Are There Mirrors in Heaven?

Nearly every household has at least one residing in their bathroom. It is part of almost everybody’s morning ritual to look at themselves in the mirror. Even before the mirror as we know it was in use people probably saw themselves in still pools of water.   The oldest known mirror that was found in Turkey was made in about 6000 BC of polished volcanic glass called Obsidian. Later mirrors were made of polished metal like gold or copper. The first modern glass mirror was made in the mid 1800’s.

It is needless to say but we love to look at ourselves in the mirror. The mirror is just one of the many things that we feel we must have to live our lives. The mirror can be a valuable tool for us to help in removing something from our eye, for the dentist inspecting your teeth or for seeing if you are prepared for your job interview. As a Christian the mirror can also be an indicator that our focus may not be on things eternal.

In the film of “Sleeping Beauty” by Disney the queen asked the mirror if she was the “fairest of all”. When the mirror answered that another was “fairer” the queen went on to try and eliminate the competition because of her vanity and self importance. In the song “You’re So Vain” written in 1971 by the singer Carly Simon there is the line “You had one eye on the mirror as you watched yourself Gavotte” (French “Kissing Dance”). This line from the song indicates the person she is talking about was vain, self important and unfaithful to their relationship.

In the Bible story of Adam and Eve there is a river that flowed from the Garden of Eden and it is possible that they may have seen themselves in a reflection in that water (Ge 2:10). We know that the sin that they committed was that of disobedience to God’s command of not to eat the fruit of the tree of wisdom (Ge 3). We tend to go right by verse 7 in Genesis where their eyes were opened, they realized they were naked, and suddenly became concerned with their physical appearance.  They then sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness. It is clear from that verse that they felt shame, but being naked was not their sin. In fact in the following verses God asks them about eating from the tree because they were hiding and had made a covering of fig leaves, not because they covered their nakedness. They were naked in the garden before this.  God does not condemn them for wearing fig leaves. In fact later in the story God in His love gives them proper clothes to wear in their life now outside of the Garden of Eden.

While a mirror can be a useful tool for us it can also be used by us in such a way to affirm our own self importance which means we put God below us in our lives. That IS in fact a sin (Lk 14:11,1Pe 5:5, Mk 7:20-23). This is just one of at least 124 sins mentioned in the Bible. Knowing that is of little help to us as we have a hard enough time not to commit even one sin just by using our mirror. The other curious thing about a mirror is that only others can see you as you really look because the image that each of us sees in the mirror is backward or reversed. While the mirror may reflect it and others may see our vanity and self importance, we only can see a distorted view of ourselves. What can we do?

As a Christian, even one that is poor in Spirit, we are promised that the Holy Spirit is with us and will guide our spirit (Eph 1:13-14,     Ro 15:13). To keep from sinning we must focus our lives on that which is eternal (2 Co 6:1-10). First we must realize that God loves us even as he did Adam and Eve though they were sinners. Next through the help of the Holy Spirit we must love God and Christ as our Savior. From that love springs love of all other persons and love of God’s creation.  When we love God’s creation we need to realize that collecting things that we love is not the same as loving God’s creation. We must realize that life after physical death is life with God in His presence with all our needs provided for by Him. After our physical death there is no culture of want in heaven. All of this is not easy for us to understand as we are only human.

There may not be mirrors in heaven but the disciple group suggests that the next time you look in the mirror, ask yourself if the reflection that you see is the same Christian person that others around you see when they look at you.