Catching a Glimpse of Heaven Through The Works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien

Today I’d like to share with you something about heaven.  It is, after all, the place we should look forward to after this life.

In the midst of everything that’s happening in the world right now, we should never forget where  we’re going.  We should never lose our hope.

Isn’t it good to remind ourselves from time to time the eternal treasures God has prepared for us?

Below are just some of the things from two very reputable writers that could give us an idea about our eternal home.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.”  -John 14:1-3

1.        J.R.R. Tolkien

I never get tired of reading this excerpt from The Lord of the Rings.  Whenever I read it, I feel transported into another world.  A world that is beautiful and pure and eternal.

It’s true that it could never compare to the true reality of heaven, which even the saints found impossible to describe in detail.  But somehow, it helps encourage us that there is a far better place, and that the darkness we see in the world is only temporary.  This is not yet our true home.

The Lord of the Rings

“Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name . All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes , and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien there was no stain.”

2.         C.S. Lewis:

C.S. Lewis describes something that isn’t far from the world we know.  He somehow feels that heaven will be something similar to the one we know, but at the same time will also be different in that it will be far better.

Heaven is something we have been searching for all our lives.  It will fulfill our deepest desires.  All the stories and myths we have made have somehow been borne from this deep thirst of ours.  Our thirst for our true home.

The Weight of Glory

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words-to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

…That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that ‘beauty born of murmuring sound’ will pass into a human face; but it won’t. Or not yet.

For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy.

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in.”

The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle

“Listen, Peter.  When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of.  But that was not the real Narnia.  That had a beginning and an end.  It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here...”

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here.  This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.  The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”

“The term is over: the holidays have begun.  The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.  And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.  But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever:  in which every chapter is better than the one before.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. – Romans 8:18-21

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