Readings for today: Mark 9-10, Psalms 99
Years ago, I came across the idea of a “thin space.” A place where the veil between this world and the next becomes permeable. All of a sudden, we can see into God’s world from our world. The dimensions of heaven and earth merge and intersect. It is the space of miracles. The space where the divine meets the mundane face to face.
I believe the Bible records such a space when it describes what happens on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus has just given his disciples a promise. Some of them will not taste death until they get to see the Kingdom of God come in power. Six days later, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. Once they arrive on the summit, Jesus is “transfigured” before them, meaning He appears to them in all His divine glory. His robes become radiant, taking on an intensity never before seen on earth. Elijah and Moses, the greatest of the Old Testament saints, appear beside Him. They begin to converse. A cloud overshadows them and a voice thunders from the atmosphere surrounding them, “This is my Beloved Son, listen to Him.” They fall on their faces in reverent fear.
It begs the question. Where is heaven? Is it up in the sky somewhere? Perhaps deep into outer space? The famous Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was asked if he found God when he went to into space. “No”, he replied. “I searched and searched but He was not there.” But heaven is not a physical place residing somewhere out there in the farthest reaches of our universe. It lies in another dimension altogether. “Heaven” and “Earth” are simply different names to two different dimensions of Life. Death is the gateway between them. The dimension of heaven exists all around us all the time. In fact, the very word translated “heaven” in the Scriptures can also mean “atmosphere.” That’s how I prefer to think about it. We are immersed in it even though we cannot see it. God speaks to us from the air surrounding us. The saints who have gone before us are constantly moving in and among us. All of them waiting for the day when God finally brings these two dimensions together once and for all.
And that begs yet another question. When we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit. At salvation, the Third Person of the Trinity comes to dwell in our hearts. And this means Christians are walking, talking “thin spaces” (or as I like to think of it - “transfigured spaces”), constantly living at the intersection of heaven and earth. Think about the implications of that for a moment. Aren’t they glorious? If we could live with this awareness all the time, wouldn’t it change things? Change how we work? Change how we relate to friends and family? Change how interact with the world around us?
Readings for tomorrow: Mark 11-12, Psalms 100