I heard this theoretical question last week: If you could go to Heaven and find everything beautiful, perfect, and peaceful… but Jesus wasn’t there… would you want to go? It is an interesting question meant to startle us into checking our motivations for worship and consecration.

So, I tried to imagine Heaven without Jesus. I suppose it would be something like Oz after the Wicked Witch was dead. A perfect world of color and light and discovery. The theory doesn’t hold up, though. We could never be perfect little munchkins on our own. We would fight for position in the Lollipop Guild and argue over the color of tutus in the Lullabye League. Somebody would rip up stones from the Yellow Brick Road and try to sell them on e-Bay.

Seriously, we can’t have Heaven without Jesus. To paraphrase Jo March, “We are all hopelessly flawed.”

And, no matter how much money we give to Haiti or how often we go to church, none of us will go to Heaven without Jesus. We can’t trust our own brains, our courage, or our good hearts to take us to some elusive Better Place after we die. We can’t tap our ruby slippers and go Home.

Fortunately, though, Heaven isn’t a dream. We won’t wake up in black and white one day and discover our beautiful world was the painful result of a knock on the head.

Heaven is real. And, Jesus will be there. Thank Goodness.