| Heaven Can Wait. - article by Joel Hempel
Because I forgot the last part of the children’s message on Sunday, heaven had to wait. First, for those who were not in church, Al Grimm’s 100th birthday was celebrated. For the children’s message, I used a double roll of paper towels and numbered them 1 – 100. We only had two children come forward. Addie is six and David was to turn six the next day. So, we looked at their age on the roll of paper towels that represented our life, year by year. You lived all these years! I then asked them if they could see Jesus on the rolled-out paper. No, was their answer. We can’t see Jesus like we see each other, but he is always with us. We see him when we come up for communion, and you receive a blessing; we see him when we are baptized; we see Jesus in His Word, and we see Jesus in the love of other Christians – especially your parents. And I told these little ones that when they look in the mirror, they should say hello to Jesus because Jesus lives within them – within us. Then, we rolled out the numbered paper towels to their parents’ age – about a third of the way down the aisle – which seemed to them to be a long trail of paper towels and a lot of years. But could anyone be as old as 100? The towels rolled to the absolute end of the church building to 100, where Al Grimm gave his brief testimony to them. From before the day Mr. Grimm and the little ones were born until now at 100, Jesus has been with all of us. And now, the rest of the message: Rolling out the last 40 sheets of paper towels, you will notice they are blank. They have no numbers. They also turn the corner and descend the stairs, so we can’t see where the roll ends. Our 100-year-old friend, Al, will not always be with us to see and to love. Some year in the future, he will leave us to go and be with Jesus. And like all those sheets of paper with no numbers, Al will enter eternity and, with Jesus, wait for us to join him (see John 14:1-3). St. Paul wrote: To live is Christ. To die is gain (Philippians 1:21). When we are six years old, like Addie and David, we don’t think like Paul. When we are 80, 90, and 100 plus years, heaven doesn’t have to wait. Absolutely, to live now is to live for Christ and to serve with him. But for sure, to die is to gain a whole new life. We are your children, Lord. We are ready for our next adventure when you are ready for us. | 
