Our source of comfort isn’t only that we’ll be with the Lord in Heaven but also that we’ll be with one another. Christ is “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last” (Revelation 22:13, NIV). He alone is sufficient to meet all our needs. Yet God has designed us for relationship not only with himself but also with others of our kind.

Just as war was breaking out in Europe, the hit song We’ll Meet Again performed by English singer Vera Lynn was released in 1939. Knowing that loved ones could soon be heading overseas to fight and perhaps never to return was a hard reality to face for so many. The memorable chorus goes like this:

We’ll meet again
Don’t know where
Don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day

Listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nzy1cfnKh4

For the Christian, there can be real mixed emotions about where we live. Right now we inhabit a sinful world, but we still find much about it to enjoy. But we also know that this world is not our home, and our true place of residency is still to come. As I just again read in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (4:16-18, followed by 5:1-5):

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 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.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

Being holders of two passports, we are always somewhat ambivalent about this matter of where we really belong. Our longing for the next world, and our dislike of this world, in part depends on our personality types – on the sorts of people we are.

I happen to be a bit more melancholic, and I tend to see things more gloomily. I often can see more suffering and evil in this world than good and joyous things. But that is just me. So my daily prayer is for Christ to come – and come quickly. I too often despair of what is going on all around me.

So if folks wanted a brief take on this fallen world, I would reply something like this: it is ugly, demonised, abhorrent, wretched, and full of despicable evil and horrendous suffering. BUT, with Christ there is hope, healing, restoration, forgiveness and a reason to keep going. A simplistic, but accurate account of things – at least as I see it.

All that God made was declared to be good. And it all WAS good. But the Fall negatively impacted everything. When theologians speak of “total depravity” they do not mean that everything and everyone is as bad as can possibly be, but that everything and everyone has been affected by the Fall, so sin and its effects are found everywhere.

Because of God’s common grace there is still plenty of beauty and truth and justice in this fallen world. Because of his grace, non-believers can create beautiful things, say true things, make just decisions, etc. But because of the presence of sin in the world, and the reality of demonic forces, there is great evil and terror in this world. And there is death.

The Christian always lives with some real tension here. On the one hand, we can appreciate all the good things of life, but we also know that a far better world is coming. Then and there all wrongs will be righted, and former relationships will be renewed.

That is for most of us one of the great beauties of heaven: being reunited with friends and loved ones who have already passed away. Sure, being with our Lord and Saviour forever will be the greatest good, but once again being with those who have departed from this life will be wonderful indeed.

My mother and father passed away many years ago now. My wife has now been gone for almost a year and a half. A number of my friends and colleagues have also departed for glory. The older you get, the more death and loss you experience.

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