Nothing accursed will be found anymore.
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.
They will look upon his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
Night will be no more, nor will they need light from lamp or sun,
for the Lord God shall give them light,
and they shall reign forever and ever.
On this last day of the liturgical year, we hear a promise about the future city, our destiny.
C.S.Lewis, in The Great Divorce, describes Hell as a rural place where solitary souls live in splendid mansions, each isolated from the other by enormous distance. Since the damned are not inclined to visit one another, their isolation is no problem. Heaven, in Lewis's conception, is intense togetherness. There may be a million souls in a drop of water. But since they're of one voice, mind, and heart they enjoy their companionship as they sing God's praises.
When a busload of tourists arrives from Hell to see the great City of God, only a few are willing to get off the bus, and those few find the ethereal grass under their bare feet unbearably sharp. Reality is more than they can handle, and they much prefer the familiarity of a world of their own creation. They immediately return to the bus and their "comfort space" in Hell.
When Lewis wrote there were some who worried that the beauty of the natural world might be destroyed by the human city. Some, like President Theodore Roosevelt, promoted reservations and parks where urban denizens could visit an alternate reality. But few could imagine an anthropocentric world of human ingenuity, plunder, and waste.
I've not visited impoverished cities but I've seen the images of shallow streams in the middle of narrow streets. These rills are severely polluted by human and animal waste, and purified only by occasional gully-washing downpours. The inhabitants might be used to the stench but they would surely appreciate Saint John's river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God. How lovely that must be!
As the twenty-first century begins we are seeing the cosmic consequences of our sin in inexorable climate change. The good news is that the Earth will wait for us to change our ways. She really doesn't care what we do; so long as our exploitation continues, conditions will get worse and human suffering will increase. A century or more after we change our policies and practices, the environment will reflect some healing. That's the bad news. No reformer will notice the improvement without highly sensitive scientific instruments.
The saints have always been willing to wait and make sacrifice without expecting results. They do so with the assurance of God's promise. That too is inexorable. We have heard it in God's word; we see it clearly in Saint John's vision. And we believe it.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.