“I know he’s up there laying down shingles with Jesus.”
I recoiled internally at the statement. I was preaching the funeral service for a fellow in our small town, a well-known and respected long-time roofer, and a buddy of his was just sure the man’s vocation carried on in the Great Beyond. I wasn’t so sure at the time, mainly because I have doubts about whether our mansions in Paradise would really need any maintenance! But I also recoiled because of the apparent low vision of heaven I thought the statement evoked. The point of heaven isn’t getting to do all the stuff we do on earth; the point of heaven is finally seeing and enjoying Jesus in person. The face-to-face being with the Lord is the singular joy of the afterlife (1 Cor. 13:12), isn’t it?
I confess my internal disdain for this thinking was largely driven by the rash of “heavenly visitation” books of the last twenty years. You know the ones—somebody claims to have died and gone to heaven, only to come back and tell his story. Grown men see ghostly angels; little boys are reunited with departed grandfathers. Apart from the spurious notions of these heavenly
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