Summer Question: How does heaven work?

How does heaven work because if you are in heaven and your brother Jim is burning in hell, how could you be happy? Do we just have no feelings or pity in Heaven?

The truth is that we don’t know how heaven works. In the Pastors Blog (http://www.coslc.ws/ and click on Pastors Blog) I dealt with some of the “the kingdom of heaven is like” statements and you can check those for comments. All we can know of heaven and of God is what has been revealed to us. Jesus is the full revelation of God for humanity and therefore to answer that question we need to look at the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was full of compassion, he reached out to the sick and suffering, to the poor and needy, and brought them hope. Jesus went to the cross and in our confession we confess that Jesus even went to hell and broke the bonds of death for us. The image of what God is like and therefore, the image of what heaven is like that is brought to us from Jesus is one of compassion, love and salvation by grace. Perhaps Robin Williams in the movie “What Dreams May Come” had a handle on a piece of it in the suggestion that hell is a self-imposed situation. Hell is that place you are at when you can’t believe in a God of grace. Common rhetoric presents just the situation you suggest in your question with the image of St. Peter at the gate looking in the book to see if you are there and if not, then bam down to the hot place. Jesus presents images of a father waiting for the prodigal son to return and then rejoicing. Revelation can be read as hell being a place for the devil and his angles only or as a place where all those opposed to God’s rule are banned to. It may be that in the end, they are the same. If you can picture Jesus as having no pity and no feelings then perhaps there is room for the view that heaven is like that also, for me, Jesus is full of love and grace, and that is how I picture heaven. Pastor Scott Fuller shared this with me and I would add it to what I had just written. It may take eons, but maybe someday we may witness Jesus down in hell whispering to Adolph Hitler, Adolph, I love you. We can’t predict how long it will take for Adolph to respond, but until then, heaven is still not quite complete.