"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened - not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared for us this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.”
1 Corinthians 5:1-9
Recently in Germany at Munich’s Hellabrun Zoo, twin polar bear cubs were born, and a video caught on tape them opening their eyes for the first time (see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGbGYyLIJ6I). According an article detailing the event, they first opened their “beady, black” eyes because the felt their mother’s warm breath breathing on them. After a minute or so of feeling her breath, the cubs opened up their eyes to the real world.
So as strange as it might be, enter this scenario with me: you’re a polar bear, and you’re born into a zoo by your mother, who spent most of her life in the wild of Alaska. Everything about her is wild by nature: the way she can swim nearly 20 miles a day in the ocean, the way her breath smells from hunting for fresh food. And yet, when you open your eyes after smelling her wild breath and sensing her strength, already engrained with that longing in you for the wild and free and beautiful, you find yourself in a zoo enclosure, a confined pool.
Like the polar bears, we were born with that deep longing, a groaning even, for the wild and free and beautiful - the love of Christ and an the incredible heavenly dwelling. Yet here on earth, we have a tent. The winds of adversity are crashing through and torrents of rain are ripping through the nylon fabric, and in these weak and flimsy tents we're crouching, waiting, longing. We’ve been displaced from our true homes, all of us, and we’re constantly longing for the habitat of heaven we’re created for.
Interestingly enough, Paul describes our longing for a heavenly home not just for protection, but because without it we’re naked.
“For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.”
Naked? When I first read this, I expected to see something a bit more like “homeless.” Since when is a dwelling also a piece of clothing? Why would a heavenly home fix our nakedness? After thinking about it, though, I think it’s a chance to peak into heaven: where the habitat and our surroundings will be such an intimate part of us, where heaven will literally clothe us and wrap around us while being the ground we run on and the air we breathe. Our "earthly tent" is such a far cry from heaven.
Meanwhile on earth, we’re “naked” so to speak; we’ve been naked since the fall, and when Adam and Eve realized their nakedness, they gasped and hid in shame. In fear of needing each other, in fear of needing God, they ran to hide in self-sufficiency and shame. They ran to hide because suddenly, the perfect heavenly dwelling that engulfed them in the Garden of Eden was scarred from their sin, and they’re moving to an earthly tent, and there’s nothing like shame to steal courage. Earthly shame is a thief of our hope for Christ, because it impresses upon us the belief that we are not good enough for this heavenly dwelling. While we’re not worthy of it, we are promised it and are made citizens of heaven if we continue to press on in courage.
So while we’re waiting for God, waiting for heaven, waiting for wild and free in their fullest measures, we’re struggling in these tents. These tents are cold and weak and in our hearts, we know there’s something so much greater. We knew it when our Father breathed heavenly life into us at our birth and then we opened our eyes to find ourselves in an earthly tent.
How do we withstand the wait? It seems only fair that Jesus would promise us that the longings we have aren’t futile, and will be satisfied one day. Otherwise, how could we stand the longing? How could we keep our courage? Yet He prepared us and created us for heaven, and 2 Corinthians says he gives us his Holy Spirit as a guarantee that what is mortal now will be swallowed up by life. The Holy Spirit in our hearts is a guarantee, a deposit, a promise that our most beautiful and true home is coming. It means that when we’re longing here on earth for heaven, we still have a piece of it here.
“...when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ...For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then [we will see] face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:10, 12
How beautiful! God literally authorized heaven and earth to clash and mesh, when He sent Jesus to die on the earth, that we might have hope in our longing. That our tents might have a small piece of heaven embedded in them so we don’t lose hope that He is building for us a heavenly palace. So in our desire for Christ, whether it be a constant and intense longing or small spurts of yearning for Him, we know it will be fulfilled, and we take courage. These tents won't be our homes forever.
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