The source of eternal bliss is not a new iPhone or the next flat screen TV or another romance. Sinners justified by God’s free favor, through faith alone, know that Christ is all. When strength finally leaves us, when the last breath escapes, when consciousness of this world fades from view it is not an ill-defined bright light we shall see but a sharply defined light, that light by which the heavens are illuminated, that light which came into the world, God the Son incarnate, the radiant. The first sound we shall hear is the sound of joy and praise by those who are in communion with their Creator and their Redeemer.

58. What comfort do we have from the article of “life everlasting”?

That, inasmuch as I now feel in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, I shall after this life possess complete bliss, such as eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, therein to praise God forever.—Heidelberg Catechism 58

Last time we considered three reasons one might be worried about being bored by heaven. When we consider Scripture, however, there is no indication that believers regard heaven to be anything but completely fascinating. Another reason why our perception of heaven may have changed is the move in modernity to bring heaven to earth through a variety of ways.

The Communists and the Fascists, who were more closely related than you might have been taught in school,¹ sought to create an earthly utopia though a totalitarian state. Consumerism offers a this-worldly utopia through material, creature comforts. The welfare state offers us cradle-to-grave publicly-funded social programs and “education.”² In such a context heaven may seem almost irrelevant. One might be tempted to think this way for a time but health is more fragile than the young imagine, wealth more elusive than the rich might think, and should the electricity go out (as happened in Southern California a few years ago), our comfort and convenience may disappear with the flick of a switch. One moment we were a late modern, high-tech society. The next moment we were on the verge of rubbing sticks together for heat. We are not as clever as we like to think we are.

In God’s ordinary providence, until our Lord returns, we shall all die. In those last moments our toys, our wealth, our social status—all those things that seem so terribly important now—will do us no good at all. In those moments, heaven shall be great and earth shall be small.

When the catechism was written most people did not expect to live into their 80s, as most westerners expect today. The plague swept through Heidelberg in the 1560s most fled the town because they remembered that about 300 years prior as many as 200 million people had died. There were no flu shots or tuberculosis vaccine. Women frequently died in childbirth  and infant mortality was much higher than we experience in the West today. Most of us today live and eat far better than Charles V lived in the 16th century.

Death was a constant and visible fact of life in the 16th century. People did not die in antiseptic hospital rooms. They died at home. Their bodies were not whisked away and cremated. We had to deal with them. Because they were perhaps more in touch with the biblical conception of life and death and because those realities were more present to them than to us, for the reasons suggested thus far, the catechism expresses no reservation about “boredom” or ennui, that experience of “listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.”³

There is another factor that gave them a different outlook on heaven: a relative lack of mirrors, which, as we know them did not come into existence until the 19th century. There have been crude mirrors for thousands of years but the glass mirrors of the 16th century were expensive and relatively rare. Today no home is without a mirror. We have them in our cars and offices. Today even the president of the United States has a “selfie stick” and takes photos of himself. In the 16th century only the wealthy had mirrors or had portraits or drawings made of themselves. There was less of this world with which to be fascinated.

Scripture gives every indication that believers not only desire heaven but see it as their true home, their ultimate destination. Isaiah was not bored by his glimpse into heaven. He was electrified. He was terrified:

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