Hotel Heaven
Pastor Joel Jakes
Two metal double doors close and lock. We are rolling backwards, our view fixed on these doors. The soft and dimly lit hallway becomes longer in front of us and the doors become smaller and smaller. To our right a door enters our line of sight. Inside, there is yelling and arguing. Another door enters our line of sight on the left. More voices are heard through it. The sequence repeats... Doors on the left and right with loud voices builds and builds. It becomes a deafening static of shouting, arguing, and pleading.
Pastor Joel Jakes walks the old lobby floor of a beautiful old hotel. The floor is clean and aged but still has some shine. The Pastor’s heels click against the floor and the sound echoes. He is alone in the lobby. No one is there to appreciate his immaculate suit lacking a single wrinkle. No one is noticing his nice watch, rings, and cufflinks. No eyes on the perfectly manicured hair edged around his neck and ears. No one is close enough to him to remake on his perfectly straight, bleach-white teeth.
Pastor Jakes reaches the front desk where he finally finds a set of eyes in the hotel Ambassador standing on the other side of the counter. I would describe her to you but I can only see a quarter of her face. I am too distracted by the marvel that is Pastor Jakes. He has this effect on people; he has had it on thousands of people and like them I am stuck in his gravity.
Ambassador, “Welcome to Hotel Heaven.”
Pastor Jakes looks up and around at the hotel, “This is Heaven? Why a hotel?”
“What’s wrong with a hotel?”
“It sounds so temporary.”
“You are only here temporarily. Unless you choose otherwise.”
“I choose Heaven.”
“Your invitation to the celebration is secure.”
I can see her face now, she is sincere. But I can’t tell if she is playing at something or just politely going through the motions.
She offers, “Regardless, I must invite you to stay here temporarily. Do you accept?”
“I am a servant.”
The Ambassador is warmed by his identification, she quotes, “Don’t let your heart be troubled, In the father’s house there are many rooms-”
He interrupts, “-I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again to receive you, that where I am, there you may also be.”
She nods. With her foot she pushes a metal wastebasket to the front of the counter. She steps around to the front of the counter. She holds her arm out towards a hallway, “This way.”
“Is there a bellhop?”
She stops her motion hard and squares directly with him, “You have no things with you.”
He looks around and realizes he has no luggage.
“No, of course not.”
“No need for your jewelry or wallet.”
“Yes, no possessions in Heaven.”
He slowly takes his rings and watch off and hands them to her. She immediately drops - as if she could not stand touching them - the items into the metal waste basket. The gold watch makes a loud sound as it hits the bottom of the basket. He winces at the sound. He checks his pockets and takes out his wallet. As he hands it to her, just as it touches her fingers, he pulls it back.
“It’s all custom made you know.” He shows her the inside of the wallet,
“And there’s an engraving on the ring, in the trash... May I?”
After breathless pause. She uses her foot to push the metal waste basket towards him, it makes a loud scratching sound of metal against the polished stone floor. The pastor gets down and reaches into the wastebasket. He finds the ring, then shows her the engraving.
“See the engraving? Philippians 4:13…” He changes to a demonstrative posture and recites, “I can do all things through him who gives me strength.”
She replies, “We know the scriptures.”
“Yes, you know what? I’m sorry…" He drops everything into the trash and continues, “It was a gift, from the church, and I have no need for it here.”
Suddenly, a supernatural interruption. He becomes still. To him, everything senses to have slowed to a crawl... the sound of a strong wind consumes all other noise into a dense deaf state. He looks down to see that she is holding his hand with both of hers... It is hypnotic to have his hands held by her and it structures him still….
Ambassador’s voice is distorted and much softer “You are without ‘NEED’”.
He blinks and... Everything is back to normal speed -- The sound of wind is gone -- He looks down and sees that she is not holding his hands -- Her hands are politely grasped in front of her. Was it a hallucination? He collects his breath and posture, he finalizes, “That’s everything.”
She holds her hand out for him to follow her. She walks down the hallway, he follows. She stops at the door to his room. She opens it. They enter. The room is extremely simple. A small bed with one brown blanket and no pillow. There is a single wood chair with a book on it, “The Great Divorce”. There is one source of light, a single exposed light bulb protruding from the ceiling. Pastor Jakes walks around the small room. He touches the walls and furniture, finds dust. He stops.
“I’m sure you understand my confusion.”
She shakes her head and listens.
“This is my room? My bedroom on earth makes this look like a prison cell.”
She doesn’t respond. He walks up close to her and continues, “I know the scriptures. I teach the scriptures. I will not be sold a false god or be cheated out of my inheritance.”
She calmly asks, “You gathered all that from this little room?”
Pastor Jakes pushes, “How’s this? ‘Well done good and faithful servant’. Or, ‘If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’. I am saved, I have accepted God as my personal Lord and Savior. I have brought others to be born again in Christ Jesus. I’ve spoken in tongues, I have been slain in the spirit. Understand?”
She cools, “You are saved, your place in Heaven is not in question.”
She steps to him closer, speaking softer, “Please, it’s only temporary. Say yes.”
“How could I?”
She steps back and leans against the wall. For the first time she loosens herself out her formal posture. She appears human, defeated, “What’s wrong with the room?”
“It’s offensive. It’s dirty, it looks like it belongs to a beggar.”
“Think about that, please.”
“Think about what?”
“What is wrong with a beggar? What is so wrong with a simple room?”
“This is not my Jesus.”
“How do you know?”
“I know the scriptures.”
“Think about the people in the scriptures. Did they live luxuriously? ‘Foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the son of man has no place to rest his-’”
He aggressively approaches her, claiming his territory, “-Do not. Challenge me. On the scriptures. I know Jesus. He would not prepare this room for me.”
“You know the scriptures more than us?”
He slowly and aggressively folds his arms. She concedes, “Then you are resolute.”
“I am.”
“Your Jesus has a room for you.”
“So you were testing me? On the scriptures?”
“It is a waiting room. Where you can wait for your Jesus. Is that what you want?”
“Yes.”
“As you choose.”
They exit into the hallway. The door slowly closes and locks on its own. The sound echoes down the halls. They turn down another hall. After walking a while further they come upon a pair of double doors.
“The waiting room is in this hallway.”
“Ladies first.”
“I can’t open these doors.”
“But I can?”
She nods once. He pushes on the door and both open for him. They enter a third hallway. The air is dead silent, as if they entered a vacuum. She holds her arms close to herself. They walk. He notices that their shoes make no sound against the floor. He kicks his heels against the ground... nothing... He looks to her... She is unreactive. She gazes at the floor ahead. He takes a step and she takes a step. He stops and she stops. They pass a door, there is a commotion of voices coming from inside. It’s the same with every door they pass. Growing louder and louder. Suddenly his feet are frozen and he can’t take another step. He looks to her. She is still, she looks different, pale and gaunt, staring, in a straight line she walks towards a door. As she walks his feet are dragged in her direction. She stands by the door staring at the ground. He looks at the door and he hears voices inside.
“What’s inside?”
“The waiting room.”
“For my room?”
“For your Jesus.”
“Are you coming?”
“I can’t go in and I can’t open it.”
He listens to the door, although muffled, he hears the word “Jesus” come through the door. He puts his hand on the doorknob. She catechizes, “Remember this, all the doors here are locked from the inside.”
He cracks the door and looks back. She is already walking away. He is alone. He opens the door and walks in.
Pastor Jakes enters the waiting room and closes the door behind him. It is a large room that is only lit by small reading lamps scattered throughout a vast darkness. He sees one lamp brighter than the others and walks to it. As he walks he sees silhouettes of people sitting in chairs. They all have a reading lamp next to them which only lights their lap. On the lap of every seated person is a bible. Some have it open some just hold onto it. Their faces are dark. He reaches the light, it is a reading light turned upwards, making its exposure brighter than the others. He turns it down and sees an empty chair with a bible sitting on it. He sits in the chair, holds the bible, and looks around, he points his lamp to get a better view. He gets up and approaches the closest person.
Pastor Jakes’ inquires, “This is the waiting room?”
The person in the chair turns their light upwards and stands. He is Preacher Kevin, dressed in a suit he claims, “For the real Jesus, yes!”
Pastor Jakes quotes, “‘For I am the way the truth and the life no one gets to the father except through me.’ Yes!”
Deacon Lewis hears them and immediately stands and turns his light up and recites, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” We are supposed to have everything to the full!”
Preacher Kevin stands on his chair and turns his light upwards and quotes, “Mark 10:29-30 — “No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age.” He raises his hands. “We are to receive a hundred times. A hundred times!”
More voices chime in from further in the room. We hear chairs adjusting.
Pastor Jakes quizzes, “How long have you all been waiting?”
Preacher Kevin replies, “How long? I don’t know. Time is a difficult thing here. I don’t think it exists.”
Deacon Lewis argues, “They are testing us because we were so blessed in life. But God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money. To fulfill the destiny he has laid out for us.”
Bishop Henry supports, “That is scripture! It’s true! 2 Corinthians 8:9 — “Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”
Deacon Lewis, “Malachi 3:10 — “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse . . . and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”
Preacher Kevin, “Sow a seed of faith, reap a harvest in blessing”.
Deacon Lewis, “My congregation has twenty three thousand members!”
Bishop Henry, “I was on TBN forty times!”
Pastor Jakes’ denouement, “I am Pastor Joel Jakes! Head of the Lake Ministries church! My televised sermons are seen by over seven million viewers weekly and over twenty million monthly in over one hundred countries I’ve written over five new York times best sellers. God has blessed my personal ministry with forty six point seven million dollars. My house is worth ten point five Million. Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus? Show me Jesus!”
We are rolling backwards in the hallway. Our view is fixed on the two metal hallway doors at the end of the hall. The soft and dimly lit hallway becomes longer in front of us and the doors become smaller and smaller. To our right, a door enters our line of sight. Inside, there is yelling and arguing. Another door enters our line of sight on the left. More voices are heard through it. The sequence repeats... Doors on the left and right with loud voices builds and builds. It becomes a deafening static of shouting, arguing, and pleading. Pastor Jake’s voice is now a part of the cacophony.