It is common for someone who has delivered a sermon to experience ‘sermon regret’ the day after. This feeling is often over something missed out completely (i.e. something more needed to have been said), something that could have been clearer and the like. The first time I preached at a Sunday gathering the following Monday was dreadful… But it’s not like that now for many good reasons. However the point I want to get to is todays (minor) sermon regret relates to something that I wished I included but only discovered today. In yesterdays sermon the Jesus’ Ascension I touched on the concept of heaven—for that is where the text speaks of Jesus going (Acts 1:11). This morning I discovered a great quote from Karl Barth that I wished I included. Something for next time!
“ ‘Heaven’ in biblical language is the sum of the inaccessible and incomprehensible side of the created world, so that, although it is not God himself, it is the throne of God, the creaturely correspondence to his glory, which is veiled from man, and cannot be disclosed except on his initiative.”