Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Weekly sermons from our Central Lutheran Church preaching team plus quick reflections from Pastor Ryan Braley.
Real talk, ancient wisdom, and honest questions — all designed to help you learn, grow, and find encouragement when you need it most.
At Central, our mission is simple: FOLLOW Jesus together, be a community where you BELONG, and LOVE our neighbors across the street and around the world.
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Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
What Happens When You Die? Part 3 {Reflections}
Ever been told that heaven is just floating on clouds and playing harps for eternity? A young confirmation student once confessed to me that this common image was exactly why she didn't want to affirm her faith. "I just don't want to sit on a cloud and play the harp all day," she said with complete sincerity. Her honest admission reveals how deeply our cultural caricatures of the afterlife have distorted the rich, compelling vision Scripture actually offers.
In this third installment of our exploration into what happens after death, we move beyond the immediate aftermath where "the spirit returns to God who gave it" and the intermediate state of peaceful waiting. Now we confront the grand finale of God's redemptive plan: the creation of a new heavens and a new earth. This isn't about God scrapping creation and whisking us away to some distant cosmic realm. Rather, it describes God's commitment to restore, rebuild, and renew this very world – bringing heaven (God's dwelling place) and earth (our home) into perfect harmony.
From Isaiah's prophecies to the hopeful visions in Romans 8 and Revelation 21, Scripture consistently portrays a God who refuses to abandon creation but instead promises its complete renewal. Like Jesus' resurrection body – recognizably himself yet gloriously transformed – the renewed creation will be both familiar and perfected. The chaos, injustice, and brokenness that currently mar our world will give way to beauty, harmony, and wholeness. And remarkably, through Jesus, we're invited to begin living according to the values and patterns of this coming kingdom right now. We're called not merely to await this renewal passively but to participate actively in bringing glimpses of God's kingdom into our present reality.
Have you experienced moments where you caught a fleeting glimpse of what the world could be? Those moments of profound beauty, justice, reconciliation, or wholeness aren't just pleasant anomalies – they're previews of coming attractions. Share this episode with someone who needs hope beyond cultural caricatures, and join us in exploring how we might live today as citizens of God's renewed world.
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What is up everybody? Hey, welcome to our Reflections podcast, and, in case you missed it, this is part three. I think it's part three of our three part what happens when you die. By the way, mike Lauer is out today. We have a special producer in the house, olivia Goodrich. What's up, olivia? She is just as good at this as Mike is. So here we go. So, okay, episode one we talked about what Happens when you Die.
Speaker 1:There's this beautiful passage in Ecclesiastes that says, basically, the spirit goes back to God where it came from, the spirit or the breath of the wind, and the body goes back into the ground where it came from. And then the second one we talked about how, then, according to the Christian tradition, there is this time of waiting. When you die, the spirit goes to be with God, the body into the ground, and we await the resurrection. So the resurrection doesn't happen right away. There's this waiting time, and so friends of ours have gone on before us that have died. Their spirit, their breath, their wind, their soul, whatever you want to call it, the illuminating factor has gone with God and their body into the ground, and then we wait for the resurrection, and this is often described as a place of resting. This is why we say rest in peace, or may they rest in peace. And it's a garden, a paradise. So Jesus tells the thief on the cross today you'll be with me in this time of resting. And so we wait and we await the resurrection.
Speaker 1:Part three I want to talk about a new heavens and a new earth. So a couple years ago I was doing confirmation and there was this young girl who, at the very end of this two and a half half year journey, told her leaders hey, I don't want to be confirmed. Confirmation is this tradition we have in the Lutheran church and many other traditions as well, where they kind of affirm or confirm their faith. And they're like yeah, this is what I'm doing, I want to keep following Jesus, I want to publicly declare like this is what I'm up to, and I want to affirm. You know that I've got this faith and it's growing and et cetera. So she's like I don't want to do that, I don't want to confirm my faith. And so her leaders told me I'm like the I guess one of the, you know, I'm like the main leader. And I'm like, okay, let me talk to her.
Speaker 1:And so we, her and I and her leaders we grabbed some time after one of the sessions we're up at camp doing to be confirmed, and she says this in all sincerity and in all seriousness she goes listen, I just don't want to sit on a cloud and play the harp all day. I was like what? So, yeah, like when we die, I know that's what happens we go and sit on a cloud and play the harp all day. I don't, that sounds terribly boring. And I was like, oh, that's what you think happens when we die. And I said, listen, I don't. And I realized she sort of ingested this idea of heaven or whatever happens after life, that it's sitting on a cloud playing a harp. And if you go look at Hallmark cards, that's the image we see in pop culture of people when they die. There's all these images of angels or angelic beings or people who've died before us and we have this image of them floating on a cloud and playing a harp or something like this, or haunting people, something like that. And I go, listen, I don't want to do that either. That does sound boring. What if there was something else going on? And I began to unpack this idea of what happens when we die and this idea of a new heavens and a new earth. So here's what I want to say After the resurrection, the plan of God in the scripture, sort of the end all of everything, is at the end of this age, what they call the age to come, god promises to create a new heavens and a new earth.
Speaker 1:This, by the way, is not the same thing as, like God, blowing it all up and all of us evacuating out of here, going somewhere far off in the galaxy. That's not it either. Rather, the image is God restoring, rebuilding, renewing this place and bringing heaven and earth together. And heaven is often its best to think about heaven as like again, not a cloud, somewhere with a castle and lakes of diamonds, but rather the space where God dwells. That's not that separate from this place. Because God dwells here. The Bible says in him we live and move and have our being. So God dwells here with us in this time and place, but it's somehow. You know, we can't interact with him fully face-to-face yet at this moment, but heaven is a place where God dwells and God promises to restore a new heavens and a new earth.
Speaker 1:Now, this idea comes from several places in Scripture. The first one is in Isaiah, and there's a couple moments in Isaiah where he references this. But Isaiah the prophet says this Now, isaiah 65 is where I'm pulling this. But this is like post-exile They've returned from the exile, returned from Babylon, but they still feel like, when they get home, like things are a mess. There's like things are in ruins and they're like they've lost and are losing hope. God says through Isaiah to see, I will create a new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. So there's this idea already back in the prophets that God will recreate a new heavens and a new earth.
Speaker 1:The Jews had this very, you know, like this very tethered way of life with this place, this earth, this you know, the dirt, the grass, the trees, the rivers here, not somewhere else and so for them, the idea that God would restore and renew this place was very much like at the center of their hearts and their hope, and so they didn't want to escape and go live in a universe far away. They wanted God to renew this place, and so that was the hope they were given in this post-exile. So then again you have in Romans or, yeah, romans, in Romans 8, the Apostle Paul writes this and you can hear this idea of like the creation itself is waiting for God to restore it, renew it. And so in Romans 8, he says we know that the whole of creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. And before this he writes that the creation has been subjected, it's like it's in bondage, waiting to be liberated from its bondage, and that one day it will be. But in the meantime we're waiting for God to renew it, as though we're waiting in like a childbirth, you know, with these childbirth pains. And so there's this idea that God will restore and renew this earth and the creation itself which is groaning for God to fix it. Can you imagine the creation itself groaning like, waiting for God to restore it? And then, of course, revelation 21,. You have this beautiful idea.
Speaker 1:Where it happens, john in the book of Revelation is given this image behind the curtain. Revelation just means like an apocalypse. An apocalypse means like a curtain being pulled back. And John has this vision that one day God will build a new heavens and a new earth. He'll restore, rebuild, renew all things and bring all things under his headship, under his rule and reign his authority. This is from Ephesians as well, but okay, this is what he writes.
Speaker 1:He says then I saw behind the curtain this is John a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea S-E-A, like the water which, by the way, this is a weird thing to say but in the ancient world, the sea or the waters were like unknown, mysterious, chaotic things, and this is where, like the evil and the demons or the monsters dwell. This is why, you see, in ancient maps they have like these dragon-like monsters living in the oceans, because in the ancient mind they thought the seas were like these chaotic, untamed, you know, beasts themselves. And so the sea will be no more means that God will have finally tamed the wild chaos of the sea. And so, yeah, this is the idea that God will restore all things and renew all things and redeem all things. And as he writes in Ephesians, paul writes that God will bring all things under, he will sum up all things and bring unity to all things, and when he does that, at the resurrection it will be a new heavens and a new earth. And so I guess.
Speaker 1:Imagine, if you would not, us floating on a cloud, playing a harp all day, which I mean I don't know. That sounds terribly boring to me as well, but like something like this, but like a glorified this. Do you know what I mean? It's like when Jesus is resurrected, as I mentioned last week. It's his body, but it's a glorified resurrected body. He can kind of go through walls, as we mentioned. You know, they don't really recognize him all the time, like those guys are walking with him on the road to a maze. They don't recognize that it's him, and so he's like a glorified body, but it's still him. He still has the holes in his feet and his hands.
Speaker 1:And so when God makes a new heavens and a new earth, I don't know what it will look like, but I don't think it will look all that dissimilar from this place. But imagine this place totally healed and put back together the way it was supposed to be, something like Eden. That will be like, you know, just beautiful, as like there's enough for everybody, there's a harmony, there's justice, there's love, there's wholeness, you know, integration and just the way things were supposed to be. And I imagine and we'll see God sort of face to face isface is what Scripture sort of seems to say in this brand new way. It'll be incredible and so all the language around what life after death will look like. It'll be something like that, and probably even a thousand times greater than what I can describe, because what do I know? But here's the goal then.
Speaker 1:If that's what things will be like, if that's the goal of all of us, that one day God will restore, renew all things, put things back to rights and bring his reign and rule on earth as is in heaven this is the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray Then. Like and if you can imagine what that might look like now, like what might it look like to have the kingdom of God, a new heavens and earth, now in this place? You know, I don't know. Imagine how we might behave, things we might do, how we might organize our days, our lives, our cities, even. And then the goal is this like hey, how can we start living like that even now? Because in Jesus the kingdom of God is dawned. It's dawned in Jesus, it's begun in Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now it's not here fully, so Romans 8, it's groaning.
Speaker 1:There's this tension, this stress.
Speaker 1:It's waiting for liberation, but there are pockets of it, kind of popping up all around us and you see it, you have these glimpses of beauty and justice and love and and wholeness and what I call shalom, and uh, but it's not fully right, but but you get a taste of it and then one day god will fully restore and renew all things and new heavens and a new earth, and then that will live and freedom and all this kinds of things.
Speaker 1:But, but, but in Jesus the invitation is to live that kind of way now. In John 10, he says I came to give you life, and life to the full and here and now, not just after you die, not just after the resurrection. So, as people of faith who are trying to follow Jesus and live in the ways of Jesus, we can be invited into this way of living here and now, and it's not easy, but it can be incredibly beautiful and life-giving. So today, may you know that God is planning on summing up all things, bringing unity to all things and resurrecting all things and creating a new heavens and a new earth. And as we look forward to and anticipate that day and have hope in that day, may we also hear the invitation that God is inviting us to live like it's true here and now.
Speaker 1:Amen, love you guys, peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 830, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering, or you can check us out online at clcelkriverorg. Peace.
