2 Corinthians 5:1, “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

The further verses give context, but our focus is on verse 1.

2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. 4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

If this tent is destroyed

After reflecting on this verse, I recalled what I think is the best portrait painting I have ever seen – it was a portrait of the artist’s father after his heart attack, from an era when survival rates were much lower than now. The artist captured in the look of her father his brush with death, and his awareness of how little time is left of his earthly life. His face showed he had seen death, and it was amazing to capture that in a painting.

That awareness is missing from the lives of most people until it strikes them in some way.

That happened recently in a gentle way for me, when for almost two months it appeared a rapidly growing tumour could be cancerous, or could become so, and the doctors were alarmed. But the MRI and subsequent recent surgery showed it to be benign.

What struck me was that when our unknown lifespan of years ahead suddenly appears to maybe only months, our earthly tents cover us with physical anxiety for what we are to endure. What we know by faith does not protect us from that, but it does change our response to that anxiety, as we read in these verses.
When I asked my surgeon if I didn’t yet need to write goodbye letters, it was with a calm and objective sense of what would be helpful to others, framed with the assurance of what God has prepared for us.

This verse also became meaningful after surgery, when several people told me of their friends who are facing serious or terminal cancer of the type that alarmed my doctors. I do not know how well I will act on that terminal journey which we all inevitably face, but I am happy to be able to say that despite the high anxiety I felt about mortality, I did not feel despair. For the hope offered by Jesus of being in His presence, of the indescribable joy of being with God, remained fixed as the next stage to be earnestly desired. Our groaning is for “mortality to be swallowed up by life.”

This scenario is the ultimate challenge for which none of our human philosophy or packaged entertainment has any answers. And it doesn’t only affect the person facing that final illness. Last week, I spoke briefly with a young woman who is caring for her mother who has Alzheimer’s, and I think she finds the impact of this to be overwhelming. None of our earthly philosophies can give us the answers, for true life is only given through Jesus.

Key phrases

For we know

We know by faith, confirmed by the Holy Spirit, a faith that transforms how we see everything about this earthly life, and everything above and beyond it, and that knowledge makes sense of what we see.

If our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed

In our youth, that destruction only happens to everyone else, until something happens to jolt us into an awareness of the fragility of our earthly tent.

We have a building from God, eternal in the heavens.

This is the wonderful promise we have in Jesus, won for us through His miracle on the cross. Being reconciled to God through Jesus’ blood which was shed for us, our true home is with our Heavenly Father.

Desiring to be clothed with our habitation from heaven

I have seen this desire in people whose earthly tent was in decay, who were impatient to be in their heavenly home.

Mortality may be swallowed up by life

This is a wonderful phrase, it captures the hope which I will hold as the aim of my old age.

God prepared us, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee

Like faith, this knowledge is a gift from God, confirmed through His Spirit within us.

Praise God for replacing earthly despair with the sure hope of eternal joy.