Weighted with Glory
The Weight of Glory is a series of essays and talks that Lewis wrote over a long period time (roughly between 1939-1956). The first essay shares the title of the book. Have you thought of heaven as a bribe – that if you follow Christ it will pay off with everlasting bliss? Lewis says that as we follow Jesus, we understand that it’s not a bribe but a desire for heaven itself. We are made for heaven, and once our affections are targeted toward that aim, then it’s not a bribe but a “longing.” The earth can offer some scent of the beyond, but it is only an echo, or, “news from a country we have never visited.”
“If Christianity could tell me no more of the far-off land than my own temperament led me to surmise already,” Lewis writes, “then Christianity would be no higher than myself. If it has more to give me, I expect it to be less immediately attractive than ‘my own stuff’.” In other words, heaven is not meant to be easily placed inside a box of our expectations, but rather the place where God is and where he desires us to ultimately journey.
There are five things we know of heaven: we will be with Christ, be like him, have glory, enjoy a feast, and have some sort of role to play. Lewis asks, “Why any one of them except the first? Can anything be added to the conception of being with Christ?”
What do you think? How would you answer Lewis’s question? Also, how has your attitude toward heaven changed through the years? Do you struggle with the lack of information that Scripture provides about heaven?
(quotes from p. 28-34)