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Posts Tagged ‘New Jerusalem’

Jerusalem and the Titanic

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

New JerusalemI have read (Bible Study Tools on Jerusalem) that there was a time that Jerusalem was invincible. I can certainly understand how that could happen, just thinking of the miraculous creation of the temple and the tangible presence of God there, how could any enemy prevail?

Jerusalem is built like a city joined together in unity . . . It is the law for Israel to give thanks there . . . Pray that Jerusalem has peace: “Let those who love you have rest. Let there be peace on your walls; let there be rest on your fortifications.” [Psalm 122:3, 4b, 6-7, CEB]

But not unlike the confidence in the Titanic, the unsinkable ship of wonder and power, people abused the vessel itself. The Temple was the core of Jerusalem, it’s lifeblood issued from its center, but the leaders and kings continued to misunderstand its role, the basic requirements of worship and faithfulness. As a result, they began to undercut its effectiveness. So it was with the great ship whose design was flawed and never fully tested, whose strength was challenged by boasting and unnecessary risk. Both Jerusalem and the Titanic suffered due to the pride of its caretakers.

And I wonder, are we doing the same thing with our religion? Are we borrowing from the texts the parts we want to use as a hammer against others and setting aside the words that condemn our own actions? Are we elevating our own understanding above the understanding of others? Are we so sure in the details?

And what about the Church itself? Have denominations and preferences become silos from which we are no longer able to see clearly? Now we have a myriad of “Jerusalems” into which we are endowing superiority and funds for the sake of our structures and mindsets.

God promises the earth, the peoples of this earth, a “New Jerusalem.” I do not believe that this is necessarily a humongous cube that will drop down out of space (the heavens) and we’ll all take a ride. Instead, I see it as a unified peoples, living for the sake of others, honoring humanity and the God who made us. The New Jerusalem comes at a cost, the paradox of letting go and surrendering to a different way of living and thinking.

Jesus was on a mission to bring us closer to the New Jerusalem. We’re not there yet. We may have to sink the ship a few more times before we are able to build a structure that can be inhabited by Truth.

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Inside My Tardis

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

tardisFor those of you who have never watched Dr. Who (is that possible after all these years?), the Tardis is a time machine/spacecraft that looks like an old British police box. One of the coolest things about the Tardis is that defies dimensionality: when you enter it, it is huge on the inside, despite its appearance on the outside. And so I imagine the “new heaven and new earth” in the book of Revelation.

“I looked again and could hardly believe my eyes. Everything above me was new. Everything below me was new. Everything around me was new because the heaven and earth that had been passed away, and the sea was gone, completely. . . .A Voice said: See, the home of God is with His people. He will live among them; They will be His people,And God Himself will be with them.“ [Revelation 21: 1, 3, the Voice translation]

You see, somehow it made sense to me all at once today. We keep wanting to imagine all of this externally, the clouds rolling away and a gigantic new Jerusalemcube (New Jerusalem) coming in from outer space (based on some other descriptive passages). But I saw something else; I “saw” the expansion of all that is within me becoming this new home. I saw the kingdom within and saw that all is possible because it’s a world where there are no dimensions at all. It’s Human new: it’s Human with God, in God, and vice versa. It is God’s home.

And we will know God then in a way we cannot know God today. We will be changed.

Oh, how I wish I could be less restrained by my three-dimensional world. I name everything. I ground myself daily. I am entrenched. And so, I judge my world and the people in it. And each time I do, I am less free.

The life within, the relationship with Spirit within: in there is the light switch to a different way of living and seeing the world. If only . . .

Inside is the time machine and the Way.

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Cubes and Cubits

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , on June 10, 2012| 1 Comment »

The Bible is rich with measurements, from paces and handbreadths to ephahs and hins. One of the first things described in cubits [generally considered to be the length of a forearm] was Noah’s ark. And here, New Jerusalem is described in stadia [generally considered to be 600 feet, give or take]. But really, who cares?

Revelation 21:15-16
The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia [1,200 miles] in length, and as wide and high as it is long [a cube].

Some people seem to think these measurements confirm, by specificity, the reality of what is being written about. In other words, the ark must be real, why else describe it in such detail? Some people have taken these descriptions and measurements to such “lengths” (pun intended), to recreate the items or places, either in life size or intricate models.

Another set of folks are fascinated by the actual numbers in scripture (a type of numerology if you will), citing the repetition of certain numbers and their implication.

I’m sure all of these studies are fascinating and may even give additional insights to the richness of the text. Of course, there are a number of holy document that have received the same treatment. Numbers, measurements, dates (and dating) are just a few of the ways that humans establish themselves in space and time.

Personally, I’m still trying to come to grips with the relationship between the European kilometer and the mile, or the length of my son’s ship in the Navy in relationship to something I know (it’s about two football fields, he finally said). I can barely figure out if a chair in the store will fit in my living room, much less the size of the ark, the temple, or the New Jerusalem. In the old days, when I felt much more compelled to diligently read every word of scripture (including the begats via the King James), I tried to picture every length, breadth, Old Testament celebration and sacrifice. I was determined to figure out the secret meaning or mystery embedded there.

I confess, today, I’m much more cavalier. I’ve been through the Bible, from front to back, more times than I can accurately count (another falling down, I’ve stopped keeping track), and honestly, I’m no closer to uncovering the ultimate number or truth. If anything, I’m backing off the detail and looking for the big picture. In the same way the Pharisees were chastised by Jesus for trying to tithe on spices used in foods [Matthew 23:23], I’m letting go of it too.

I’m not counting how many people I have “brought to Christ” or with how many people I have shared the gospel. I’m done with measuring my effectiveness as a human being by how many people I speak to or speak to me, or how many agree with me or how many people read my blog. I will not be running for office so I won’t need to count how many people vote for me.

My faith and my ability to love others is not really measurable, so why try? The size of my church doesn’t really tell much of a story either. It’s time to give up the cubits and work the quality of the event, the encounter, the moment.

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The Bride

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , on June 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The bride or the “body” of Christ is also the New Jerusalem, a city. Jerusalem of old was selected to be the place of the Temple where God would dwell among the people. It was a place of connection and interaction, devotion and sacrifice, symbolism and authority. And now, we are looking to the New Way.

Revelation 21:9b-10
“Come, I [the angel] will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me [John] away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

The New Jerusalem, although described as an object with gates and walls and jewel-like appearance, it is clearly John’s effort to describe the indescribable. It’s still a dwelling place, but different.

I am always reminded of one of the best sermons I ever heard on the resurrected Christ, that He was the same and yet different, in the form of a human, but with traits that exceeded anything observable as human: appearing and disappearing, solid but not solid, not confined to time and space. If the resurrected Jesus would be so different, doesn’t it make sense that the “bride” would be equally different.

In my mind, there is a foolishness to any attempts to truly understand the supernatural relationship between God and human. This binding is unique. And we can choose to be bound or be loosed from God.

Am I a spirit being or not? Is my essence within or not? I cannot convince another person of that reality through words alone because it’s not a “word” kind of thing.

Have you ever tried to remember something and seems to literally dance around the edges of your consciousness? This is how I think about the Spirit self. It’s there and not there. It’s tangible and not tangible. It’s the ultimate paradox.

And perhaps, whether it’s hard to imagine, there is something important to the otherness of Christ uniting with human. I think about the symbolism of Christ as male and the bride as female. There’s something in this oppositeness that changes the equation, that creates something new, that “New Jerusalem.” Marriages of today are experiencing a stretch beyond anything we could have imagined. Sexuality is also reaching past comfort boundaries of the past. But does that change the relationship of the Christ and the bride?

In Galations 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” These human differences do not exist in the Spirit realm, the ultimate relationship. So, despite the fact that it’s nice to have the symbolism of the traditional couple, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s necessary for the ultimate union. Just saying.

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Holy City Promise

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

For many believers, the “holy city” or “New Jerusalem” represent either some aspect of heaven or a literal reconstruction of the earthly Jerusalem. In any case, this “City-State” is entwined with the “promise” of Godly reconciliation. But do I care?

Hebrews 11:13c, 16
And they [people of faith] admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. . . . they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

There are several references in the New Testament about the City of God and interestingly enough, they begin here, in Hebrews. I believe it’s importance comes from the crucial parts that Jerusalem and the Temple played in the history of Israel and the worship of YHWH, the one true God. For the Israelite, the City was always holy and revered, so much so that even Jesus is recorded as weeping over the city [Luke 19:41-42].

Many cities seem to have personalities and more often than not, they are usually referenced as female: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New Orleans. They have their individuality and their lovers for many, many people love the cities in which they live and they truly grieve at her injuries or misfortunes. But are any of them holy? Do any, particularly here in the U.S., have a mystical history or aura? Would we ever envision a heavenly version of any of our cities?

The derivation of the word city seems to come from the Latin, civitas or civitatem, which could be loosely translated as community of citizens. It would make more sense then, to imagine the “Holy City” — that long awaited one, that New Jerusalem — not so much as a place, but a gathering . . . of people, of souls, of energy, of life. In Bible times and even long after that, most cities or castles also had a tower of safety, or keep deep within for its people, or its royalty, to seek asylum. In the first Jerusalem, this place of safety was the Temple (and deeper still, behind the veil, in the Holy of Holies) because of the presence of God. The New Jerusalem, then, this aggregate faithful could also have God in its midst.

This might be what I really care about then: not some enormous “city” coming down out of the sky like an alien ship, blinking with lights and gold, but the ultimate union of my spirit with the Holy Spirit and then, joining with all the other “faithful.”

When we are walking, talking, living in tandem with the Holy Spirit, “light” radiates and others are drawn to it like moths to a living flame. We are the Holy City, the church, the civitatem of Christ.

“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” [Philippians 3:20-21]

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Child of the Free Woman

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Does it matter–our genealogy? our heritage? our family line? In scripture, it’s recorded in many ways as quite significant, from the “begats” in Matthew to the repetitive list of kings and their fathers and their fathers. Am I a child of the promise, a child of the free woman?

Galatians 4:31
Therefore, brothers [and sisters], we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Paul goes into a longish discussion of the “figurative” nature of Hagar (the slave woman) and Sarah (the free), who bore children, one “naturally” and the other as the result of a God-promise and power of the Spirit (a supernatural birth). The slave child (and subsequent generations) is born to a time and place in history, while the implication is that the child (and following generations) is of a “new Jerusalem,” a place out of time.

Despite the fact that Sarah and Abraham are usually considered the “father and mother” of the Jews (who we know followed the law), now the focus is on the next step when the Abrahamic children come into their true inheritance. The long-awaited Messiah was part of the promise, the miracle of Isaac. Christ too was born supernaturally. (Isaac was born from an old woman’s barren womb and Jesus from a very young woman’s virginal womb.)

And just so, because I have accepted that same long-promised Messiah as my Messiah too, I become a child of the free woman, the metaphysical, the kingdom of God. I now have a different genealogy than I did before. This is a truer meaning of “new creation.”

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” [II Corinthians 5:17]

I’m not living in this freedom really. It’s positional only, not internalized. It’s head knowledge, not heart knowledge.

It’s like I’m so close to really understanding the enormity of this truth but not quite. It’s a thought butterfly flitting around my head. I can’t quite grab hold of it. But someday I will. And when I do, I will be changed.

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