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January 24 - February 1, 2021
The thing about grief is, it opens the door to the room in your soul where all your other grief is stored. Which can be a good thing if you handle it well, take the opportunity to heal the neglected grief.
Ecclesiastes, claiming, “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting” (7:2a).
Pascal understood: Nothing is so important to man as his own state, nothing is so formidable to him as eternity; and thus it is not natural that there should be men indifferent to the loss of their existence, and to the perils of everlasting suffering. They are quite different with regard to all other things. They are afraid of mere trifles; they foresee them; they feel them. And this same man who spends so many days and nights in rage and despair for the loss of office, or for some imaginary insult to his honour, is the very one who knows without anxiety and without emotion that he will lose
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Pascal was bewildered, dumbfounded. What is this dark enchantment that keeps the human race from facing the inevitable? You cannot protect your hope until you face the inevitable; maturity means living without denial. But we are mainlining denial; we are shooting it straight into our veins. We are grasping at every possible means to avoid the inevitable. We give our hopes to all sorts of kingdom counterfeits and substitutes; we give our hearts over to mere morsels. We mistake the promise of the kingdom for the reality and give our being over to its shadow.
But when you raise the white flag, when you finally accept the truth that you will lose everything one way or another, utterly, irrevocably—then the Restoration is news beyond your wildest dreams.
When the kingdom comes, my dear, heartbroken friend, nothing that was precious to you in this life will be lost. No memory, no event, none of your story or theirs, nothing is lost. How could it be lost? It is all held safe in the heart of the infinite God, who encompasses all things. Held safe outside of time in the treasuries of the kingdom, which transcends yet honors all time. This will all be given back to you at the Restoration, just as surely as your sons will come back to you. Nothing is lost.
Nothing is lost. If you will just let go of your anger and cynicism for a moment, just allow it to be true for a moment, well then—your heart is going to take a pretty deep breath.
We are preparing our hearts to receive the hope that alone can be the anchor of our souls.
Chesterton believed this was the secret to romance—the blend of the familiar and new, “to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it.”2 He felt the reason every age still reads fairy tales is actually not to escape our world but to re-enchant it: “These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.”3 Or run with the water of life.
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:14–15)
This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him! That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard
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What will waterfalls be like in the new earth? What of the giant sequoias or tender wildflowers? What will rain be like? And think of your special places; imagine what it will be like to see them in their glory. How sweet it will be to revisit treasured nooks and vistas, gardens and swimming holes again, see them as they truly “are,” unveiled, everything God meant them to be. Part of what makes the wonder so precious is that while it is a “new” world, it is our world, the world dearest to our hearts, romance at its best.
The wolf will romp with the lamb, the leopard sleep with the kid. Calf and lion will eat from the same trough, and a little child will tend them. Cow and bear will graze the same pasture, their calves and cubs grow up together, and the lion eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will crawl over rattlesnake dens, the toddler stick his hand down the hole of a serpent. Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill on
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And the Holy Spirit will fill every relationship, enabling us to grow in perfect understanding of them and they of us. How could we be their shepherd lords again if we do not “speak” to one another?
Therefore Eugene Peterson in The Message translates the passage, “I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.” Gone only in the sense of the old passing, so the renewed can take its place.
Scottish poet George MacDonald wrote: I do live expecting great things in the life that is ripening for me and all mine—when we shall have all the universe for our own, and be good merry helpful children in the great house of our father. Then, darling, you and I and all will have the grand liberty wherewith Christ makes free—opening his hand to send us out like white doves to range the universe.
11 I love the picture he gave us of this very possibility toward the end of the Narnian tale The Last Battle: It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed and then cried: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!” He shook his mane and sprang forward into a great gallop—a
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I am treasuring now every taste of the promise that comes my way. I am seeking them out with new eyes, letting them broaden my kingdom imagination, fill these empty files with brilliant expectations.
until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. (Romans 8:18–21 THE MESSAGE)
He knew something about growing up in a motherless home, and about the hole it left in a boy’s heart. He knew about the ceaseless drive to make oneself whole, and about the endless yearning. DANIEL BROWN, The Boys in the Boat
He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence. (Psalm 103:4–5 THE MESSAGE)
Thank God we have more than empathy to offer; we have the restoration of Jesus to point to as a solid, vivid demonstration of our coming renewal.
Our Forerunner was physically restored and then some. Gone the thorn in his brow, gone the spear in his side, gone the nails in his hands. His body was beautiful and whole again. So great was his happiness he spent Easter in some very playful encounters with his friends.3 Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits . . . who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
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He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:4–5)
Think of it—if God would offer today to remove from you just one of your greatest sources of internal pain, what would you ask him to remove? And once it were gone, what would your joy be like? Oh my goodness—I would be a happy maniac, dancing in my underwear like David before the ark,4 running about the neighborhood like Scrooge on Christmas morning, leaping housetop to housetop like the fiddler on the roof. And if all your brokenness were finally and completely healed, and all your sin removed from you as far as the east is from the west5—what will you no longer face? What will you finally
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The human heart and soul are imbued with a remarkable resilience.
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. (Isaiah 61:1)
“At such a time, we will be fully integrated once again—body, mind, spirit, and soul—just as we were intended to live with God at the beginning of creation.”
Think of it—to be wholehearted. To be filled with goodness from head to toe. To have an inner glory that matches the glory of your new body: The LORD their God will save his people on that day as a shepherd saves his flock. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown. How attractive and beautiful they will be! (Zechariah 9:16–17) “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” (Matthew 13:43)
You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. (Hebrews 12:22–23 NLT)
That phrase “the righteous ones . . . made perfect.” I can hardly speak. Finally, the totality of our being will be saturated only with goodness. Think of it—think of all that you’re not going to have to wrestle with anymore. The fear that has been your lifelong battle, the anger, the compulsions, the battles to forgive, that nasty root of resentment. No more internal civil wars; no doubt, no lust, no regret; no shame, no self-hatred, no gender confusion. What has plagued you these last many years? What has plagued you all your life? Your Healer will personally lift it from your shoulders.
Who knows how we’ll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we’ll see him—and in seeing him, become like him. All of us who look forward to his Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus’ life as a model for our own. (1 John 3:2–3 THE MESSAGE)
Poet Stanley Kunitz asks, “How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?”8 It is reconciled in great part as we behold with our own eyes the restoration of the ones we love. And it is reconciled through all the reunions that will take place.
Elie Wiesel said God created man because he loves stories. There will be so many stories to tell. “Where have you been?” “What were you doing?” All the questions that will finally have answers: “What actually happened when your lines were overrun by the enemy? It’s wonderful to see you again, but I need to hear the rest of the story!” “Did you hear your daughter grew up to be a famous surgeon? Of course you did—you were probably involved in helping her pass her exams.” And one question that particularly haunts me, for I know how much shrouds even the best relationship: “Did you know how much I
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God has ordained that in the new earth it is river water that brings us life and leaves that are used for our healing: Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. (Revelation 22:1–2 NLT)
what about the sounds of the new Eden? Even now the music of rushing water soothes my soul; I love to sit by babbling brooks, fall asleep to the sound of ocean waves. Just last night two owls were hooting back and forth to each other in our woods; it made my tired soul lighter somehow. We will hear nature in full chorus. It will mingle with the laughter and music and aromas of the feast itself, and we will wander in and out, drinking it all in, practically swimming in the healing powers of creation, feeling Life permeate every last corner of our being. Happiness and joy will overcome us;
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Jesus will go to great lengths to assure us when most precious things need assurance.
True
we live in an age of staggering unbelief, a thoroughly deconstructed age where wonder has been stripped from everything. We no longer believe in the noble, the heroic, or the epic.
Beowulf is the Christ figure in the story, a strong deliverer: There was no one else like him alive. In his day, he was the mightiest man on earth, high-born and powerful.5
Patrick, that mighty missionary to the Irish, prayed daily, “In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward. . . . So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.”
C. S. Lewis could write, If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.11
As we prepared for Craig’s memorial service this summer, I was struck by the gross inadequacy of an hour or ninety minutes to meet the need. How do you tell the story of a human life? How can you do justice to all the hidden sorrow, the valiant fighting, the millions of small, unseen choices, the impact of a great soul on thousands of other lives? How can you begin to say what a life means to the kingdom of God? The answer is, only in the kingdom of God. Only once we are there.
But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. (1 Corinthians 3:10–14)
I think we will be surprised by what Jesus noticed. The “sheep” certainly are when their story is told: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?” (Matthew 25:37). What a lovely surprise—all our choices great and small have been seen, and each act will be rewarded.
the friends of God, the settling of accounts is not meant to be negative at all; it is a great encouragement and sustaining hope! The vindication of our grievances, the honor given to our thousands of unseen choices, and the brazen promise of reward are intended to spur us on!
Think of all the justice that needs to be served. You have a heart for redemption. Your kingdom heart longs for restoration and reconciliation, for justice, for the recovery of all that has been lost. What is the redemption that your heart longs for on a global level? What passions arouse your heart? Is your heart for a people group? A community or nation? For the arts or sciences? You have very particular passions for justice and redemption, and they will be realized. Your heart needs to know this—they will be realized.
“Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” (Isaiah 49:24–26)
with all the faculties of personhood given to you by God. So the question is, what have you always dreamed of doing? What gifts have you yearned to express? What have you always wanted to be great at? These things are part of your personhood; they are how God created you, and they will be even more glorious in the re-created you. Dream, my friends.
We will not sit around looking at one another or at God for eternity but will join the eternal Logos, “reign with him,” in the endlessly ongoing creative work of God. It is for this that we were each individually intended, as both kings and priests (Exod. 19:6; Rev. 5:10). . . . A place in God’s creative order has been reserved for each one of us from before the beginnings of cosmic existence. His plan is for us to develop, as apprentices to Jesus, to the point where we can take our place in the ongoing creativity of the universe.
