“In Seventh Heaven” probably doesn’t describe how we feel right now, even though we’re still celebrating Easter.
It usually means a state of perfect happiness, but, when you think about it, it’s literally a curious expression. It dates back a long, long time and refers to the highest level of heaven, the one where God and his highest angels are supposed to dwell.
In ancient times most people imagined the world to be almost endless but flat—its major divisions were the deep waters, the dry land, and the sky above. And, they had their subdivisions. The sky, the heavens above had seven levels, and the seventh level was the highest.
St. Paul the Apostle, presumably referencing a mystical experience he himself once had, wrote, “I know someone in Christ who, fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows), was caught up to the third heaven.” (2 Cor 12:2).
The non-canonical Second Book of Enoch imagines the third heaven as a location “between corruptibility and incorruptibility” that contained the Tree of Life and from which two springs flowed down into the Garden of Eden.
This notion of levels of heaven is found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
In 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to journey to outer space and orbit the earth. Allegedly, Nikita Khrushchev commented about his journey, “Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any God there.”
That sarcastic statement has a very odd ring to it—it echoes the ancient concept of a flat world. We, too, sometimes still use very old, “directional” religious language:
God is “up” in heaven.
Jesus “ascends” (goes up) to the Father.
We sometimes exclaim, “Saints above!”
“Heaven” or “Hell” in the sense of a place of our ultimate destiny isn’t “up” or “down”; in fact it isn’t quite a “place” in the usual sense of the word at all—even though we imagine it that way.
What is Heaven then?
First of all, we really don’t “know” in the way we know something within our lived experience. Heaven names a state, a condition, a stage of life that is still relatively unknown to us and yet to be experienced.
In theological terms it is a “mystery”, part of the great mystery of God’s love and providence for each of his creatures.
All this is pertinent to how we describe and understand the last of Jesus’ earthly life, what we traditionally call his “Ascension”.
In the Bible, it’s depicted in various ways. For example, in the end of Luke’s Gospel (24:51) it says, “As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven.”
However in the beginning of Luke’s Acts of the Apostles (Acts:1:9), there is a subtle but very important difference—it says, “When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.”
The key word here is “cloud”. It’s not a description of the weather; it refers to Jesus’ final appearance before he was gathered into the luminous cloud of the divine presence which our eyes cannot penetrate.
The imagery may vary, but the underlying fact and faith are the same—the last stage of Jesus’ earthly life was to be gathered into the glory of God.
So, don’t worry about the “direction” of your life so long as it’s the same—Godward!
17 May 2020
(Available in
Spanish translation)