Radiant hope

Shown: a rainbow in the sky north of our home (you can see the snow on the rooftop). I was working at the computer and took an "eye-break," and this glorious sight was just out my window. I speak in this blog about iridescence, and here's one example of the creative wonders we can see--one that clearly reminds us of a Creator.

A few years ago when I taught writing through a correspondence school, I had one student who aspired to write travel articles. He must have had a mathematician’s brain because no matter how much I encouraged him to appeal to the senses in describing things, he’d end up using cardboard words like “lovely” or “interesting.”

Make me taste, smell, see, touch this setting, I urged. Use figurative language. I gave him examples. Instead of, “It offers good ice fishing,” I suggested, “When the rising sun first spills pink on the glazed lake, dots of fishermen in bear-size neon parkas are already huddled around lucky holes.”

Okay, so I got a little carried away, but I really was trying to help him think outside the box. Sometimes, though, we simply can’t think outside the box. Describing Heaven is one such time.

I recently finished reading Randy Alcorn’s novel, Safely Home, about the persecution and death of a Chinese Christian. The novel ends in a sweep of grand scenes about how the author imagines Heaven. Even though Alcorn also wrote a scholarly book on Heaven, the bottom line is this: nobody knows for sure. No one has traveled to and from to report on it with credibility—except for Jesus Christ. He told us, “In my Father’s house are many”—and here he used the Greek word mone, which simply means “dwelling places.”

But we’ve been given glimpses—and this aside from those who claim to have had a vision of heaven while clinically dead. One such glimpse comes out of the first chapter of Ezekiel, which, coincidentally, I read in my Bible about the same time I was finishing up Alcorn’s book in my leisure reading.

The vision Ezekiel had of the glory of God defies description. In fact, the best he could say was that what he saw “looked like” or “appeared like” something known on earth. Over and over he used those conditional words. Artists who have attempted to draw what he described just can’t do it. Our finite minds can’t wrap around the magnitude and greatness of it, any more than a mosquito could understand an explanation of jet propulsion.

One thing caught my attention from Ezekiel 1: the repeated mention of glowing and radiant things. One such verse (29): “like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.” It made me think of the claim of Don Piper, author of 90 Minutes in Heaven, who said his vision of Heaven included a sense of a “bright iridescence.” Something “iridescent” constantly changes glittering colors. The closest I’ve come to such a sight is seeing the sun sparkle off a fresh snowfall. When that happens, I ponder how, if this little piece of earth is so glorious, how more so in Heaven.

I have to admit that when it comes to describing celestial habitations, my vocabulary is as limited as my student who said “the lake has good fishing.” Someday, though, we’ll know for certain what hides behind the veil between earth and Heaven. And what a glorious day that will be!