I think I might be a terrible person. It doesn’t really matter, because Jesus saved me even though I’m a complete jerk. I could offer varying examples about why I’m not a saint, but instead, I’ll just share what I currently ought to feel convicted about but don’t (This is only a minor confession. I keep the major stuff to myself or make my pastor deal with it.) I’m going to make fun of a book that I haven’t even read. Maybe that’s not horrible, but it’s a piece of fiction that nice people read and one that probably makes them emote in gross ways that would cause someone like me to experience tidal waves of awkwardness.
I just discovered the Mitch Albom novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It’s kind of lame that I’m just now hearing about it, since it was published nearly ten years ago. I’m a little behind on things. Anyway, I’m intrigued by the concept. The premise of the novel is that a man expires, wakes up in the hearafter and runs into a few humans who impacted his situation while he was still traipsing around the land of love handles and body hair. I’ve been asking myself for minutes now, “Who are the five people that I’ll encounter after I stop struggling against the crushing weight of the snow, accept the cold, close my eyes for the last time and wake up in the afterlife?” (Yes, I’m convinced that somehow, the winter is going to finally get me.)
I’m going to tell you about the people I would meet if I were Eddie, the protagonist of this story.
1- The one person I didn’t threaten to kill or maim, who actually ended up losing their life as a result of my childish actions. I’m oblivious… ninety percent of the time and I could easily obliterate someone on accident and they’d have to tell me about it in the afterlife. Knowing me and how I roll, they’re probably already gone and it happened as a result of my horrible golf-game. I’ve hit more than a few balls into the distance and never saw them again.
2- The next person would likely the driver of the giant, gray Cadillac that I used to cut off on the way to church (See above about me being a terrible person). We were part of the same congregation and must have been neighbors, because I ended up behind that slow-moving boat three Sundays out of a month for years. This man made no sense because he couldn’t maintain a steady speed and eventually, in a fit of desperation and frustration, I would pass him. I never intended to cut the Cadillac off, I just typically had to get over in a hurry, to avoid a head-on collision or something like that.
3- Another postmortem playmate would likely be the guy who somehow got my bank information and drained my checking account several years ago. You see, everyone can get saved, regardless of what they’ve done in the past. Even heinous acts against my good credit are forgiven by Jesus if one asks. On the other hand, once this person explained who they were and what they’d done, I’d likely let them have a piece of my mind. In the right mood, I can drag a berating out for hours and hours and being on the other side of death’s door would mean that I’d have all eternity to harass this human until I figured out that they’re actually pretty cool. Then we could bowl together.
4- Michael Jackson.
5- The last human would be a distant relative who’s DNA made me what I am today. I can’t tell if they’d apologize or congratulate me for what they sent floating my direction in the gene pool, but we’d probably have a really loud conversation and would likely laugh a lot.
Who do you think you’ll encounter once you’ve made your exit from the land of the living?
Hah, subtle joke there with No Exit considering this was about heavan and the point Satrte was trying to make was “Hell is other people.”
I think allot about the other side but less about people or mansions or whatever. I think of it more as stepping onto the other side of time. Falling into eternity. Tearing the temporal veil. Would I be able to see all of history? Would my understanding of human events grow or would I no longer care? To borrow a phrase from Paul, right now we see as through a glass darkly.
meh, I’d probably run into Billy Mays and have to ask him to stop yelling at me.
It was a terrible joke, because I love people. Also, I love making fun of things, it’s one of my strengths and therefore, it’s a true weakness. I don’t think about heaven that much. I’ve always pushed that salvation isn’t to keep you out of hell, but to redeem your life while it’s still happening. You can go to heaven when you’re tired and dead. 😉 But you’re right, our perspective is exactly how Paul put it. Way to drag some scripture in!
I agree completely! Salvation isn’t about “fire insurance”. In one of his books Tony Campolo poses the question that if there wasn’t a promise of eternal life, would you still be a Christian? Is the Christian life worth living? It totally is! We just have to live it. To paraphrase Donald Miller in Storyline, we are called to bring light into darkness and order into chaos.