The “making all things new” promise that was “trustworthy
and true” made it possible for people to endure the worst sort of “all things”
that got old pretty quickly. When your everyday is filled with sorrow
and suffering you need something to hang onto. The promise that the tables will
be turned has always been a powerful promise to the persecuted and revenge
served warm or cold is just as sweet when your cause is vindicated and your
tormentors are themselves tormented. All the better if their punishment is
permanent and yours only lasted a lifetime. The trouble we should have with
that promise is that it sounds like a very human response to a very human
problem. The first sin outside the garden was fratricide and the human family
has been killing each other ever since. So for God to enter the fray in the same
way does not make sense to me. I’m not saying there is no judgement. I will be
judged guilty no matter how tightly I cling to the cross of Christ because I am
guilty. And so are you. And so are they whoever your “they” may be. The whole damn
lot of humanity. Guilty. The hope that gives me comfort is that God’s promise
to dwell with mortals is bigger than my limited imagination can conceive and that
in the cross God truly was “reconciling the world to God’s self not counting
people’s sins against them.” It is not a get out a jail free card. It is God
entering our prison and transforming it into something new. It is the hope that the new Jerusalem will finally live fully into its name – the city of peace.
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