Homily

We live in a 3-D world, a world where there are three dimensions: height, length and depth or width. So imagine my surprise to read a short article by Stephen H. Webb about what is often called the 4th dimension, and that is time. And Webb writes about time not just as we experience it, but he asks the questions about what time might be like in heaven. Time is a reality, a real thing but it cannot be examined or studied in the same way that our 3-D world can be studied. It's true that we can measure time, which is why we have clocks and calendars. We may say we don't have enough time, or that he's got too much time on his hands, but time is not a something the way other things are something. It can't be held, or stored, or changed or lost. For example, we may say we lost a lot of time but we did not lose it. It's just gone.

Mr. Webb writes that when we receive our resurrected bodies they will exist, we will exist, in a new kind of space. We will not be tied to the physical laws of the created world. That's why in the gospels we see Jesus walking into rooms without having to use the door, and disappearing instantly from sight. He can be touched, he can eat food, he is recognized as Jesus, but He no longer lives in this earthly space the way that He did before the Crucifixion. Webb suggests that if our own resurrected bodies will exist, if we will exist, in a new type of space, then we will also live in a new kind of time. Right now we can move through our space, go to the lobby or go to Brazil. But we can't move through time in the same way. We can travel in any direction, as the saying goes, but the past is a foreign country we can never visit.

Webb wonders what kind of memories we will have in heaven, since memories are our recollections of the past. But here's the problem: what about our memories about our sins, the bad things we did in this lifetime, and even more than that, what about the bad things that may have happened to us, or been done to us by other people? If heaven is a state of blessed joy, how can it be so if we will have the memories of our sins and failures, of our hurts and wounds? We may well have been forgiven of our sins and we may have forgiven others of their sins against us, but that does not remove the memories of those harmful and painful choices made. In fact, with material distractions removed and us seeing the truth our own sins even more clearly, shouldn't the memory of them be even more painful? How can we have pain in heaven? And, at the same time, we cannot get rid of our memories because they are part of who we are, so there cannot be some kind of spiritual memory-wipe that gets rid of past events we would find sad or unhappy, or painful, because that would change who we are.

Webb suggests that it may be in heaven, that since we are free to move back and forth in time, which we can't do in this life, that we will be able to go to our past and meet those we have hurt, or those who have hurt us and let God make things right again. That, in effect, the Lord helps us to change our past and heal it, just as a doctor heals a wound to make his patient whole again. In that way our painful memories are transformed into healed memories and our past no longer holds moments of sorrow. Because of grace, we will finally be able to remember ourselves as God wanted us to be.

Pretty interesting stuff! And what I enjoy about reading this article is that it makes me, so stuck in this 3-D world, think more about the glorious and divine life that I am called to as a follower of Christ. It helps challenge the notion that heaven is kind of like Disneyland but you never have to wait in line for the rides and you can eat all you want and never get sick or fat. It's hard to imagine existing in the presence of the Blessed Trinity while we are still stuck paying taxes in the U. S. of A. It's hard to think of existing in a resurrected body when sometimes we have trouble just getting up out of bed. Eternity is not a concept of time that is as easily understood as "Friday afternoon."

In his article, Webb is just speculating about the nature of heavenly life, but his topic of painful memories should not for us, be confined to a discussion of the afterlife. Painful memories—we all have them. They are often the fruit of our own sins as well as the sins of others against us. They do have impacts on our lives. We may treat someone else a certain way because we remember what they did to us. We may be weighed down by the burden of the heaviness of the wrongs that we have done in our past, even if we have asked for absolution and received it. We cannot always clearly see the direct connections between our memories of bad things in our past and how that affects the way we see ourselves, and how we act, conduct ourselves in the present, but it doesn't take a great deal of examination and thought to see how bad memories can push us to bad behavior, or keep us from trusting the Lord more completely because we are afraid of what might happen if we do. We're afraid of creating more bad memories, and maybe, we think, we can't trust God either.

Friends, we don't have to wait for heaven to have our bad memories healed. We can ask for that even now. We can ask the Lord especially to heal our most painful memories, not in the sense of erasing our past but in the sense that they no longer tempt us to doubt the love of God, that they no longer tempt us to hope in our own power rather than in grace, that they no longer push us toward revenge or bitterness, but to peace and hopefulness. Let us ask the Lord to heal our memories in such a way that they no longer cause us pain more than helping us to live in the forgiveness and love of Christ our Lord, Who never desires our suffering, Who never abandons anyone who will call on His name. Let us ask Him to heal our bad memories so that we can better live and grow up into His gift of divine life. Let us ask Him to repair our bad memories that they will point us to His truth. Let us pray to Him to convert our bad memories into thoughts of promise and peace, because this too is possible in the power of the Risen Lord.