Eternity Sunday

Today is Eternity Sunday. In some church traditions – such as the Anglican Church of Canada, what we call “eternity Sunday” corresponds roughly to All Saints Day. The Anglican Church celebrated All Saints on November 1, a Friday, and we could have had this service on November 3, the following Sunday. The name “Eternity Sunday” comes from the celebration in the Lutheran Church of Germany, where it is called Totensonntag (Sunday of the Dead). Evidently, Mennonites learned our practice from the Lutherans, so that the last Sunday of the Church’s year for us is “Eternity Sunday”, the day when we especially remember those in our congregation who have died since the last Totensonntag. This brief explanation helps me understand why I did not encounter Totensonntag in the United States. Swiss Mennonites have a different history than Russian Mennonites, with less interaction with Lutherans on our way into North America.

Next Sunday is the first Sunday in the Advent Season, a time of anticipation and preparation for celebrating the birth of Jesus, what some call “the great mystery of the incarnation”. Today, it is good that we bring the church’s year to an end by refocussing our hearts and minds on the reality of God’s Eternity. As a musical play (For Heaven’s Sake) puts it, “Aim for Heaven and earth will be thrown in.” Today, we want to aim for Heaven. We want to gain a glimpse of eternity so that we can live today in the light that comes from God.

Psalm 90

Psalm 90 is unusual in that it is attributed to Moses. It is a sober, even sombre, look at “God’s Eternity and Human Frailty”. We hear that our days are like a dream that fades when the sleeper awakes, or we are like grass that grows well, but soon the grass withers in the winter blast and is gone. We know the truth of these pictures. We have had enough funerals over the past year to remind us how short our time on earth is. Even when the person we remember lived for many years, their time is short. My Dad lived to 98 years of age, an old man. Yet his days also were soon over: 100 years ago is not very long considering the age of the universe, let alone when measured against God’s eternity.

We hear also that God’s time is “everlasting”. God simply is. There is no time before God; there is no time after God. The weight of God’s Eternity weighs on the psalmist so that he experiences it as something to be afraid of: “Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.”

This fear of God’s anger derives partly from the vision of God and eternity in the Old Testament. The usual name for the place of the dead in the Psalms is “Sheol”. Sheol is neither Heaven nor Hell. It is simply a place where the dead are … well, dead! The Old Testament in general does not speak about Heaven or Hell or Eternity. God was working slowly, gradually, preparing God’s people for God incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth. This fear derives also from an awareness of the frightening size of infinity – like looking at the size of the sky on a clear night and reflecting on small one is.

With this in mind, we see that the Psalmist draws the lesson, “¹² So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. ¹³ Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants! ¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. ¹⁵ Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil. ¹⁶ Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. ¹⁷ Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands!”

Philippians 3

From this vision, this glimpse of the God of Eternity we turn to Paul’s words in Philippians 3. Paul was a Pharisee, which is important for our thoughts today. In their debates with the Sadducees, the Pharisees were the ones who promoted the idea of Heaven as a place where God lives and to which God’s people may go when they die. So Paul lived his life as an apostle, anticipating an eternal union with God.

In the passage we read, Paul starts by saying that he has not yet obtained “this” or reached “the goal”. What goal was he trying to reach? The answer is in the previous verses: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Now this sounds like “Eternity Sunday”!

Paul’s view was that sharing in Christ’s suffering makes us perfect, like Christ, which in turn unites us completely with Christ in his resurrection. We are made to live forever with Christ! We are made to become real images of God!

Paul then encourages us to follow Christ fully, as he does, embracing the hardships of this life as Christ’s brothers and sisters, so that we also may receive “the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” He pictures two types of people – those who live as enemies of Christ and those who die with Christ.

Those who live as Christ’s enemies pursue physical pleasure before anything else. Those who embrace the cross of Christ are “conformed to the body of his glory.” This is a curious phrase. I take it to mean something like the way that Paul talks about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15: “⁵⁰ What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” These are just a few verses from a long description of “the body of his glory”, that is, of what waits for us in Heaven.

Excursus on Heaven

Let’s talk about Heaven for a moment – this place that waits for us beyond the bounds of space and time. I have already noted that most of the Old Testament does not say much about Heaven. We have the remarkable passage in Job, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” (Job 19: 25ff) A wonderful passage, but it doesn’t tell us what Heaven is like.

We have also the descriptions in the prophets, notably passages such as Isaiah 65, which point towards “the Day of the Lord”. Again, they do not tell us much about Heaven itself; rather they point towards God’s Reign at the end of time.

What about the New Testament? Jesus begins many sayings in Matthew’s gospel with the words, “The kingdom of Heaven is like …” The trouble is, Matthew was writing for Jews who used “Heaven” as a way of saying “God”, so the same sayings in Mark and Luke begin, “The kingdom of God is like …”

Well, isn’t Heaven the kingdom of God? Yes it is, but you notice that we pray regularly, “Your kingdom come”. That means that in this sense, Heaven is something here on earth as well as in what we sometimes call the Afterlife. Which doesn’t get us much closer to knowing what Heaven in Eternity is like.

What about promises such as “no more crying there”, or perhaps the picture of “streets of gold”? Most of these pictures come from the book of Revelation – which sometimes quotes from other OT books, such as Daniel or Isaiah. In fact, last Sunday Lee used verses from Isaiah that could picture Heaven, but they refer to “the New Heaven and the New Earth”. The use of “New Heaven and New Earth” gets us closer to what’s going on.

You see, Heaven is so far beyond what we can imagine that the only way to talk about it is with images – such as pictures like the streets of gold (I prefer grass myself) to show how glorious it is, or like the wolf and the lamb lying down together to show how peaceful it is, or like the end of tears and death itself to show how full of joy and good it is.

In short, Heaven is the fullness of God’s presence. Heaven is what Paul is pointing us towards with his words, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Back to “Eternity Sunday”

What does all of this mean for us today? How does thinking about Heaven help us on Eternity Sunday. We remember our loved ones who have died. This is a good day to do so. Those memories are a complex mixture of joy and sorrow: That is normal; that is the way life is. But I think there’s something else even better for us to do today – and every Eternity Sunday.

Eternity Sunday helps us focus on Eternity for a brief time this Sunday morning. As we gaze across the endless span of time, we begin to see ourselves more clearly. We are mortal creatures with a short life span, as the Psalmist reminds us, but we are not made for mortality. We have many things that we have done in our lives, some good and some bad, but (as Paul reminds us) we are not defined by our past. We are made for Eternity. We are defined by God, who inhabits Eternity. As Paul puts it, our citizenship is in Heaven, and we live by God’s will here on earth, as Heaven begins to take shape even in our own lives.

In short, Eternity Sunday reminds us who we are and who we belong to. We are God’s creatures, and we belong to God. We live the way God wants us to, not the way that the world around us tells us to. We know the glory and love and joy of the Lord, even when we are caught in difficult situations here on earth. I can almost hear an old man standing on a cliff calling to us, “Remember! You are not a chicken! You are an eagle!”

As I lit candles for my parents this morning, I think they are echoing that old man and praying for me to live in the fullness of God’s grace. The writer of Hebrews suggests that kind of image (12: 1-2): “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”

A Closing Illustration

There is a letter from the years just after the New Testament was written called “Letter to Diognetus” (written sometime in the 2^nd Century), in which a Christian disciple explains the Christian faith to Diognetus.

Christians are indistinguishable from other people either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by human curiosity. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. 

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all people, but all people persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. [This excerpt is taken from the Vatican’s translation, available online.]

Eternity Sunday refocuses our lives, and we not only aim for Heaven ourselves, but we also bring something of Heaven to all people around us. I referred to the musical For Heaven’s Sake at the beginning of this sermon. I close with a longer quote from the same song I quoted before:

Aim for the source of life that’s but reflected here;

Aim for the sea to which time flows;

Aim for Forever, it’s ever-lapping waves

One day will sweep the shore you know.

If you would save your life,

Then you must choose

To give away your life,

For what you lose—

Out at the end of time is what you win.

Aim for Heaven and earth will be thrown in.

Or, as C.S. Lewis put it more briefly, “Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”

Focus Statement: We are in the world but not of the world. We live in Steinbach but we come from “a far country”. Everyone around us has one set of values out of which they live; we have a different set of values. Think On It: What does it mean to be a “citizen of Heaven”?

Going Deeper Questions:

1.      What do you understand by “Heaven”?

2.      Non-Christians sometimes accuse us of being “so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good.” What truth is there in this accusation? How does being “heavenly-minded” make us better here on earth?

3.      I have suggested that Eternity reorients us. Why do we need such reorientation? What are the most important kinds of reorientation that we need?

Steinbach Mennonite Church

24 November 2019

Texts: Psalm 90; Philippians 3: 12-21

Psalm 90

God’s Eternity and Human Frailty

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. ² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

³ You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” ⁴ For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. ⁵ You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; ⁶ in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

⁷ For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed. ⁸ You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. ⁹ For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh. ¹⁰ The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. ¹¹ Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.

¹² So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. ¹³ Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants! ¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. ¹⁵ Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil.

¹⁶ Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. ¹⁷ Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands!

Philippians 3

Pressing toward the Goal

¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. ¹⁶ Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

¹⁷ Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. ¹⁸ For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. ¹⁹ Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.