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Preached on 01-09-00

OUR ETERNAL DWELLING PLACE

A Sermon by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose

"LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations." (Ps.90:1)

LIFE IN THIS WORLD IS SHORT, very short indeed. As we begin this very special new year, the year two thousand, we are reminded of the fact that the span of human life here in this world is so very short. One more year of our lives here on earth is over, and one day, before the end of this coming century, our earthly eyes will close for the very last time, and we will leave this world forever. As we read this morning in the 90th Psalm: "The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away" (Ps. 90:10).

For the person who loves this world more than he should -- and this is something we all tend to do -- the thought of his own death can be deeply troubling. It will bring to an end all the worldly things we may have labored so hard to acquire: earthly comforts, worldly wealth, success, respect based on worldly status, and so on. It all comes to an end. Earthly life, when loved for its own sake, is indeed "labor and sorrow" -- lots and lots of hard work acquiring things that eventually we have to leave behind.

And yet life on earth is not to be considered an end in itself. If we take the time to step back, to think and reflect upon what is said in the Word, we can come to see that behind all that happens to us -- behind the scenes of everyday life, with its joys and pleasures, its problems and its tragedies -- there is a purpose, and that even the most minute and seemingly trivial things are being governed by the Lord.

This is the work of Divine Providence. Because many people tend to think of the Lord only when some worldly tragedy jolts them out of their complacency, the subject of the Divine Providence is associated in many people's minds with misfortune and calamity. The Writings explain, however, that the Divine Providence is "the government of the Divine love and wisdom of the Lord" (DP 1). This government by the Lord is not simply a general government -- something which deals only with the big and important things. On the contrary, it is universal, that is, it enters into all things, even the most minute, and it is, furthermore, continuous: it never ceases. The Divine love of the Lord never rests, but burns unceasingly, working constantly, with infinite wisdom, for the eternal welfare of every single man, woman and child. This infinitely wise love has as its purpose the conjunction of a human being with his Creator. The Lord seeks, unceasingly, to bring each man, woman and child to Himself, to a conjunction of love, within which He is able to bestow, in fullness, the blessings of eternal peace and eternal happiness.

Life on earth is to be understood, then, as preparation for eternity. We are born first on earth so that our eternal conjunction with the Lord might be entered into in freedom. It is here on earth that we have the opportunity to choose, to form for ourselves an attitude, an approach to life, which is receptive and responsive to the Lord's love. No one is forced to accept the Lord, and some people, from the very freedom He has given them, reject Him, and reject all His efforts to lead them to happiness. Here is the essential reason why we so often see unhappiness and misery in the world. The natural world is where people can freely choose to turn to the Lord. It is also a world in which, inevitably, some choose to turn to evil instead, bringing unhappiness both upon themselves and upon others. This is of the Lord's permission -- in other words, He allows it, reluctantly. If we were not free to choose evil as well as good, we would not be free. Furthermore, if evil choices were not sometimes allowed to bring misery even to innocent people, then people would not be fully aware of just how vicious and wicked evil really is.

Nevertheless, the fact that some people reject the Lord does not deny the fact that the Lord is, every least moment, striving for the salvation of all those who are willing to be saved. His government provides that all who desire what is truly good will be led at length to a dwelling-place in heaven itself.

This is one of the themes that emerges when we consider the 90th Psalm. The purpose of life is to obey the Lord, to turn to Him, and so be led at last to dwell with Him in heaven. He is to be our habitation or dwelling place -- as the first verse of this Psalm, our text for this morning, teaches us: "Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations."

This is the very heart of our relationship with the Lord. He is our habitation or dwelling-place. We are created by Him in order that we might return to Him, and until we do return to Him, we will never really find internal peace. Everything of the Lord's Providence is a gentle leading towards Himself -- to an eternal conjunction with Himself in heaven.

This can be seen from the very way we were created. Every person started life as a little infant. He first entered the world in a body miraculously formed by the fingers of God Himself. The miracle goes deeper than this, though. The newborn baby is not just a body capable of moving around in the world. The baby is a receptacle, the dwelling-place of consciousness itself. As he grows he begins to think and to love in a way that only a human being is capable of. He can reflect on life and its purpose; he can learn about the Lord; he can love the Lord. No animal is capable of this.

How can this be? In the work Divine Wisdom we are taught that a person is capable of turning to and receiving the Lord because, from the very first of his conception, the Divine life itself was working to form for itself a receptacle. We read that:

...in order to be the form of life which man is, and in order to be an image and likeness of God, which man also is, and in order to be a recipient of love and wisdom, which are life from the Lord, thus a recipient of the Lord Himself, man must be formed by life itself. (Wis. III. 1)

A human being is not, as some think, the possessor of some Divine spark. The Lord is present from within a person, and touches him from within, but does not become part of him. No part of us is Divine. And yet a human being is a receptacle of the Divine. In other words, he, and he alone, amongst all of creation, is capable of receiving the influx of Divine love and wisdom immediately, and so is capable of loving and thinking of things beyond this world. He alone, from the very way he was created, is capable of responding, consciously, to the Lord Himself. Because a person is formed, in the womb, by the direct influx of Divine life, he cannot only receive, but can also respond to the Lord, and so enter into a conjunction of love with Him.

Herein lies the very fallacy of a person's imagining that this world is somehow an end in itself. Even though we are born into this world, we are not born for this world. There is a law of Divine order that all things should return, in the end, to their origin. This is why a plant, an animal, and even the human body itself, return, eventually, to the soil: " . . . for dust you are, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19). Now just as our physical bodies, which are made from substances originating in the soil, return to their origin in the soil, so too, our spirits return to their origin. The spirit of is formed directly by the Divine life itself, and so, when the soul "is separated from the body, which relapses into nature, it must needs return to the Lord, from whom it has life" (Wis. VIII. 2:6).

We must needs return to the Lord. By ourselves we are as nothing in comparison to Him. The 90th Psalm likens us to grass, grass which "in the evening . . . is cut down and withers." The Lord, though, is eternal. "For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night" (Ps. 90:4). And yet, though the Lord alone is infinite, eternal, and life itself, and though we ourselves are finite, and have no life of our own, we do, nevertheless, live to eternity, receiving forever the life of the Lord. This is what we were created for. "You turn man to destruction, and say, 'Return, O children of men.'" (Ps. 90:3). Our bodies do indeed turn to destruction, or, more literally, to small pieces of dust. We ourselves, though, are called by the Lord to return to Him. Our spirits "fly away" (Ps. 90:10) to the Lord Himself, to the One who made us, to the One who loves us.

Truly our destinies are indeed tied to the Lord Himself. To try to understand the purpose of life without seeing what the Lord's end was in creating us, is about as meaningless as trying to understand a vessel -- a cup for example -- without knowing that it was designed for drinking. It would be like looking at a hammer without realizing that it was designed for hitting nails. Life also is designed for something! It is designed, you might say, to provide us with the opportunity to freely choose to follow the Lord, and to be prepared by Him for everlasting life in His kingdom. If we treat earthly existence as an end in itself, if we refuse to cooperate with the Lord, and follow our own selfish desires, rather than His teachings, then we are, in effect, insisting upon a dwelling-place in hell. We make within ourselves a hell of selfishness, disappointment, bitterness and hatred. Yet -- and this is the wonder, nay the miracle -- if we but do our part, if we sincerely follow the Lord's way to the best of our abilities, then will He do for us wonderful things. He works in miraculous and for the most part secret ways, to bring us at last to our eternal home. This home, this habitation, is marvelous beyond our wildest dreams -- it really is!

"Lord," the Psalm says, "You have been our dwelling place in all generations." The Lord is our Habitation. We were created by His Divine life. We are formed to receive this life. It is the Lord's constant intention that we should, in the end, return to Him, and so receive His life in all fullness. Now, for the person who, let us say, is not deeply religious, the idea of dwelling with the Lord might sound less that delightful. It can sound like some kind of abstract, perhaps even boring, spiritual state. Let us realize, though, what dwelling with the Lord really means. To live with Him is to enter into a deeply rich and satisfying kingdom of uses -- a world so exciting, so vibrant, so rich and so full, that this world seems dead in comparison. The world, compared to heaven, is like a poor black-and-white TV picture, compared with the color, the sounds, the depth, the fragrances, and so forth, of the real and beautiful world. Heaven is a world that is full of opportunities, challenges, excitements, companionship, and, above all, usefulness.

When we consider the purpose of life on earth, we see that it is a preparation for heaven. What, though is the purpose of heaven? In a sense we could say that heaven does not have a purpose. Heaven is a purpose! Heaven is being useful to others, serving them in our own unique way. Heaven is said to be in the human form. By this is meant, primarily, that just as the human body is a kingdom of uses, each part serving the whole in its own unique way, so each angel has his own individual and very special way of serving the society in which he lives, and through that society, serving heaven as a whole.

To have your own place in heaven -- to be able to fit in perfectly with those around you -- to contribute in your own way to the overall good of all who are there -- to be needed, really needed, and to be surrounded by those whom you need in return: this is the Lord's kingdom. He is fully present in this kingdom, inspiring the hearts of each and every angel, and giving them the light to see how best to serve others.

It takes only a little reflection to realize that all of this would be impossible were it not for the fact that the Lord is governing and watching over each little thing that happens to us. In heaven each person, each angel, has his own use. No one is quite like another. Since life in this world is a preparation for heaven, each one of us, during our time here, must be prepared, in a unique way, for a use we will perform to all eternity. The Lord never violates our freedom; and yet He leads us, from the very beginning to the very end of our lives on earth, through all kinds of experiences, so that, in the end, we will have been most perfectly prepared to serve our fellow angels in our very own way.

We might at times complain that other people have it easier than we do. At other times, we might wonder why others have so many hardships compared to ourselves. The truth is, though, that we are all different, and we are all being led by the Lord in different ways. Providence does not merely seek to lead us to heaven. If people just "ended up" in heaven, then heaven would be merely a conglomeration, a crowd, of millions upon millions of good people; no matter how good these people might be, an unorganized heaven would be absolute chaos. And so we read, in the work Divine Providence, that the Lord's inmost purpose is not that a person might simply go to heaven, that but he "may be in this or that place in heaven" (DP 67). Heaven is most perfectly organized -- each angel having his or her very own place.

We can thus see that that same wisdom which formed us in the womb -- ensuring that the millions and millions of cells in our bodies might each have their own place and their own functions -- that this Divine wisdom does not cease working after we are born, but watches over each individual person, each single member of the human race, ensuring that nobody will ever arrive in heaven to find that there is not a place for which he or she is prepared (cf. AC 6491).

There is, then, a need to trust the Lord, to realize that a wisdom so great as to create us so wonderfully in the first place, will not desert us, but will continue to watch over us all the time. There is a need to take comfort, and to turn in prayer to the Lord with the deepest gratitude. Certainly life can be hard. Certainly we all undergo things that we cannot understand -- things that seem meaningless and even tragic at times. But we are not alone -- we are not left to ourselves in an uncaring hostile world. The Lord is with us in a world that He Himself constantly governs. And whilst we are here, He is preparing us to live with Him in heaven, a heaven in which we will be surrounded by other angels, angels we will know, angels we will be close to, angels whom we will serve and love for ever and ever. In heaven we will feel at home, because in heaven we will be at home.

Amen.

Lessons: Ps. 90; HH 184; DP 67-69