Finding Paradise

There is a billboard on US Highway 27, north of Dundee, which reads, "245 Acres of Eden 14 Miles Ahead." It's referring, of course, to Historic Bok Sanctuary, which includes the singing tower, the gardens and the estate, located on the highest point of the Florida peninsula.

When Jesus tells the thief on the cross, "Today you will be will me in Paradise." he was referring to a place not unlike Historic Bok Sanctuary. 'Paradise' is literally a royal park or orchard. It is part of the king's domain. This is what the Bible understood the Garden of Eden to be, part of God's kingdom, a royal park or orchard, with two very unique trees planted in it, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they fell from God's grace and were cast out of Paradise, with fiery seraphim preventing them from re-entering and eating the tree of life, which would have perpetuated their sin and their death forever. The world we are born into, consequently, is spiritually lower than the Paradise that God originally created, the royal garden-orchard that Adam and Eve briefly lived in before they were cast out.

On this last Sunday after Pentecost, we are reminded that Jesus was sent into this fallen world to make it possible for you and me to not only return to Paradise without the fear of sin and death, to God's royal park or orchard, to what was known by many in ancient times as the third heaven, one of the outer precincts or suburbs of God's kingdom, but to even have access to the very throne of God at the heart and center of his kingdom, to what was known in the ancient world as the seventh heaven, that throne of God which lies beyond the visible limits of the Sun, moon and five planets.

A Christian's billboard does not point to a tower and gardens on the highest point in the Florida peninsula, but to a dead tree in a landfill on the side of a mountain, Mount Zion, which Jesus tells the thief, is the very gate and entrance to the >real Paradise that every other earthly place like Historic Bok Sanctuary, or even our own beautiful memorial garden and bell tower, seeks to imitate and copy. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which the devil was able to use to curse all mankind through Adam and Eve's disobedience, and thereby put us down, has been reversed by another tree, a wooden cross, and a blessing which has both exposed and put away our sin by revealing the unsearchable riches of God's grace and love in the love of God's Son, who died for us so that he might open up a way back home to God's kingdom.

Our few acres which surround this pulpit and altar are meant to be God's embassy, an outpost of his kingdom here on earth, where we can experience with each other and model for others, as his ambassadors, the life of his kingdom through the power of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus has sent into to us for that very purpose, so that wherever two or three are gathered together in his Name, there is Paradise, even in the midst of our own suffering and dying, even in those earthly places that would otherwise be landfills or garbage dumps, apart from God's redeeming grace.

As ambassadors, we are called to strengthen the weak, to heal the sick, to bind up the injured, to bring back those who have strayed, and to search for those who are lost, because this is precisely what our King, Jesus, the King of kings, did throughout his life and, most powerfully, what he was doing through his death on the cross.

And we don't have to go 14 miles down the road to find Paradise. The two thieves who were just a short physical distance from Jesus remind us both how close and how far away Paradise is, depending on where our heart is. And so as this church year ends and the season of Advent begins, may the next few weeks be a time for us to determine just where our hearts are, and to believe and to act once more in ways that will bring God's Paradise, back into view and within reach, not only for ourselves, but for those around us who may be searching for Paradise where there is a lot of earthly glitter, never suspecting, apart from our own witness, that a wooden cross and a dying man continue to be God's billboard to lasting peace and Paradise. AMEN.