16 At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. 17 But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (2 Tim. 4: 16-18)
The words we just heard tell me that we shouldn’t be here this morning. It’s amazing that there are any Christians meeting anywhere this day when you consider what the Apostle Paul was up against when he wrote these words. These are probably the very last words he ever wrote. They come from prison, after he had been on trial for his faith, while awaiting the verdict and his sentence. Church tradition says that the verdict went against him, and that Paul was soon after executed in Rome, at the order of the emperor. No sane betting man at the time would have wagered that anything of Paul’s words and ministry would remain for long after the executioner was done with him, not when you consider what power and what plans some of Rome’s emperors had in mind and put in motion against the first Christians.
The same could be said for any church that claims a link to the free church Reformers, the Anabaptists of 16th Century Europe, like this. From a merely human point of view, again, we shouldn’t be here this morning, not as a church bearing a name that was first printed on “Wanted: Dead or Alive” posters in the 16th Century. The word “Mennonite” was first uttered as an insult, and a category of criminality.
But here we are, Zion Mennonite Church, nearly five hundred year later, by the grace of God. Today we celebrate the faithfulness of God that empowered and sustained saints like Paul and Menno Simons for whom we are named, and indeed the church of all time and places, to endure and overcome opposition, resistance and even death. That’s the answer to the first question in the outline, What do Paul and the first Anabaptists have in common? The answer: the sheer miracle of our existence, by the grace of God, in light of all that both the Early Church and the first Anabaptists were up against.
These words of Paul are all the more poignant and powerful when you consider that his martyrdom is what would fulfill verse 18, “the Lord will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.” But these words are not only about Paul going to heaven; Christian martyrs of the First Century, like Paul, and those of the 16th Century, have as much to tell us about how heaven came to them, and how heaven still comes to us, even before we get to heaven.
We often ask, in our evangelistic efforts, “Do you want to know how to go to heaven when you die?” or even, “Do you want to know how to know that you are going to heaven when you die?” Those are not unreasonable, unimportant questions. But they do strike me as incomplete. And not ones which are very much on people’s minds anymore. Most people around us today are preoccupied with how to live longer and better, rather than forever.
But I’m coming to understand the lifelong journey of our Christian faith not just as our journey to heaven, but as a journey in which heaven comes to us, often even at the hardest moments of our earthly journey. As we journey homeward to the Love that put us here, we can become increasingly familiar with our destination as parts and pieces and qualities and traits of eternal life grow among us and within us.
So, maybe in our efforts at sharing the faith, we should ask, “Would you like heaven to come to you?” And, “Would you like to know how heaven is coming looking for you, even now?” In today’s passage I see four ways that something of heaven came to Paul even while he was in the hell hole of a Roman prison. I see these same qualities and evidences of heaven in the testimonies of our 16th Century Anabaptist ancestors.
The first way in which Paul experienced heaven coming to him, this side of death, is in the assurance Paul has of Christ’s will and power to bring him safely through this life and into the next. This heavenly gift of assurance is intended for us, too. We often refer to that gift as “the assurance of salvation,” or “the assurance of God’s love for us.” Now, our Amish friends would warn us that to be too sure of our destiny and arrival in the New Jerusalem could be prideful. If we think of heaven as simply a bribe or a reward for good behavior and right belief, or as an achievement that we earn by our good behavior and right belief, then they’re right; such assurance is prideful.
But Paul does not say, “I know how to make it to God’s heavenly kingdom, and I have what it takes to get there.” Nor does he say, “I’ve earned a place in God’s heavenly kingdom, and being there is my right.” He says, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.” Paul is assured that, however much he wants to enjoy God forever, God wants to enjoy him forever infinitely more.
Let me say that again in such a way that we can all insert our names in that sentence: However much we may want to know and enjoy God forever, God wants infinitely more to enjoy each of us–-and here insert your name-— forever. And God is perfectly capable of bringing that to pass. God has achieved it for us, and has guaranteed it already, through Jesus.
This same assurance we find echoed in the stories of the 16th Century martyrs, the letters they wrote and the testimonies they gave. Maria Van Beckum was one 16th Century Dutch martyr, caught and sentenced to death, along with her sister-in-law, for having been baptized as an adult and joining an unauthorized free church. After the verdict was given, she is recorded to have said, “Dear sister; heaven is opened for us; for what we now suffer for a little while, we shall forever be happy with our bridegroom.” The record goes on to say, “she went with such great gladness to the stake, that it cannot be told, saying, “To Thee, O Christ, I have given myself; I know that I shall live with Thee forever. Therefore, O God of heaven, into Thy hands do I commend my spirit.” Like most of other Anabaptist martyrs, she exhibited such peace and a self-composure that her judges and executioners were more frightened and agitated than she was. She had such assurance of the joy and the peace that awaited her on the other side of death, that she was tasting that joy and peace already; she was experiencing heaven coming to her before she came to heaven. Such assurance of God’s love and reception is the first way heaven comes to us.
A second way in which heaven comes to us, and not just us to heaven, is in the mercy, compassion and forgiveness that God cultivates in our souls for ourselves and others, and also even for our enemies, even for those who hurt us, hate us, or who would betray, abandon and disappoint us. It’s not just a matter of freedom from the burden of grudges, hatred or fear against anyone, though that alone is considerable. It’s also a matter of love and care for their opponents. That also is heavenly. It helped to understand that their opponents and oppressors were not really fighting them, but God. And since they used to fight God themselves, they could identify with their enemies, and empathize with them. That’s heavenly too. Knowing that their oppressors were fighting God, not themselves, they knew that the battle is God’s to fight and win, not theirs. So they know patience, rather than panic in the face of ridicule and reaction.
That’s how I understand the total lack of bitterness, hatred or contempt from Paul toward his persecutors. Likewise toward those whom he had hoped, in vain, would offer comfort and companionship in his trial and imprisonment. He’s disappointed at the failure of friends so-called to stand up for him and with him, and he expresses that. But he also goes on to pray for them, “May it not be held against them,” he writes.
This same patience, empathy and love we see in the testimonies of the first Anabaptist martyrs. On the verge of death, they actually felt worse for their judges and their executioners, than for themselves. Even though they must have feared their own sufferings and death—who would not?– they feared even more for the destiny of their opponents.
Once Maria Van Beckum and her sister-in-law were condemned to death, the record says, “Thereupon they prayed together to God; that He would forgive the judges their sins, since they knew not what they were doing; and that as the world was sunk in blindness, God would have compassion on them, and receive their souls into His eternal kingdom: They first took Maria; who entreated the authorities not to shed any more innocent blood. Then she fervently prayed to God, and also prayed for those who put her to death….”
Another Dutch martyr, John Claess prayed before his execution, “O merciful Father, Thou knowest that we do not desire revenge…grant them Thy Spirit, that. Thou mayest not count this to them as wickedness.”
Now we often talk about forgiveness and the love of enemies as a duty, a hard, hard task that goes against the grain of human nature. It can be. But for Paul and these Anabaptist martyrs, they experienced forgiveness as freedom and release, and so a foretaste of heaven. That’s the second way heaven came to them, before they came to heaven: in forgiveness, mercy and freedom from keeping score or settling scores against anyone else.
A third way in which heaven came to Paul, and to us, is in worship and delighting in God, like what Paul does in verse 18. Paul’s very last few final written words are a few friendly personal greetings and a benediction. But just before that, he sums up his final testimony to the world with a doxology: “To God be glory for ever and ever.”
Have you noticed how pointing out something praiseworthy to someone else and naming what is so praiseworthy seems to heighten our enjoyment all the more? Like when we say, “Look at the beautiful sunset,” or “Isn’t this a beautiful piece of music?” By saying that, we seem to enjoy it all the more. Expressing our praise and sharing it with others is a way of uniting ourselves with whatever or whoever it is we are admiring and enjoying.
That’s just a picture of what awaits us beyond the veil of our mortal condition: a time-free and unbreakable union, in adoration, joy and delight, with the God who is the source of all joy, beauty, delight. Whenever then we pray or sing words of praise and thanks to God, we are rehearsing for our timeless destiny and identity as worshipers, united to God in wonder, joy and delight. Psalm 22: 6 says that “God dwells in the praises of Israel.” And so God dwells with us in our worship and brings something of heaven with him. Sometimes in worship, for brief, fleeting moments, we feel that, like a fresh wind from heaven. I did the first time I ever heard the hymn, “When I Survey.” But though I can sing all the verses by memory now, I cannot provoke nor repeat that foretaste of heaven that I had when I first heard it long ago. And that’s okay: Worship is not about us and our feelings anyway. Worship is about God, and for God.
This foretaste of heaven through worship we also find in the testimonies of the Anabaptist martyrs. There was no keeping them quiet in their prison cells, their dungeons nor on their places of execution. When they weren’t singing, they were sometimes composing new verses that they wrote on the prison walls with charcoal. The Amish still sing these prison songs of Anabaptist martyrs in a collection called The Ausbund. Many of these songs are about faithfulness in suffering, and contain the stories of martyrs. Honestly, too much of that can make for depressing reading. But many are simply songs of praise and worship, such as Song #95: (project)
With pleasure and joy I will sing praises to God,
Unto the Father good,
My spirit does strive thereafter.
For He does my heart gladden,
And with His grace stand by me always.
Verse 2: O Lord God, You have chosen me through grace On this earth,
And numbered me among your children
Therefore Your name is praised,
All my life I give thanks to You.
Verse 3: Your glory I cannot magnify enough,
That you will not hold me accountable for sin anymore.
You take me on as Your child,
For this I thank you with a heartfelt desire.
Worship then was the third way in which Paul and the Anabaptist martyrs experienced heaven coming to them while they were on the way to heaven. But while worship is first and foremost for God, the Anabaptist martyrs understood that there was another audience of their praise and worship: the world. Worship of God and witness to the world go hand in hand in the fifth verse of that hymn from the Ausbund:
Verse 5: Lord, I have nothing, it is above all Yours
Prepare Your praise, indeed, in my heart.
Make me steadfast in the test,
That I confess Your name unto the end.”
So the privilege and power of witnessing to Jesus is also an act of worship. Witness and testimony can also be the fourth way in which we experience heaven coming to us, before we come to heaven. During his trial, Paul experienced the same blending of worship and witness as a foretaste of heaven, in verse 17: “But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.”
Now I know that for many of us, we may have grown up hearing about Christian witness as a duty rather than a delight. And our efforts to discharge that duty may have been awkward at best, leaving us feeling guilty for not having done it well, or for not doing it anymore.
What a contrast to the experience of the early church and the first Anabaptists. For them, to share Jesus was also to experience Jesus. Strangely enough, it seems like the worse the opposition to their testimony, and the more dangerous and costly it was to testify, the more joy and conviction they seemed to show. I don’t think it was because they were sick people who liked to suffer. I think it was because they felt the presence and the person of Christ standing at their side and giving them strength, wisdom and joy, at the time they needed to feel that presence the most. The greater the cost and the risk of their witness, the more powerfully Christ made his presence known, to sustain and encourage them.
Now, it’s one thing to witness from above, from a position of power and security, like self-satisfied winners telling others how to succeed like we have, or as experts with all the answers. I’m afraid that’s the idea of witness that Christians in powerful and prosperous America tend to have. And that may be one reason why evangelistic campaigns and slogans so often go flat. It’s another thing entirely to witness from below, while being questioned and accused, under duress, in danger from those with power above in society.
That was the nature of witness for both Paul and our Anabaptist ancestors. It’s also the nature of witness for the church in many parts of the world today. That may also explain some of their rapid church growth. When someone tells you something, and they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by saying it, it’s hard to doubt their integrity, authenticity, and sincerity. And if Christ is standing invisibly by the side of the witness to strengthen him or her, to give him or her a heavenly peace in a hellish situation, that’s going to get some sort of reaction. To stand up for Christ and all that he stands for, is to know him standing with us, and by us. His presence with us, in the lion’s den of witness, is another way in which heaven come to us even before we come to heaven.
This last point is not just history. It’s current events for much of the world church, in much of the Islamic world, in the Democratic Republic of Congo where warlords vie for land and minerals, or in Central America, where drug lords vie for people and markets. I sense that we too in the Post-Christian West may have more opportunities to experience foretastes of heaven in some hellish spots. For example, new laws legalizing physician-assisted suicide in Canada offer no legal way out for doctors and nurses who wish not to participate, for reasons of faith and conscience. Some of them may have to explain their position at risk to their jobs and licenses, before that matter is resolved. Church-related hospitals could be in a tight spot too.
I don’t say that to frighten us, however. I say that to assure us that whenever and if ever we are in a hot spot, for reasons of our witness and faithfulness, Heaven will come to us, so that we do not lose our way or run out of steam before we get home to heaven.
The same is true for the challenges and changes that come with every age and stage of life, like when we first leave home, or when the last child leaves home, or when we’re in the last years or days shy of our eternal home. Our growth toward heaven, or the growth of heaven in us, requires our trust and cooperation. But anything heavenly in us is a gift from God, not ours to achieve, but ours to receive. And God can and does use any material life presents us, good or bad, to bring heaven to us, and to shape heaven in us, even Paul’s imprisonment and his looming death sentence. Even the suffering of our Anabaptist ancestors. And anything we may face today. The Prince of heaven is always on the road to meet us, greet us, accompany us, and bring us foretastes of heaven to sustain us on the way, and to form in us heavenly qualities and character. That way, we won’t end up in heaven as “Strangers in Paradise.”