“Far as the curse is found.” Like the spring thaw, turning sheets of ice into fresh running water, the power of God will extend to every square inch of this world and turn every curse into a blessing. The tube-fed will enjoy home cooking. The wheelchair bound will go waterskiing and climb mountains. Those who cannot speak will sing and describe and discuss. There will be no need for words like “syndrome” or “degenerative” and no place for DNA testing, Epilim, Ritalin, hydrotherapy, or physical therapy.
Are You Desperate to Have All Things Made New?
All Christians, especially those who are suffering, should be daydreaming about eternity on a regular basis. I get that straight from the apostle Paul. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,” he wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:17–18, “as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Translation: We’re supposed to spend our time thinking about eternal things. Dreaming of the new creation. Imagining the world to come.
Mostly poor and suffering people do that, while rich and comfortable people don’t. Whenever I travel in poorer parts of the world, I’m struck by how much more focus Christians have on the future in their songs, sermons, conversations, and prayers. In the United Kingdom (as in the United States), a lot of us have most of the things we want, so we’re not in a desperate hurry to have all things made new (except at funerals, when we suddenly start quoting from Revelation). In many countries, however, the brokenness of things is far more keenly felt, and the desire for renewal is stronger. It’s interesting, incidentally, that almost all forms of contemporary music—blues, jazz, soul, rock & roll, funk, rock, pop, hip-hop, R & B, and so on—trace their roots to the spirituals sung by suffering African slaves, most of which are Christian songs about a coming eternal age of justice and freedom. When you realize how wrong this world is, it makes you long for the next one.
I’m not comparing myself to an African slave or anything. But I’ve certainly noticed that the harder things are, the more I wait, hope, and long for them to change. Difficulty, in other words, strengthens my understanding of the future. Suffering produces hope.
I daydream about having ordinary conversations with the children, in a world free of autism, epilepsy, and hyperactivity. In his beautiful description of the resurrection, Paul says that bodies that are currently perishable, dishonorable, and weak will be raised imperishable, in glory and power (1 Cor. 15:42–43). That means that Zeke and Anna, in the new creation, will have brains that are able to reason and talk as if autism had never existed. They’ll be able to empathize, understand social cues, sit quietly thinking, and imagine what it’s like to be somebody else. I daydream about that. I imagine sitting around a dinner table with them, only instead of cajoling them into eating a cracker, I’ll be sharing wine with them, talking about why they like it, hearing them make jokes, and asking them about their travel plans.
