我的牧师决定给他的四个孩子度假惊喜。「我们要去堪萨斯州的彰声市(Junction City)」，他对孩子说，「那是爷爷曾经当牧师的地方，很好玩哦。」其实他私底下打算只在彰声市一天，然后开车去美好的迪士奈乐园。
孩子对他的话深信不疑，对那些狐疑的朋友炫耀说，「我们要去堪萨斯度假，好棒耶！」从丹佛到彰声市的漫长车程，牧师一直形容那里的好玩地方，替孩子打气：游乐场、游泳池、冰淇淋摊子，还可能有保龄球场。
参观完爷爷的旧教会，孩子以为要去住旅馆、玩水，谁知老爸发出惊人之语：「堪萨斯这里有点无聊，我们开车去迪士奈好了！」老妈这时从袋子里拿出特别做的迪士奈帽子。
牧师以为孩子会高兴得跳上跳下，结果他们竟然抱怨道：「我们才不想又要坐车。」「你不是说要去游泳吗？」「我以为要去打保龄球！」
大惊喜竟然起了反效果。接下来几小时，牧师握着方向盘闷闷不乐，孩子则是不断扩大彰声市比起迪士奈的好处。
我们牧师从不会错过机会教育，将他的惨痛经验变成一个非常好的讲道例证。他引用路易斯C. S. Lewis的话：「我们是一群心不在焉的生物，有机会得享无边际的喜乐，却纵情于饮酒、床事、野心，就好像一个无知的孩子在贫民区玩泥巴，无从想像受邀在海边度假是什么光景。」在写给朋友马尔肯的信上，路易斯又说：「届时，天上的高山深谷，与你现今所见的高山深谷，两者即非复品与原版的关系，亦非替品与真品的关系；两者乃如花之于根茎，钻石之于矿源。」
牧师说，没错，我们的渴望很微小。我们在彰声市耍赖，非要去玩旋转木马，但是路的彼端却有着迪士奈的「太空山脉」过山车等着我们。
今年是路易斯百年冥诞 (译注:原专栏文章发表当时)路易斯贡献良多，其中之一就是让天堂重新恢复应有的思维重量。在他之前，天堂是个令人难为情，原始人残留的想望。对天堂认真的基督徒则被批为「画天空大饼」心态。路易斯自己也有过挥之不去的担心，「怕自己被贿赂，被基督教的永生盼望蛊惑了。」但是他继而强调天堂从道德而言存在的必要，并且在《梦幻巴士》(The Great Divorce) 精彩描绘了想像中的天堂景像。
从历史来说，现代之前的每个时代都想当然认为有来生，而且是件好事，因为我们对古文明的理解多来自于他们在坟墓里堆积的东西，不过如何准备来生的具体看法，则各有不同。雨果说：「我是天使长蝌蚪」。只是现在有人告诉我们如何尽量当一只最好的蝌蚪，却甚少有人告诉我们如何准备孵化。
哲学家兼神学家魏乐德(Dallas Willard)提到一位妇女拒谈死后的生命，因为她不希望子女因为发现没有来生而失望。魏乐德则指出，如果没有来生，人也就没有可以失望的意识了！但是如果有来生，没有准备而进入，恐怕会有比失望还要严重的体验。
我自己有个理论：天堂会让忠心的基督徒得到他们为了耶稣在世界所牺牲的。我的登山朋友刻意住在芝加哥的贫民窟，将来会独享优胜美地公园。在干旱的苏丹行医的宣教士将有自己的热带雨林可以探索。(这可是新约圣经嘉许贫穷，但是却以华丽的词藻形容天堂的原因？)
路易斯的妻子乔伊(Joy Davidman)同意保罗说的，如果基督徒复活的看法错误，那「『我们就算比众人都可怜』，因为若是如此，唯一的好处就只在今生，而基督徒却要放弃这一切。」
路易斯与乔伊只共度了四年岁月，乔伊即因癌症离世。我毫不怀疑路易斯目睹妻子与病魔博斗，自己对天堂的观点被考验，也更加坚定。他希望，乔伊抚平他心里的渴望，只是预先略尝所有渴望得到满足的那一天。他热切相信，折磨乔伊身体的痛苦，好像生产的痛苦，是宣告新生命诞生的最后一声呐喊。路易斯看到，相信天堂不是一厢情愿，而是深思过的愿望。
西班牙哲学家乌纳牧诺的米盖尔 (Miguel de Unamuno) 问一名头脑简单的农夫，相信上帝，但不相信天堂的理论，看看会是什么情况。农夫想了想，回答说：「那上帝用来作什么？」 | .. | My pastor decided to pull a vacation surprise on his four children. "We're going to Junction City, Kansas," Peter told them. "It's where my dad used to pastor a church, and we can have lots of fun there." Meanwhile he made secret plans to spend one afternoon in Junction City, then drive on to enjoy the glories of Disney World.
Ever trusting, his children bragged to skeptical friends, "We're going to Kansas for vacation. It's great!" All during the long drive from Denver to Junction City, Peter kept up morale by describing the wonders awaiting them: playgrounds, a swimming pool, an ice cream stand, maybe even a bowling alley.
After touring Granddad's old church, the kids were ready to check into a motel and go swimming when their dad dropped the bombshell. "You know something, it's kind of boring here in Kansas. Why don't we just drive to DISNEY WORLD!" Mom reached in a bag and pulled out four custom-made Mickey Mouse hats.
Peter expected his kids to jump up and down in delight. Instead, they complained: "Ah, who wants to get back in the van?" "What about the swimming pool? You promised!" "I thought we were going to go bowling!"
The great surprise had backfired. For the next few hours Peter sat behind the steering wheel and smoldered as his children expanded on all the advantages of Junction City over Disney World.
Never one to miss a homiletical opportunity, Peter turned this fiasco into a fine sermon illustration, quoting C. S. Lewis: "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea." In a letter to his friend Malcolm, Lewis added that "the hills and valleys of Heaven will be to those you now experience not as a copy is to an original, nor as a substitute to the genuine article, but as the flower to the root, or the diamond to the coal."
Yes, Peter said, our desires are too small. We stamp our feet and insist on a merry-go-round in Junction City when Disney World's Space Mountain lies just down the road.
This year is the one-hundredth anniversary of C. S. Lewis's birth, and among his many accomplishments was restoring heaven to a place of intellectual respectability. Before him, heaven was an embarrassment, a holdover of primitive wish-fulfillment, and Christians who took heaven seriously were accused of a "pie in the sky" mentality. Lewis himself admits to the nagging "fear that I was bribed —that I was lured into Christianity by the hope of everlasting life." Yet he went on to stress the sheer moral necessity of heaven and to paint a wonderfully imaginative portrait of it in The Great Divorce.
Historically, every age before the modern assumed an afterlife—a good thing, since much of what we know about ancient civilizations comes from what they stashed in their tombs—disagreeing only on the particulars of how best to prepare. "I am the tadpole of an archangel," wrote Victor Hugo. Nowadays, we get much advice on becoming the best possible tadpoles, but little on how to prepare for metamorphosis.
Philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard tells the story of a woman who refused to talk about life beyond death because, she said, she didn't want her children to be disappointed if it turned out no afterlife existed. As Willard points out, if no afterlife exists, no one will have any consciousness with which to feel disappointment! On the other hand, if there is an afterlife, whoever enters that next life unprepared may experience far more than mere disappointment.
I have a theory that heaven will offer faithful Christians whatever they sacrificed on earth for Jesus' sake. My mountain-climbing friend who intentionally lives in a slum area of Chicago will have Yosemite Valleys all to himself. A missionary doctor in the parched land of Sudan will have her own private rain forest to explore. (Could this be why the New Testament commends poverty while portraying heaven in such sumptuous terms?)
Joy Davidman, wife of C. S. Lewis, came to agree with Saint Paul that if we are wrong about resurrection, "'Then we Christians are of all men the most miserable.' Because then, you see, the only real good would be the good things of this world—which Christians must often give up."
Lewis and Davidman spent only four years together before Joy died of cancer. I have no doubt that Lewis's own views of heaven were both tested and strengthened as he watched his wife's agonizing battle. The longing she had answered in him, he hoped, was but a foretaste of a time when all his longings would be fulfilled. The pain that wracked her body, he fervently believed, was like the pain of childbirth, a last loud announcement of new life aborning. Lewis saw belief in heaven not as wishful thinking, but as thoughtful wishing.
The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno once tried out his theory of belief in God, but no heaven, on a rather simple-minded peasant. The peasant thought a minute and then replied, "So what is this God for?" |
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