7. Here I am; Send me!

As soon as Isaiah was forgiven, he heard the voice of God, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah responded, “Here I am; send me!”

Sometimes we ask ourselves what our mission is. What is the Christian church supposed to do in this world? Metropolitan Paulos Mar Gregorios had a very clear answer to this question. He asserts that Christian church has no other mission but the mission of Jesus Christ.

Well then, what was the mission of Jesus Christ? He proclaimed the good news of the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven. Our world, which has become hell-like is going to become heaven-like. Bringing heaven to earth was Jesus’ mission. Making our world heaven-like is our mission too. 

Heaven is a world of love, joy, and peace; we need to make our earth a place of love, joy, and peace.

If we think that the Christian mission is to spread our religion, and to convert as many people as possible to our fold, it is a huge mistake. Jesus’ mission was to bring heaven to earth, and our mission is to continue it. Our mission is to spread heaven wherever we live and wherever we go.

How do we make our world heaven? It is generally believed that our world can be made heaven by measures such as eradicating poverty, by educating everybody, and by improving the living standard of all people. Actually these measures have been tried all over the world by various governments and religions and ideologies, but our world continues hell-like. Jesus suggested a different way -- repent. “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” was the summary of his proclamation. Repentance is a change of mind. Heaven has to come within our heart before it gets manifested in the world around us. If heaven does not come within us, how can heaven come outside us?

The primary mark of heaven is love. Once love fills our hearts, joy and peace will follow. Jesus summarized the entire Law in the commands of love God and love fellow beings. Love involves primarily two things: admitting one’s own mistakes, and forgiving others’ mistakes.

We admit our mistakes and forgive others’ mistakes only if we have an understanding deep within our mind -- it is human to err. We can say the same statement in another way -- God is the only one who is free of errors. Or, in other words, God alone is holy.

Heaven is heaven because angels have this conviction, as witnessed by Prophet Isaiah in his vision. If all people in the world develop this conviction, our world also can become heaven.

In the Lord’s prayer, “let thy name be hallowed” is the condition for “let thy kingdom come!” When God’s name is hallowed by all people, heaven will become a reality here. “God’s name be hallowed” means that “all people will realize that God alone is holy”. This explains why we repeat “Holy art thou” numerous times in our worship. When we repeat this statement, this assumption deeply gets ingrained in our subconscious minds, and we will be able to forgive and seek forgiveness in our day-to-day life.

We need one more conviction of God in order for us to love our fellow beings. We need to realize that God loves us unconditionally. Jesus taught us that the heavenly father loves all people alike without differentiating between righteous and sinners. He also taught us to love our enemies following the example of our heavenly father. John, the apostle, affirms in his epistle that God is love. Once we have this conviction in our subconscious mind, we will be able to love our fellow beings unconditionally.

In short, the Christian mission is to bring heaven on earth. Heaven is a world of love, joy, and peace. Love follows joy, and peace. Love involves admitting one’s own mistakes and forgiving others’ mistakes. This can happen only if we realize that it is human to err, or that God alone is holy. We also need to realize that God loves all people unconditionally.

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