"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.  In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.
He called out, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.'  But Abraham said, "Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.  Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.'
He said, "Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.'  Abraham replied, "They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.' 
He said, "No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'  He said to him, "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

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But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?"
Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.  And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.  But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.  Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another.  There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

A man found himself walking along a road.  He couldn’t remember how he got there.  He just was there, walking along with his best friend, his dog.  As he walked, he began to feel very thirsty, and figured that his dog was pretty thirsty, too.  Soon he found himself walking along a golden fence with a huuuuuge mansion behind it.  It was the most largest, most beautiful house he had ever seen in his life.  As he rounded the corner, he saw an old man sitting on a throne behind a golden pedestal with a large book on it.  Beside the man were the closed gates of the driveway leading to the mansion. 

The old man welcomed him, saying, “Welcome, my son, to heaven’s gates.”  “Heaven’s gates?  That’s right.  I’m dead.  I remember the accident.  Oh my Lord, I’m dead!” he thought.  He thanked the old man for welcoming him, and said, “For some reason I’m really, really thirsty.  Do you have any water?”  The old man said, “Oh, we have the best water you’ve ever had.  It is cool, remarkably clear, and it quenches any thirst.  When you join us here in heaven, you can have all the water you want.”  “That’s great,” the man replied.  “What about my dog.  Can he have a drink, too?”  “The old man said, “I’m sorry, but no dogs are allowed in heaven.”  “But this is my best friend, my faithful companion.  What am I supposed to do with him?”  “I guess you just have to leave him here.  We don’t allow dogs in heaven.”

The man was befuddled.  He stammered a bit, and then asked if he would walk around and think about it.  The old man told him he could walk for a little while, but that he had to make the decision to enter heaven soon. 

Walking down the road, the man was lost in thought.  What should he do?  He couldn’t just leave his best friend behind.  But he also wanted to go to heaven.  As he walked, he came across a farm.  On it was a nice, modest house with a man in blue jeans and a t-shirt sitting on the porch, whittling a stick.  As he walked up to the house, the man on the porch smiled and welcomed the man.  The man asked, “What is this place?”  The man on the porch replied, “This?  This is heaven?”  The man said, “Wow, that’s confusing.  I was just up the road, and the old man there said he was in front of heaven.”  The man on the porch said, “Yeah, he likes to lie.  That was really Satan.  He thinks he can get people into hell by impressing them and pretending to be heaven.” 

The man, still a bit confused, said, “Well, I’m not sure whether this is or isn’t, but I am thirsty.  Do you have any water?”  The man on the porch said, “Sure, there’s a spring over there with a pump.  Take as much water as you want.  Our well never dries.”  Timidly the man said, “What about my dog?  Can he have a drink, too?”  The man on the porch said, “Sure, dogs are always welcome here?”  The man said, “Great.  The guy up the street said that there were no dogs allowed.”  The man on the porch said, “Well, that’s how you know that his mansion isn’t heaven.  How could heaven be a place that forces you to leave your best friends behind?” 

Another story.  There was a man who was visited by an angel in his sleep, and the angel told the man that he was going to die the next day.  The man begged the angel to let him finish his many projects, but the angel told him that death comes like a thief and to be ready.  Then the man begged the angel to let him take something into heaven with him.  “No, no,” the angel replied, “no one gets to take anything with them.”  The man persisted:  “Please, please!  Just one little thing,… just one little suitcase!”  Finally, after much begging and groveling by the man, the angel relented.  He would be allowed to bring one suitcase. 

The next day the man died, and showed up at the Pearly Gates with his suitcase in tow.  Dragging it along the ground, he stood before St. Peter, who said, “Well, well, so you’re the one with the suitcase.  Before you can come in we have to inspect it—new security measures and all.”  The man opened the suitcase before St. Peter, who stared at it for a long time.  The suitcase was filled with gleaming gold bricks.  St. Peter finally looked up and said, “I heard that you desperately wanted to bring this into heaven.  What I don’t understand is why you would make such a big fuss about bringing pavement into heaven?” 

Two stories, two views of heaven.  What do you think happens to us when we die?  These stories both give us little glimpses of the possibility, if not of the reality of heaven, of the values of heaven.  What happens?  Do we go to heaven?  Do we go to hell?  Do we just go into the ground and disintegrate, or do we go into the ground and get raised when Jesus returns for the Second Coming?   What about reincarnation?  Is it possible that we die and then come back for another life;  and if so, as what?  Do we come back as a person, an animal, an ant? 

For a long time I believed in reincarnation.  I read a lot about reincarnation back when I was in college and in my early 20s.  I was especially captured by books such as those chronicling the life of a man named Edgar Cayce, a fundamentalist Baptist who purportedly could channel the spirit world when he was put into a hypnotic trance.  He would often talk about things like reincarnation when he was under.  I read many books like those that talked about reincarnation.  What fudged up my belief in reincarnation were questions I started asking.  According to him and others, after we die our life is reviewed, and we then work with a spirit guide to choose a next life for ourselves, a life where we will learn what we missed in this life.  The problem for me was that I started asking questions that couldn’t be answered.  For example, I would ask questions like why would anyone choose to become reincarnated as an infant in a refugee camp in Darfur?  Why would anyone choose to be reincarnated in North Korea?  Why would anyone choose to be reincarnated into an abusive family or an addictive family?  Another little problem today is that we have more people alive in the world today than have lived throughout the whole history of humanity.  Aren’t there more bodies today than souls to be reincarnated into them? 

I don’t just have questions about reincarnation.  I have had questions about every mode of the afterlife, no matter what it is.  I find inconsistencies in the idea of our dying and going to heaven, our laying in the ground dead to be raised on the last day, and in the idea that we just die with no afterlife.  No concept satisfies me.

So what should we believe about the afterlife?  For a Christian it’s pretty clear-cut, right?  When we die, we go to heaven.  There’s one problem with this belief.  It’s not clear-cut.  Read our two scripture passages.  If you read them honestly, you’ll notice that they show two very different views of the afterlife

The first passage is about Lazarus and the rich man.  The rich man has everything in this life, but refuses to care about poor and helpless people like Lazarus.  He feasts, Lazaarus suffers.  Then they both die.  Lazarus goes to heaven to be with Abraham, while the rich man suffers in Hades.  The rich man asks Abraham if he can go back to earth to warn his relatives.  Abraham replies, "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "  From this passage we can draw the very clear understanding that when we die, we either go to heaven or hell (or Hades, in this passage). 

The problem is that the Bible later contradicts itself.  The second passage, from one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, offers a completely different view of what happens when we die.  His view is much more in sync with what the Pharisees believe (the idea of heaven and hell actually comes from the Greeks and the Persians).  Paul believes that sometime in the future will come a day when Jesus returns.  Until that day, all people who die remain in the ground in a state of suspended animation.  When Jesus returns, he will pull all people out of the ground and give us all new bodies (I’m hoping for a sleeker, taller version myself).  Then we will all live in Jesus’ reign.  This is a very different view of the afterlife than the one Jesus offered. 

            Why would the Bible give two different versions of the afterlife?  I think that it all has to do with the authenticity of the Bible.  Think about this for a moment.  We humans have a strong need to homogenize the Bible and make everything in it consistent with other parts of the Bible.  The problem is that the Bible doesn’t do this istelf.  The Bible often takes different versions of a story, an incident, or a teaching, and offers a variety of perspectives on them.  For instance, we have four gospels, and all of them, while rooted in the same story, give different perspectives of the story.  Sometimes they offer similar versions of the same story.  At other times they offer contradictory versions.  And the Bible puts both in. 

            Let me give you an example of what I mean.  You know the Noah story, right?  In the story Noah builds an ark, and then brings on the animals.  You know the story.  They come on two by two, right?  That’s what it says in Genesis 6.  But in chapter 7 God tells Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation.  Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate...”  Why the two versions, especially when we only want one.  The Bible, believe it or not, doesn’t censor itself the way we would like it to do.  Instead, it gives different perspectives, warts and all, with the idea that by looking at the two versions you get a clearer picture.  This may not make much sense to you, but in the two versions we get both the general Jewish religious view of the events, and the Levite, priestly view of the events.  The Bible, rather than choosing one view, offers both views.  It’s we who tend to choose the one that fits most with our modern perspective, but not the Bible. 

            The same kind of thinking is true of the afterlife.  The Bible gives us glimpses, but we aren’t meant to know with clarity what happens when we die.  It is and will always remain a mystery.  We have no choice but to trust that God has it all worked out, whether it is heaven and hell, resurrection, or reincarnation.   Believe it or not, what you believe about the afterlife doesn’t determine whether or not you are a real Christian.  Why?  Beliefs about the afterlife aren’t considered essentials.  We all get to find out the truth at some point, and whatever that truth is, we have to adjust to it.  For Christians what matters isn’t so much whether it is heaven, resurrection, or reincarnation.  What matters is where we are before we die, how we live our lives, and whether or not we have made room for God, the divine, and God’s will. 

            The one thing that does seem consistent in all versions of the afterlife is the idea that our lives are reviewed by God, Christ, and angel, or someone with spiritual and godly authority.  And the questions asked in the review are not only how we lived our lives, but to what extent did the spiritual penetrate our lives.  The question for us in this life is not to ask whether we will get into heaven, but to ask, “how prepared are we to come face-to-face with God and to review our lives?”  This is where we need to spend energy reflecting and making decisions about our lives. 

So, with this in mind, I’d like to close this morning by simply asking you to reflect on your life.  Take time to reflect on the following questions, and see how you would answer them if you had to come face-to-face with God.  Remember, God knows the truth. 

1. When God asks you, “What was the focus of your life,” who will you say you focused on?  Will you say that it was yourself, others, God?   The Great Command teaches us to love God first, and then others as ourselves.  To what extent can we say that? 
2. When God asks you what you served in life, will you be able to say that you served God throughout your life, not just in your spare time?   I think this is a very important issue.  Most of us believe in serving God, but to what extent do we take that service into every corner of our lives?  Will we be able to say that we served God not only in church, but in our homes, our work, in our voting, in our community activities, and everywhere else? 
3. To what extent have you let the things that don’t matter matter, while forgetting to let the things that do matter matter?   So often we let things that don’t matter become of crucial importance to us, while forgetting what does matter.  Where are our priorities in our lives? 
4. To what extent did you give back to God, and in what ways?   I think that this question gets right to the heart of the idea of stewardship.  Stewardship isn’t just about what we give weekly to church or to charity, but about what extent we give back to God.  Think of it this way:  everything we have comes as a gift to God.  The Bible teaches us that we are to give back to God 10% of everything God gives us.  We keep 90% and give back 10%.  To what extent is that true of us?
5. To what extent did you model your life on Christ, living a life of love, compassion, devotion, commitment, faith, hope, prayer, and service?
6. Here’s the Big One:  How prepared are you for God’s realm?  If you died today, tomorrow, or the next day, would you be ready?  You know, the truth is that people tend to focus a lot of their mental and spiritual energy on getting into heaven.  The problem is that they don’t focus so much on getting ready to live eternally in heaven. 

 

So, what happens to us when we die?  For me, I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter so much what happens to us after we die.  What matters is being prepared for the afterlife before we die.  If I died tomorrow and found out that it was reincarnation, resurrection, or heaven and hell, it wouldn’t much matter.  I’d adjust.  Regardless of what it was, I wouldn’t have a choice.  But what I do have a choice on is how I prepare myself for that day.  And that’s the focus of my life.