That inconsolable longing

“… That unnameable something, desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of a bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World’s End, the opening lines of Kubla Khan, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves?

It appeared to me therefore that if a man diligently followed this desire, pursuing the false objects until their falsity appeared and then resolutely abandoning them, he must come out at last into the clear knowledge that the human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given–nay, cannot even be imagined as given–in our present mode of subjective and spatio-temporal experience. This Desire was, in the soul, as the Siege Perilous in Arthur’s castle–the chair in which only one could sit. And if nature makes nothing in vain, the One who can sit in this chair must exist. I knew only too well how easily the longing accepts false objects and through what dark ways the pursuit of them leads us: but I also saw that the Desire itself contains the corrective of all these errors. The only fatal error was to pretend that you had passed from desire to fruition, when, in reality, you had found either nothing, or desire itself, or the satisfaction of some different desire. The dialectic of Desire, faithfully followed, would retrieve all mistakes, head you off from all false paths, and . . . to propound, but to live through, a sort of ontological proof. This lived dialectic, and the merely argued dialectic of my philosophical progress, seemed to have converged on one goal; accordingly I tried to put them both into my allegory which thus became a defence of Romanticism (in my peculiar sense) as well as of Reason and Christianity.”

~ C.S. Lewis, From the Preface to Pilgrim’s Regress

Along this vein, I just started an awesome book on Lewis’ notion of Sehnsucht, Corbin Scott Carnell’s Bright Shadow of Reality: Spiritual Longing in C. S. Lewis. It is really intriguing so far; you can buy it here.

Becoming the “New Earth You”

Learning the language of the world to come! This is such a fantastic message and really captures what I wish I could say about the New Earth future breaking into our present lives here. What a great joy and hope as we deal with the struggles of life today! http://elkgrovebiblechurch.org/media.php?pageID=5

“It is Finished” ~ The New Humanity

Pastor Jon Mroos of Elk Grove Bible Church (www.elkgrovebiblechurch.org) shares an extraordinary insight into Christ’s final words:

” “Finished.” “Accomplished.” “Completed.” Jesus’ last words sum it all up. These words from John 19:30 have layers of meaning, each one displaying the fulfillment of God’s rescue of His creation which He loves so dearly. What did Jesus mean when he cried out, “It is finished” and how does this impact us today?

Part of its meaning is no doubt a picture of a debt of death that humanity owed God’s justice. Much like writing, “Paid off!” when a car is finally paid in full and you are released from the debt, Jesus Christ released us from our sin debt by declaring that God’s justice had been satisfied through the propitiation of the cross. But I believe there is another layer to these words that help us to see just how amazing God’s plan of rescue truly was.

When God the Creator made this amazing world, He finished it on the sixth day. He completed his work. On the seventh day after God had finished His creation, He rested and enjoyed fellowship with it. At the center of it all were humans that He loved. That creation was ruined under the weight of the fall and God’s justice. It was no longer finished in splendor. It was wrecked in sin and fellowship was wasted away. God could not rest in pleasure and fellowship with the creation that He so loved. How would God work this mess out? Through the promise given to Eve, that God would create a new creation in the middle of an already broken creation. A new humanity would break into the broken humanity as a type of second creation account.

When Jesus Christ said, “It is finished” he was speaking a creation language. Just as the Genesis creation story ended in triumph as God created a new humanity on the sixth day, so Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross likewise created a new humanity. God rested from His great work of creation on the seventh day enjoying His creation, and Jesus Christ on the seventh day, rested in the tomb. Jesus Christ rested from his completed labor of creating a new humanity just as God rested on the seventh day when he completed the first humanity.

This new creation, this new people that Christ created on the cross is the church. We are a new creation, a second Genesis account in the midst of the original creation, which has been so badly shattered. The finished work of the cross is how God came into our chaos to be there with us in the middle of it and to create something new on the cross. This is where it was all going; this is what it was all about. We are a second creation created in Christ Jesus to put on display a true humanity. We are to live in such a way as to reflect the character of God back into a badly shattered creation showing that there is a new hope for the world. That impacts my motives and decisions every day. That shapes the way I live in this world.”

Morning hymn in Paradise

Extraordinary passage from John Milton’s Paradise Lost:

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almightie, thine this universal Frame,
Thus wondrous fair; thy self how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sits above these Heavens
To us invisible or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works, yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine:
Speak yee who best can tell, ye Sons of Light

Angels, for yee behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, Day without Night,
Circle his Throne rejoycing, yee in Heav’n,
On Earth joyn all ye Creatures to extoll
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of Starrs, last in the train of Night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crownst the smiling Morn
With thy bright Circlet, praise him in thy Spheare
While day arises, that sweet hour of Prime.
Thou Sun, of this great World both Eye and Soule,
Acknowledge him thy Greater, sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb’st,
And when high Noon hast gaind, and when thou fallst.
Moon, that now meetst the orient Sun, now fli’st
With the fixt Starrs, fixt in thir Orb that flies,
And yee five other wandring Fires that move
In mystic Dance not without Song, resound
His praise, who out of Darkness call’d up Light.
Aire, and ye Elements the eldest birth
Of Natures Womb, that in quaternion run

Perpetual Circle, multiform; and mix
And nourish all things, let your ceasless change
Varie to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye Mists and Exhalations that now rise
From Hill or steaming Lake, duskie or grey,
Till the Sun paint your fleecie skirts with Gold,
In honour to the Worlds great Author rise,
Whether to deck with Clouds th’ uncolourd skie,
Or wet the thirstie Earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling still advance his praise.
His praise ye Winds, that from four Quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye Pines,
With every Plant, in sign of Worship wave.
Fountains and yee, that warble, as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Joyn voices all ye living Souls; ye Birds,
That singing up to Heaven Gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise;
Yee that in Waters glide, and yee that walk
The Earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep;
Witness if I be silent, Morn or Eeven,
To Hill, or Valley, Fountain, or fresh shade
Made vocal by my Song, and taught his praise.
Hail universal Lord, be bounteous still
To give us onely good; and if the night
Have gathered aught of evil or conceald,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.

New nature, new earth

“A new nature is being not merely made but made out of an old one. We live amid all the anomalies, inconveniences, hopes, and excitements of a house that is being rebuilt (while we remaining living in it).”

~ C.S. Lewis, Miracles

Temple, Torah, King

“But new creation will come about only through one final and shocking exile and restoration. The king turns into a servant, YHWH’s Servant; and the Servant must act out the fate of Israel, must be Israel on behalf of the Israel that can no longer be obedient to its vocation. The God of Israel is the creator and redeemer of Israel and the world. In faithfulness to his ancient promises, he will act within Israel and the world to bring to its climax the great story of exile and restoration, of the divine rescue operation, of the kind who brings justice, of the Temple that joins heaven and earth, of the Torah that binds God’s people together, and of creation healed and restored. It is not only heaven and earth that are to come together. It is God’s future and God’s present.”

Awesome post from the blog BillyVS Quickhits! Read the full entry here: http://billyvsquickhits.blogspot.com/2009/06/simply-christian-thoughts-on-israel.html

Beauty of the new earth

“The world is full of beauty, but the beauty is incomplete. Our puzzlement about what beauty is, what it means, and what (if anything) it is there for is the inevitable result of looking at one part of a larger whole. Beauty, in other words, is another echo of a voice—a voice which (from the evidence before us) might be saying one of several different things, but which, were we to hear it in all its fullness, would make sense of what we presently see and hear and know and love and call ‘beautiful.’ Beauty, like justice, slips through our fingers.” ~ N.T. Wright, Simply Christian

A new exodus

“Isaiah’s vision of cosmic renewal and joy, of heaven and earth coming together because of the work of the Servant, because of the establishment of the covenant, fits exactly with Paul’s understanding of his own apostolic labour, in which suffering and joy are woven so closely together, in which in particular he himself has ‘become’ the covenant faithfulness of God, and in which the present time has become ‘the time of favour’, ‘the day of salvation’.” ~ N.T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God

You can buy Wright’s new book here: Paulbook
http://store.fortresspress.com/store/productgroup/634/Paul-and-the-Faithfulness-of-God-Christian-Origins-and-the-Question-of-God-Volume-4

“I never imagined it would be like this.”

“Compared to what he now beheld, the world he’d come from was a land of shadows, colorless and two-dimensional. This place was fresh and captivating, resonating with color and beauty. He could not only see and hear it, but feel and smell and taste it. Every hillside, every mountain, every waterfall, every frolicking animal in the fields seemed to beckon him to come join them, to come from the outside and plunge into the inside. This whole world had the feel of cool water on a blistering August afternoon. The light beckoned him to dive in with abandon, to come join the great adventure.

“I know what this is,” Quan said.

“Tell me,” said the Carpenter.

“It’s the substance that casts all those shadows in the other world. The circles there are copies of the spheres here. The squares there are copies of the cubes here. The triangles there are copies of the pyramids here. Earth was a flatland. This is…well, the inside is bigger than the outside, isn’t it? How many dimensions are there?”

“Far more than you have seen yet,” the King said, laughing.

“This is the Place that defines and gives meaning to all places,” Li Quan said. “I never imagined it would be like this.”

~ From Safely Home by Randy Alcorn

God Rejoicing in the New Creation

The inimitable Charles Spurgeon delivered an incredibly joyous message on the New Creation in 1891:

“But the work which is spoken of in the text is begun already among us. There is to be a literal new creation, but that new creation has commenced already; and I think, therefore, that even now we ought to manifest a part of the joy. If we are called upon to be glad and rejoice in the completion of the work, let us rejoice even in the commencement of it.” 

Especially beautiful:

“I do not think that any man is altogether beyond hope who can take delight in the nightly heavens as he watches the stars, and feel joy as he treads the meadows all bedecked with kingcups and daisies. He is not lost to better things who, on the waves, rejoices in the creeping things innumerable drawn up from the vasty deep, or who, in the woods, is charmed with the sweet carols of the feathered minstrels.” 

And most awesome of all:

“There is one reason why you are called upon to rejoice in it, namely, that you are a part of it. When the angels saw God making this world, they sang together, and shouted for joy; but they were not a part of this lower world. They had nothing to do with man’s estate, save as a matter of sympathy. But as for this new creation of our gracious God, you and I, beloved, who have believed in Jesus, are part of it. That same grace, which has quickened others into new life, has quickened us. The same Spirit, who has given new principles and new desires to others, has given them to us also. The Father hath begotten us again by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We are the central beings of the new creation, and so let us joy and rejoice in it with all our soul, and mind, and strength.”

This is just a small taste. You can read the full sermon at: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2211.htm