The Resurrection Is Only an Introduction to Life in Heaven
The Resurrection Is Only an Introduction to Life in Heaven¹
I congratulate you, my brothers and my children, on the glorious Feast of the Resurrection, asking for every good and blessing for you and for our beloved country, and asking for peace and prosperity for the whole world. And now:
We celebrate the Resurrection… so what is the Resurrection? It consists of two elements:
The first element is that the body rises, meaning it is brought back to life. For it was dead, and by the Resurrection God granted it another life. As for the soul, it is alive by its nature; it did not die in order to be brought back.
Thus, the second element of the Resurrection is that the soul comes from its dwelling place to unite with the body, and the human being returns complete: body and soul. After the Resurrection comes the Judgment, meaning the reckoning, when a person stands before the throne of God the Just to give an account of everything he did during his earthly life, whether good or evil. After that comes recompense, meaning the destiny: the righteous go to eternal bliss, and the wicked meet punishment.
Eternal bliss is in heaven, in the company of God, the angels, and the saints. And about this life in heaven we will speak today:
Here we ask: What is heaven? Heaven is what is lofty, that which is high and elevated. There exist heavens, each above the other in layers, meaning there are levels of heavens: the first heaven is the heaven of birds, in which the birds fly, and also airplanes at various altitudes. Above this is a higher heaven, the firmament, where the sun, stars, planets, galaxies, and all heavenly bodies exist. Humanity has reached a simple layer, which is the moon…
But it will not be able to reach the sun, for an aircraft would burn from the intensity of the heat before reaching it. Above this layer is a third heaven, where the souls of the righteous dwell before the general resurrection. And in some of our expressions we say that the soul has ascended to the presence of God.
Above all these heavens there is a higher heaven, which we call the Heaven of Heavens, where the throne of God exists, surrounded by angels, archangels, and all the heavenly hosts of every kind and rank… Yet God, blessed be His name, is unlimited in all things, and His throne is not a limited place; rather His throne is His unlimited glory. Wherever His glorification and His love are, this resembles a throne upon which God sits.
On this occasion I say that heaven has its literal meaning which we mentioned, and it has another symbolic meaning, about which I once said in a supplication to God:
I have forgotten all in Your love,
O delight of the heart, so do not forget Your servant.
You truly are in a heaven,
yet every heart that lived in love has made You its heaven.
Your beloved throne is a heart emptied
of all desires, so it desires none but You.
We return to the heaven where the righteous dwell after the Resurrection and say: There is nothing heavy in heaven, such as the material body, for everything there is light. The angels move there and ascend and descend with wondrous lightness. Indeed, when God sends an angel to the earthly world to convey a message or to save a person, he descends from heaven to earth in the twinkling of an eye, for he is extremely light in his movements and transitions. If we are in heaven with the angels, will we be in a strange state among them?! Or will we be as the Lord Christ said about those who rise from the dead: “They will be like the angels of God in heaven” (Matt. 22:30).
Will we be in heaven merely souls without bodies? No, for we will have the bodies that rose from the dead… but they will be spiritual bodies, having none of the heaviness of matter, because the material body is subject to fatigue, illness, weakness, or decay — all things unsuitable for the inhabitants of heaven.
The material body needs to eat material food. And material food has its reactions within the body and its consequences! Also, the material body can fall into the desire of another body. Such bodily desires are not fitting to exist near God and His angels, so we must rise above them.
The desires in heaven are all spiritual desires: such as the desire to be with God and His angels and His saints, or the desire for praise… And it is unreasonable for us to have any other desire besides God, such as material or bodily desires! As the saying goes, “In the presence of the sun, who can see the stars?”
Naturally, then, it is appropriate and fitting that in heaven the desire for matter, the desire of the body, and all earthly desires come to an end. For if we remain attached to these desires, what then is the difference between life in heaven and life on earth?! And what benefit would we gain from being in heaven as the reward of the righteous?! And if the wealthy and pious on earth enjoy all lawful earthly desires, what will they receive in heaven, when they undoubtedly await something better?! Especially if they have grown weary of those earthly pleasures and long for another kind — better, higher, and more exalted than what they were accustomed to in their earthly lives!
Therefore God has promised us what “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9). And the Scripture says, “The things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Therefore we await from the life in heaven all kinds of unseen delights, those above our earthly senses.
Another point: We are now on earth preoccupied with many things — especially with work, activities, or duties toward family, society, or the state — so that we do not have enough time to spend with God, blessed be His name. And what time we do give Him is undoubtedly small!
Will we in eternity, in heaven, also be preoccupied away from God by other matters?! No. This is not the nature of life in heaven. And if we become distracted from God there, we would be unworthy of heaven, and we would not then be “like the angels of God in heaven.” It is unreasonable that we be in heaven, yet estranged from God — as is the case in earthly life!
Life in heaven is life in divine love. Everything else is nothing… And divine love is a long subject for which we must prepare ourselves from now, training ourselves in it, so that life in heaven will not be strange to us, nor we strangers to it…!!
Finally, we ask that by the blessing of this feast the Lord preserve our country and its president, who exerts all his efforts for our sake and for the sake of the entire region. And we ask the Lord for peace and growth for all our brothers in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and all the Arab East… and peace for all the countries of the world…
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III published in Al-Ahram newspaper on 27-4-2008.
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