December 27 - Revelation 21: Gone, Gone, Gone

I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.... “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.”  (21:1, 3-5)

When God moves in, the first Heaven and first earth move out, along with death, crying, and pain. The absence of these is somehow more difficult to imagine than the presence of God moving in, "Holy Jerusalem descending out of Heaven from God, resplendent in the bright glory of God."

In a small way, it's like the post-Christmas shuffle - out with my old slippers with the hole in the toe and in with a new pair of comfy ones.  Out with the broken salt and pepper shakers and in with a new, matching pair.  The old stuff, broken and run-down, is going in the trash.  The new has come in, better than what was here before.  I go through this purging and replacing process every year and it brings a sense of satisfaction, of wholeness, to start the next year with some proper order.  As you can imagine, this feeling doesn't last for long.  New things break, don't work properly, or quickly lose their appeal.  And the outward signs of my inward, unsatisfied mess are once again revealed.  This part of myself is not gone, it's still very much here and will remain with me until the Day I see Jesus.  

"When we become even faintly aware of desires burning in our souls that are not satisfied and never will be in this life, either we move toward God and look eagerly for the path to the party he's planned, or we move further into ourselves and toward cynicism and despair.  It's risky to get real.  But it's riskier not to, at least in the long run.

"If we feel the void we cannot fill and turn toward God, eventually we discover something beneath the void that surprises us.  We find a longing we didn't know was there, a desire not only to be happy (though that's still there), a desire not to fill the void (though we still want it full), but a strong, clean-feeling desire to love someone other than ourselves, to live for a cause greater than our personal happiness.

And when we realize that God's love frees us to substantially satisfy that desire in this life and to fully satisfy it forever in the next, then we understand why God's story is gospel, good news.  Then the story we hear from Him puts the Hallelujah in the 'Hallelujah Chorus.'"  (66LL)

Revelation, God's final love letter to us, is His great, glorious invitation to His party that we spend our whole lives preparing for.   We will not be disappointed then, but we will live smack dab in the midst of the disappointment now.  The question before me is will I live present in this moment, today, as if the Sovereign-Strong, the Water-of-Life Well is anticipating my arrival?  

"...a man's destination colors the highway, enlarges or diminishes its defects."  (E.B. White)

Is my life's highway colored by what is here now that will one day be gone, gone, gone?  Or is it tinged with anticipation "for the Lord God—the Sovereign-Strong—and the Lamb...the Temple. The City doesn’t need sun or moon for light. God’s Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp!"  (v. 22)