Thursday Before Easter - New Heavens and New Earth

Take a moment to read 2 Peter 3. There is a good reminder of the grace God shows in His slow coming. The main part I want to focus on today is v10 onward. Is this fire a refining fire? All will be destroyed so that new life can come from it? In verse 13, Peter says we are looking forward to a New Heaven and a New Earth, where righteousness dwells. This is keeping with the promise. When was the last time you heard someone talk about new heavens and new earth as the promise God gave to us? How is this different from the typical view of the afterlife that you often hear?

In our reading of Paul yesterday (1 Cor. 15), we looked at seeds being sown in this life to then be reaped in the next. N.T. Wright, a prominent New Testament scholar, in his book Surprised by Hope, talks about how we should live our life in view of the resurrection, “The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether. They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom.”

God’s mission is to establish His Kingdom here on earth. That was His purpose for the Garden, for Israel, and His mission for the church. This is found in the Lord’s Prayer and is at the core of Christian living taught in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). The Gospels point to God’s Kingdom on earth. Paul and Peter point to the “New Heaven and New Earth” (you can find these teachings in other places in the New Testament). With all of this in mind, let’s take a moment to look at the picture John paints about the next life at the end of Revelation.

Revelation 21:1-10, 22-27; 22:1-5

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth” is a reference back to Isaiah 65:17. The prophetic hope was in God restoring His creation (Look back to Isaiah 11). The old order of things has passed away and “there was no longer any sea.” This is an odd saying. I love the sea! In the Jewish worldview though, the sea represented the place where all evil came from. John is proclaiming that evil has no home anymore. Which direction is the New Jerusalem going? What is significant about Jerusalem? The Temple was located there. It is the place where God’s presence was found. Where is God’s presence in this New Jerusalem? Is there a Temple in this New Jerusalem? Why? From the beginning of creation to the end of Revelation, the entire story is about God’s presence being with His people!

John again points to Isaiah (ch25), “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Immediately after that, the one seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” What does this newness look like? Or, going back to my question from Monday, “What would you change about the world to make it perfect?” That’s what Jesus is doing in making everything new!

Tuesday Before Easter - Fully Human

What is a person? The Jewish understanding of a person is the person is created both physical and spiritual. This is contrasted with the Greek understanding (dualism) that a person is fully spiritual and this physical world is a cage that the spiritual needs to be released from (Plato’s philosophy). God created the world perfectly physical and spiritual and called it good. Plato, and other Greek thinkers, understood the physical world as inherently bad. The true being of something is within it and needs to be released from its physical bondage. This Greek mindset crept its way into Christianity in the first century through what we call Gnosticism (another post for another time). To better understand the glory of Christ’s resurrection, we need to reclaim the Jewish mindset about the person. This is the mindset the Bible was written in. Here’s a video that will help further sort it out. Click Here

With all of this in mind. Read chapter 8 of Romans. You can read it here.

You were made in the Image of God as a fully physical and spiritual being. When sin entered the world, the Image of God was tarnished in us and the Spirit was removed. When we choose the flesh, we reject God giving the Spirit back to us in the Resurrection. Jesus’s death on the cross conquered the death that binds us (1 Corinthians 15…later this week). It is the Spirit that sets us free from the laws of sin and death. Receiving the Spirit begins to move us back to the humanity that God intended for us in the Garden. We were created to be human. Fully human. Physical and Spiritual. When we live in the flesh, we dismiss our sins saying, “I’m only human” but the reality is, “you aren’t human enough.” Strive to be filled with the Spirit in every aspect of your life!

The suffering you feel in this life is only temporary. God has redeemed this creation and has called us to take part in this redemption. Romans 8:22 says that the entire creation is groaning for redemption. The sin that broke our relationship with God also broke the rest of creation. As beautiful as the world is, it is only a glimpse of the beauty God originally created. We too groan inwardly for redemption. Every time I pray with someone who is struggling with cancer, who is dying, who is in severe pain, etc. I long inwardly for the redemption of our bodies, our adoption as Children of God. What is the redemption of our bodies? Is it a disembodies spirit that floats upward to sit on a cloud? Paul, in verse 24, says that it is in this hope we are saved. Our bodies have not been redeemed yet, but we have received the Spirit and we wait for our redemption patiently.

Romans 8 is one of the most powerful chapters in the Bible. It reminds us of God’s intention for us, how we should live, the hope that we have, and eradicates all fears we have as we realize we are more than conquerors when we are in Christ Jesus. You have received the Spirit. You are saved! Now, go live out the Resurrection, a life filled with the Spirit, and show the world what God intended for His creation to look like!

Monday before Easter - Garden of Eden

Isaiah 2 – The Mountain of the Lord

This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

2 In the last days

the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established

    as the highest of the mountains;

it will be exalted above the hills,

    and all nations will stream to it.

3 Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

    to the temple of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways,

    so that we may walk in his paths.”

The law will go out from Zion,

    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

4 He will judge between the nations

    and will settle disputes for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

    and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

    nor will they train for war anymore.

5 Come, descendants of Jacob,

    let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Isaiah 11 – The Branch From Jesse

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—

    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

    the Spirit of counsel and of might,

    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—

3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,

    or decide by what he hears with his ears;

4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,

    with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;

    with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.

5 Righteousness will be his belt

    and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

6 The wolf will live with the lamb,

    the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

    and a little child will lead them.

7 The cow will feed with the bear,

    their young will lie down together,

    and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,

    and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.

9 They will neither harm nor destroy

    on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord

    as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.

When I was in Guyana, South America talking with people while they waited in line for a free medical clinic at the church, I asked everyone the same question, “What would you change about the world to make it perfect?” Answers ranged across the spectrum: I’m tired of being sick. I’d get rid of cancer. Can we end poverty? No more hate. No more racism. I’d end all the wars. I’d take away death.

None of these things existed in the Garden of Eden. The Garden was how God intended the world to be but sin brought brokenness, not only humanity’s relationship with God, but also brokenness to the creation itself (Romans 8:22). God has not given up on what He started in this creation. He wants to restore it. He wants to make it new again. He wants to be present to His creation again as He was in the Garden.

The prophetic imagination of Isaiah envisions a new world where there is no longer a need for swords or spears (1:4) and where predator and prey will live in harmony together. This prophetic imagination is looking forward to the coming of Christ, the Son of David, who will put the world back to right again under His reign.

This is what we celebrate in Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ! This week, as we prepare of Easter, prepare your heart, mind, and soul, for the resurrected life we’re called to live. We have not received the Resurrection fully but we live our God’s Resurrection reality while we wait for it patiently. God’s mission for you and for His Church is to live with Resurrection Imagination. We imagine how the world will be in the Resurrection and begin working towards that reality. What does it mean to bring peace to the chaos you see around you? To bring reconciliation to the divides this broken world sets in place? What does it look like to create communities of peace where people recognize the Kingdom of God? This is the mission God has for His Church. We celebrate it in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We participate in it in the receiving of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We live it out in community that looks and acts differently from the chaotic world around us.