Shadows of Heaven

I see so many things that remind me of God. My wife often teases me because I claim to see theological implications in the most mundane details of life. I'll admit, some of my ideas may be a little far-fetched. But not all of them. I believe that Earth as we know it is a reflection of Heaven. A tainted, dim, fallen shadow of Heaven. This is why I often see evidence of Heaven on Earth. It reminds me of that verse in Colossians, "These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."

Lately, one of the things I've been thinking about is sleeping. Yes, I see theological implications in our sleep patterns. Let me explain...

We wake up. We feel good (usually). We are renewed, refreshed, and ready for what the day may bring. We shower, we get cleaned up. We work, and work, and work some more. We pray, we eat, we relax. We get tired. Really tired. We sit down, we lay down. Our eyes get heavy. We get ready for bed, we are ready to go to sleep. We fall asleep.

Sound familiar? It sure does to me. Do you see anything else?

I believe each day we live is a condensed version of our entire lives. We wake up [we are born], we work [we grow up], we lay down [we grow old & sick] and we fall asleep [we die].

One verse of Scripture that really makes me think about this is Matthew 9:24. When the synagogue leader told Jesus his daughter had died, he was hoping Jesus would come over and lay his hands on her. The synagogue leader believed this would heal his daughter and bring her back to life. Jesus said to the man, "The girl is not dead but asleep." Jesus went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. Jesus 'woke up' a dead girl - a girl he referred to as "sleeping."

Jesus referred to death as being asleep, and Matthew 9:24 isn't the only reference to this. In John 11:11, after Jesus' friend Lazarus had died, Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

It is so interesting to me that the Lord of Heaven refers to death as being asleep. Actually, it makes me feel so much better about death. After all, as believers, when we die we are just taking a nap until the Lord Jesus wakes us up again. And when he does, oh what a day it will be!

I hope he has coffee.