From Peter’s sermon to the Jews on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus]: This is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets (Acts 3:18-21).

A refreshing development in evangelical theological studies is the new emphasis on the “new earth.” Refreshing to me in particular because of the “Beam me up, Lord” mentality of my generation, a mindset that concentrated on the Rapture of the Church and the Second Coming of Christ.  It was heaven-centered, but focused on an ethereal heaven that we would either be “raptured” into alive or the souls our dead bodies had inhabited would be resurrected into.  It was somewhere out there; but where was “there”?

As a boy that uncertainty plus the belief I got at church and from tradition that we would spend eternity singing hymns “somewhere beyond the blue” sure wasn’t something I looked forward to.  I enjoyed catching crawdads, frittering away hours in farmer Kelly’s woods, playing “kick the can” with my OAK Boys buddies, and just hanging around at home smelling supper and reading Sugar Creek Gang books.  That nagging fear of being bored to death with heaven hung on well into adulthood, but I never talked about it.  It seemed ungodly and un-Christian.

That’s why the realization I came to a couple decades ago kindled a new hope in my heart—the understanding of the biblical promise that heaven was going to come to earth, and the earth be redeemed by “the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 5) and would be refreshed (Acts 3:19), reunified (Ephesians 1:9-10), restored (Acts 3:19-20), reconciled to God (Colossians 1:20): the joyous “Five Rs” of our future existence on God’s good earth!

This truth was unfolded aptly by my friend Mike Wittmer, associate professor of systematic theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, in his encouraging book Heaven Is a Place On Earth:

Our temporary stay in heaven—what theologians call the intermediate state—is not the primary focus of Scripture.  There are only a few verses that allude to it.  Scripture is relatively silent on our intermediate state in heaven because it is not the Christian hope.  The Christian hope is not merely that our departed souls will rejoice in heaven, but that, as 1 Corinthians 15 explains, they will reunite with our resurrected bodies.

And where do bodies live?  Not in heaven:  That’s more suitable for spiritual beings like angels and human souls.  Bodies are meant to live on earth, on this planet.  So the Christian hope is not merely that someday we and our loved ones will die and go to be with Jesus.  Instead, the Christian hope is that our departure from this world is just the first leg of a journey that is round-trip.  We will not remain forever with God in heaven, for God will bring heaven down to us.  As John explains his vision in Revelation 21:1-4, he “saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” to the earth, accompanied by the thrilling words, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them.”

In short, Christians long for the fulfillment of Emmanuel, the divine name that means “God with us.”  We don’t hope merely for the day when we go to live with God, but ultimately for that final day when God comes to live with us.

That’s not a message I heard preached as a kid but really would have loved to hear.  It was hard to live all those years thinking that my future state was going to be boring—and to feel guilty because of that feeling.  Later in his book Mike describes what that future state might look like as foretold in part by the ancient prophet Isaiah.  He concludes with this thought:

Because redemption restores rather than obliterates creation, we will find that its completion in our next life will be the fulfillment of our humanity.  Nothing will be more satisfying than dwelling with our Father on the earth we call home, enjoying the well-rounded, flourishing lives he intended for us all along.  Our next life will look an awful lot like this one, lacking only the suffering that arises from sin.

[Photo by Inspics: http://inspiks.com/ Visit here for more inspiration.]

 
Now that’s a heaven this old boy can look forward to!

You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens. Then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening. How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures (Psalm 104:20-24).

In one of his books, John Muir mistakenly attributed the death of a simple-minded neighbor to the man’s brother who was rumored to have forced him into such hard labor that the physically overtaxed man died and fell forward onto a pile of firewood he was splitting. Though no names were mentioned, the accused man’s son recognized that it was his father that the naturalist was describing as the abuser. So the man, then in his seventies like Muir, informed Muir that the rumor was not true—yet still confessing that he, like Muir, had been regularly beaten by his father merely for not working hard enough or meeting his father’s nearly impossible requirements. Muir felt so bad about the mistake that he had the publisher redo the book galleys. In a letter to his former neighbor, however, he spoke of his feelings about abusive parenting which grew out of his experience as the oldest son of Daniel Muir:

When the rod is falling on the flesh of a child, and, what may oftentimes be worse, heartbreaking scolding falling on its tender little heart, it makes the whole family seem far from the Kingdom of Heaven. In all the world, I know of nothing more pathetic and deplorable than a broken-hearted child, sobbing itself to sleep after being unjustly punished by a truly pious and conscientious misguided parent. . . .

Your father, like my own, was, I devoutly believe, a sincere Christian, abounding in noble qualities, preaching the Gospel without money or price while working hard for a living, clearing land, blacksmithing, able for anything, and from youth to death never abating one jot his glorious foundational religious enthusiasm. I revere his memory with that of my father and the New England Puritan types of the best American pioneers whose unwavering faith in God’s eternal righteousness forms the basis of our country’s greatness. [Source]

Editor of The Life and Letters of John Muir, William Bade, wrote of this incident:

In accordance with a fairly common custom among God-fearing pioneers of earlier days, morning and evening family worship was regularly observed in the Muir household. But how easily morning prayers may become a devastating substitute for a day of real religion was apparently exemplified glaringly in both these households. Under such circumstances children often react sharply, not only against the external forms, but also against the substance of religion. The religious convictions of a shallower nature than John Muir’s would never have survived the bigotry and rigor of his father’s training. [Emphasis mine]

In spite of the unloving, abusive nature of his father and the ugliness of Daniel Muir’s “Christianity,” John Muir’s writings exude expressions of God’s love and of the unfathomable beauty of God’s creation. An example of this is Muir’s thoughts on finding a dead Yosemite bear:

Toiling in the treadmills of life we hide from the lessons of Nature. We gaze morbidly through civilized fog upon our beautiful world clad with seamless beauty, and see ferocious beasts and wastes and deserts. But savage deserts and beasts and storms are expressions of God’s power inseparably companioned by love. Civilized man chokes his soul as the heathen Chinese their feet. We depreciate bears. . . . They are not companions of men but children of God, and His charity is broad enough for bears. . . . God bless Yosemite bears! [Read Job 38-41] [Bear photo source]

Michelangelo's King David

To me this sounds a bit like the biblical “naturalist” David who wrote of the Creator, “You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens. Then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening. How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Psalm 104:20-24).

Daniel Muir’s, and consequently John Muir’s, “Christianity” suffered a great deal from mistaken understandings of biblical truth about the creation. It seems, however, that even more than a hundred years later, followers of Christ the Savior are still depreciating the natural world for which Christ the Creator was, in part, crowned with thorns to restore, liberate, reunify, and reconcile to the Father (Acts 3:21; Romans 8:21; Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:20).

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”) (Matthew 1:18-22)

Currently lost in my files is a print of a painting that depicts Jesus in the arms of Mary with a small bird perched on His finger. That and this etching in which it seems that Jesus is instructing Mary on the merits of a rose were apparent artistic attempts to link Jesus the infant Savior to Jesus the loving Creator. The intent of this artwork is a good reminder for us as we consider the Christ of Christmas, God in human flesh, in the days immediately ahead.

Think of the earthly, material trappings that surrounded the birth of Jesus: the humble stable; the domestic animals; the shepherds sent by the angels from the fields where youthful David used to tend sheep and where Ruth, the Moabite ancestress of Jesus, caught the attention of Boaz; the glowing pointer-star in the heavens; and the rough linen swaddling cloth beaten from the flax stalks from the nearby hillsides. All of these give significance to the physical nature of Jesus and His birth that I feel we spiritualize far more than we should.

The creation Jesus entered is the creation He made, is the creation in which we live, is the creation John Muir loved, is the creation that groans under the heavy hand of sinful humanity, is the creation to which He will return, is the creation that He will redeem and reconcile to His Father, is the creation that in ways beyond imagination redeemed mankind will remain stewards of and continue to get sustenance from, and is the creation that will be blessed with the peace promised by the reign of Messiah whom we celebrate so joyously in the prophecies of Isaiah and in the music of George Frederick Handel.

Not surprisingly, it’s also the music of Handel that graces the poetry of hymn-writer Isaac Watts in one of Christianity’s Christmas favorites: “Joy to the World.” In the carol we hear the prophecies of Isaiah and John of the Revelation repeated: “No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found” (Revelation 22:1-3). Keep in mind that while we sing this carol to celebrate Jesus’ first advent, it is written about His second advent—after which the creation will once again become the “peaceable kingdom” pictured by Isaiah (chapters 11 & 65).

May these wonderful Scripture passages grace our Christmas and rekindle not only hope for our own redemption, but also fill us with joy in recognizing that Jesus will not abandon His creation. It too has hope. Someday, in fact, “all creatures here below” will praise their Creator and Savior along with us all!

Revelation 5:9-13 They sang a new song: “You [Jesus] are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

John 1: 1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

Hebrews 1:1-3 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

Colossians 1:15-20 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Romans 8:19-23 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

So the “Good News” promises grace not only to redeemed people, but to the redeemed creation as well—the wonders of which will never cease to amaze us.

Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? (Ezekiel 34:18).

I read the following story written by Dr. Paul Brand (who died at age 89 in 2003) when it first appeared in Christianity Today in the early 80′s.  It moved me then, and it still moves me.  I trust it will touch your heart and mind as well:

As God’s servants, we have responsibility to assist in the care of His good earth. We can have an active part in making sure that we—and others—don’t interfere with God’s plan for sustaining life.

I have a vivid childhood memory of someone who did just that. I was playing with a group of Indian boys in one of the rice paddies near our home in the mountains. Rice needs flooded fields for certain stages of its cultivation, and there was no level ground in the mountains. The hill tribes had developed a method of terracing their fields into the course of a stream so that each field was about a foot higher than the field below, and was quite level, being bordered at its lower edge by a grass-covered dam to hold its water. Little channels were cut at intervals along the dams to allow a trickle of the stream into the field below. Thus, where the valley was steep, the fields were narrow. They were wide where the slope was shallow. The water from the one stream watered each field in turn, and kept the mud moist enough for rice cultivation. The constant wetness was attractive to frogs and small fish and also to herons who came after the frogs.

Not only herons but small boys enjoyed the mud and the frogs, so it happened that my friends and I were having a game of who would be the first to catch three frogs. This involved a lot of plunging about in the mud in the corner of one of the fields. Suddenly the oldest boy called out, “Tata is coming!” and we all scrambled out of the mud.

Tata means grandfather, and is used by youngsters as a term of respect to any elderly man. The particular Tata we had seen coming our way was the owner of one of the fields, and was recognized as the keeper of the dams. He was the one who saw to it that nobody got more than his fair share of water when the stream was running dry. We all knew that we had not been careful with the rice seedlings, and we deserved and expected a rebuke. Tata was very old and stooped over. He found it difficult to look straight forward. He walked slowly and with a cane, but none of us thought of running away or of avoiding his stern words. Old age really carries respect in India.

He asked us what we were doing, and the biggest boy, acting as our spokesman, told him we had been catching frogs. Tata looked at the churned up mud, then stooped over and scooped up a double handful of it. “What is this?” he asked. “That is mud, Tata,” we replied. “And whose mud is it?” “It is your mud, Tata, and we have broken your seedlings. We are very sorry, and we will never do it again.” But Tata had more to say. “There is enough mud in my hands to grow a whole meal of rice for one person. This same mud will grow a meal of rice every year. It has been doing it for my parents and grandparents long before I was born. It will go on growing rice for my grandchildren and their children for many generations.” “Yes, Tata.”

Then the old man moved over to the nearest of the water channels across the earthen dam. He pointed to it. “What do you see there?” he asked. “That is water,” replied our spokesman. For the first time the old man showed his anger. “I’ll show you water,” he growled, and limped on a few steps to the next channel, where clear water was flowing over the grass. “That is water,” he said, and returned to the first channel. “Now tell me what you see there.” “That is mud, Tata,” the boy said humbly, “It is muddy water.” Then he hurried on to tell Tata what he knew would come next, for he had been exposed to this before. “This is your mud that is running down to the lower field, and it will never grow food for you again, because mud never runs uphill. Once it has gone, it is gone forever.”

Tata wanted to make sure we all got the message. Leaning on his staff, he straightened his back as far as he could, so he could look at each one of us. “When you see mud running in the streams of water you know that life is running out of the mountains. It will never come back.” He turned and began to limp away, softly repeating to himself, “It will never come back.” That was 70 years ago, but I have never forgotten the lesson I learned that day.

It is a universal truth. Even in America, mud never runs uphill. When we see erosion taking away our topsoil, life is flowing away from our homeland. It will never come back . . . it will never come back.

This version of the story appears in RBC’s Discovery Series booklet “God’s Good Earth.” It is an excerpt from the book by Dr. Paul Brand, God’s Forever Feast.

See the story of Dr. Paul Brand as it was told on RBC’s Day of Discovery TV broadcast: