December 28: The New Heaven and the New Earth
♫ Music:
Day 26 - Thursday, December 28
Title: The New Heaven and the New Earth
Scripture: Revelation 21:1-7
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
Poetry:
[the snow is melting]
By Kobayashi Issa
[Translated By Robert Hass]
The snow is melting
and the village is flooded
with children.
THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH
We live in a world filled with evil.
A gunman opens fire from his high-rise hotel room on an unsuspecting crowd attending a music festival. Allegations of sexual harassment against media moguls and high-ranking politicians surface from women who have endured years of abuse and shame. Hurricanes wreak havoc on Houston and Puerto Rico causing massive suffering. Are these the images that come to mind when thinking about the evil that envelops our planet? Or perhaps your image is more personal. A family member or friend who suffers through a long illness.
With these images come questions: Is God immune to our suffering? Where was He during the Las Vegas shooting? Why doesn’t He just put an end to pain and suffering? Questions like these foster responses ranging from puzzlement to despair to anger. “The only thing you can say about God,” quips comedian Woody Allen, “is that He’s an underachiever.” While answers are hard to come by, one thing is clear—we live in a world filled with pain. Yet as Christians we believe that God is good, aware of our pain and committed to us. How can these beliefs be reconciled?
While the Scriptures do not provide us with the specific answers we long for when facing suffering—a divine rationale for every instance of evil or suffering—it does give us a marvelous glimpse of God’s final response. John writes of a glorious reunion in heaven where God himself will “wipe every tear from their eyes” and there will “be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev 21:4). Slowly read this passage and notice how God’s ultimate response to evil is presented. First, our future home—the New Jerusalem—is described as “a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). This new city will not only be breath-taking in appearance (what bride isn’t radiant on her special day), but safe from deranged gunmen shooting from hotel rooms and violent hurricanes.
Second, we are told that all the old remnants of a fallen world—death, mourning, crying, pain—will pass away never to return. Last, notice John doesn’t say that immediately upon entering heaven all our sorrow or pain will collectively evaporate like smoke. Rather, our heavenly Father will Himself wipe away the individual tears of His children. It will be an intimate time when your Father acknowledges your specific pain and comforts you. Thus, in Edgar Meyer’s composition, “Short Ride Home,” the music doesn’t start with a grand crescendo. Rather, it builds in celebration. The same is true of the engraving Flammarion that pictures an increasingly beautified planet that contains faces awaiting comforting. In the New Jerusalem, God’s comfort will move gradually from person to person culminating in widespread jubilant celebration.
In Sago, West Virginia, twelve coal miners tried to shelter themselves from poisonous air. They huddled together deep in the mine waiting for help. After the explosion occurred, a
slow-developing rescue effort was set in motion. It’s not known when the trapped miners realized they would not make it. We do know that many of them set out to write final goodbyes. When word came from rescue workers that only one man, severely injured, had survived families were in shock. It was the medical examiner who found and distributed the dying men’s notes.
A brother of one of the deceased miners said the note from his younger brother was both heart breaking and deeply comforting. His brother, Martin Toler, Jr., was the foreman. He was also a man of deep faith who wrote his note on the back of an insurance form. It read: “Tell all I see them on the other side.” While Martin Toler’s note only mentions the “other side” the passage we’ve been considering vividly describes what awaits him and all of us. For the believer, the problem of evil is not a permanent one. One day we'll leave the pain of this groaning plant and be united with a good and loving God.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, we pray daily as Jesus taught us: that your kingdom would come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We long for the day when your kingdom will be fully realized and evil will pass away.
Amen
Tim Muehlhoff
Professor of Communication
Biola University
About the Artwork:
Flammarion, 1888
Unknown Artist
Wood Engraving
From the book: The Atmosphere: Popular Meteorology
The Flammarion is a wood engraving by an unknown artist that was first documented in Camille Flammarion’s 1888 book entitled “The Atmosphere: Popular Meteorology”. The engraving depicts a man, clothed in a long robe and carrying a staff, who kneels down and passes his head, shoulders, and right arm through a gap between the star-studded sky and the earth, discovering a marvelous realm of circling clouds, fires and suns beyond the heavens. The caption that accompanies the engraving in Flammarion's book reads: “A missionary of the Middle Ages tells that he had found the point where the sky and the Earth touch.” Despite the science of the time, the image still expresses man’s longing to see past this world into a realm beyond the seen and the known.
About the Music:
“Short Trip Home” from the album Short Trip Home
Composer:
Edgar Meyer (b. 1960) is an American bassist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. Meyer has worked as a session musician in Nashville, Tennessee, as part of various chamber groups, as well as a composer and an arranger. His collaborators have spanned a wide range of musical styles and talents; among them are Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Yo-Yo Ma, Jerry Douglas, Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Sam Bush, James Taylor, Chris Thile, Mike Marshall, Mark O'Connor, Alison Krauss, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Guy Clark, and the trio Nickel Creek. Meyer participates yearly in a bluegrass super-group known as the House Band at the annual Bluegrass Festival in Telluride, Colorado. The band also consists of Meyer's contemporaries Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, and Stuart Duncan.
About the Performers:
Short Trip Home is an album of classical chamber music by a quartet, unusual both for its membership and its instrumentation. Double bassist Edgar Meyer wrote the majority of the compositions recorded on the album for a quartet including violin, double bass, mandolin, and guitar. Classical violinist Joshua Bell joins bluegrass musicians Sam Bush and Mike Marshall and Meyer on the album. In addition to classical music in an American vernacular, the quartet occasionally breaks out on more traditional instrumental bluegrass tunes.
About the Poet:
Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) was a Japanese poet known for his haiku poems and journals. He is better known as simply Issa, a pen name meaning cup-of-tea. He is regarded as one of the four major haiku masters in Japan, along with Bash, Buson and Shiki. Issa wrote over 20,000 haiku poems in his life. Despite a multitude of personal trials over his lifetime, his poetry reflects a childlike simplicity, making liberal use of local dialects and conversational phrases, and including many verses on plants and lower creatures. Issa was also known for his drawings that accompany his haiku and are valued for their brevity and simplicity of form.
About the Devotional Writer:
Tim Muehlhoff is a professor of communication at Biola University where he teaches classes on family communication, gender, persuasion, and apologetics. He is the author of the new book co-written with Biola Professor Rick Langer entitled, Winsome Persuasion: Christian Influence in a Post-Christian World, IVP Academic. He currently serves as an author/speaker for Biola’s Center for Marriage and Relationships.