Cheeseburger in Paradiso

Do you ever think and dream and dare I say fantasize about what heaven will be like?

Warning Danger Ahead!
Today you will get to see how crazy my mind really is. Or maybe the wacky way it works.  You see I am currently having thoughts bounce around from three or four different sources and all of these sources are affecting the one main train of thought.  Let me try to string the threads together and see if we can make a rope here or maybe we will find we just have three or four separate strings and I guess that is ok also.

Do you remember the Jimmy Buffett song, “Cheese Burger in Paridise”?  Here are the lyrics to refresh your memory…

Tried to amend my carnivorous habits
Made it nearly seventy days
Losin’ weight without speed, eatin’ sunflower seeds
Drinkin’ lots of carrot juice and soakin’ up rays

But at night I’d had these wonderful dreams
Some kind of sensuous treat
Not zuchinni, fettucini or bulghar wheat
But a big warm bun and a huge hunk of meat

Chorus: Cheeseburger in paradise (paradise)
Heaven on earth with an onion slice (paradise)
Not too particular not too precise (paradise)
I’m just a cheeseburger in paradise

Sing it with me now “Cheeseburger in paradise”!  If your mouth is not watering thinking of the most beautiful day in the summer cookin’ burgers on the grill, it is possible you are not human.  Ask a friend to check and see.

So that is strand one running through my head, so what is the second strand?  I’m happy you asked; let me share it with you.  The second thread is my continuing journey through Genesis.  In the book of Genesis, God has a few things to say about eating.  You may recall in Genesis 1:29-30

29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

Did you notice that?  God gave us Green stuff and nuts and twigs to eat!  In this was in the perfect stat of the garden.  What’s up with that?  Can you live on nuts and twigs?  I’m thinking of that cheeseburger.  But if you think for a moment at this point of history, there is not death and disease yet.  No killing stuff for food.  God was providing for his created.  It must have been perfect!  Wow, perfect nuts and twigs.  It is so amazing; Scripture teaches me every time I read it.

It’s not until Genesis 9, after the flood that God Noah and his family all the other stuff to eat.

Genesis 9

2 The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

So, there was no cheeseburger until after the flood.  This is incredible.  Most of us can just not imagine this.  What in the world were these people eating? 

Ok, that is the second thread that is running through my mind.  Do you see any semblance of a rope yet? 

The third thread is coming from a book I am reading that is discussing the proper view of heaven (paradiso from Milton’s “Paradise Lost”) and hell.  The main point of this book is that most of us have a much distorted view of heaven.  We think it will be boring and void of pleasure.  I am somewhat amazed by what I have been seeing in this book, that my personal view and understanding lines up very much with the view of the book.  I guess maybe that means I have a Biblical view of heaven.  I am very excited about going to heaven.  In fact I scare my wife sometimes; I am ready to go at any time.  She things I am just ready to leave her with our four kids, so I have to reassure her that maybe we will all go together.  The point is, I see clearly the frustration and disappointment and wickedness of this world and I long for that perfect place.  I long for the place of no more pain and disease, no more frustrated relationships and no more selfishness.  Man, am I ready to go!  Yes, I will stay if I need to, but my stronger desire is for heaven.

So, I don’t think Jimmy Buffett, was thinking about eating a cheese burger in heaven, I’m guessing he was thinking of some tropical earthly paradise.  Even though that earthly paradise sounds good, it is nothing in comparison to heaven.  My deep theological question for you today is, being there was not some huge need for cheese burgers before the fall, will we get to eat cheeseburgers in heaven, or will we be blown away with so much more?