will be given new bodies suitable for a full life in the next world. 

The difference between this life and the new life to come may be likened to the life of a caterpillar and that of the butterfly into which it grows.  The sluggish, lowly caterpillar cannot always remain a caterpillar, crawling over the leaves and ground.  The time must come for it to wrap itself up in its chrysalis until its body changes and it emerges at last as a butterfly, full of life and beauty.

Now, just as the butterfly has to beginits life crawling around as a caterpillar before it can live the real life, for which God made it, flying in the sunny air among the flowers; so we have to begin our life in this world before we can live the real life in Heaven for which God has made us.  And then we also shall need new bodies.

When we die our present bodies will crumble to dust and we shall not want them again.  Instead, at the end of the world on the Day of Resurrection or Rising Again, we shall be given a new body altogether.  Many people have got hold of the very odd idea that, on the Day of Resurrection, graves all over the world will open.  This is quite wrong.

What will our resurrection body be like?  It will be something like the body of Jesus on Easter Day.  You remember that his risen body still had the scars in his hands and feet and side.  So our risen body will be in some ways like our present body to look at.  The great difference between it and our present one is that we shall be able to control it and make it do what we want to, instead of the other way round.  It will need neither food nor sleep.  It will never get ill or tired or old.  And we will always be full of sparkling energy and joy (Wisdom 3:7).

So the life which God has prepared for us will be much more real than this one.  This life is not the best God has to give us.  The best is yet to come and it will be wonderful beyond our wildest hopes.

SUMMARY

1. Heaven is where God is seen.  As God is unimaginably wonderful, so to see him and know him and be loved by him will be unimaginable joy for ever.

2. When Jesus comes to judge the world, we shall be given new bodies suitable for a full life in the next world.  These bodies will not be the same as our present ones.  They will be something like the resurrection body of Jesus, and our souls will control them as he controlled his.

References

1. Science Museum (not dated) What’s the oldest living animal, and how old does it get?  Available from: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/snot/whats_the_oldest-living_animal_and_how_old_does_it_get.aspx  (Accessed 13 August 2010) (Internet).

2. Catullus Poem V