November 11, 2010

“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more." (Isaiah 65:17-19)

Have you ever heard someone wax nostalgic, by recalling only the best of times, as they talked about the "good old days?" The last people who would have been able to think back and talk about the "good old days" and actually have had something legitimately and purely good to talk about, would have been our first parents Adam and Eve. They experienced Eden. They experienced life before sin tainted the creation that was very good - "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31) And things were very good until sin complicated and frustrated the order that God established. Sin created a new order that is laced with weeping and crying and groaning. Paul said in his letter to the Romans "that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." (Romans 8:22)

But God's plans were, and still are, to eventually put an end to the groaning for good, by creating new. Near the end of John's vision of the new creation that we have recorded for us in Revelation, we find a passage that quotes a line from the passage we are considering from Isaiah, "Then [John] saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away" (Revelation 21:1) The order, or how this world currently operates, will pass away. "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:4-5) Everything about the way things operate now on this earth will be no more. What a change God's new creation will be for us. "Change" and "new" are words that might make us Lutherans feel somewhat uncomfortable. I am reminded of a joke, (Question) "How many Lutherans does it take to "change" a light bulb? (Answer) ... Lutherans ... change something? nah..." We should thank God that we have been blessed with such a great heritage and we should thank God that we have been blessed with such enlightened forefathers so that our practices, and most importantly our theology, doesn't need reform. "If it aint broke, don't fix it," they say, but sometimes our motivation to avoid trying something new is strictly because we are intimidated by our fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown can be a strong emotion associated with thinking about life after our physical bodies die. Those who are unbelievers are really in the dark about the unknowns associated with the afterlife, but even we who believe and are students and searchers of the Scriptures, even we don't have a crystal clear picture of what God's new creation will look like or be like. But we can be comforted, and our fears of the unknown can be silenced by what the Holy Spirit tells us in these verses through the prophet. We have nothing to worry about, in fact we can "be glad and rejoice forever in what God will create."

Eventually someone who is talking about the "good old days," if they talk long enough will likely stumble into recalling days where situations affected by sin caused them to suffer and maybe even cry. We can take comfort in the fact that when our struggles on this earth come to an end and we begin our new life in the new creation, that nothing about "the old days," from our sin-tainted life on this earth will be remembered. We will be in a place where not only "the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more," but we also will be in a place where we won't even hear the sounds of weeping or crying in our minds or in our memories, because these sounds - which are a result of sin and sin's consequences - "will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind."

Yes, we have a new creation to look forward to, and while we aren't given all the details, we don't need to suffer from the fear of the unknown, because God has promised that His new creation will be a place of joy for us. Thankfully, when we reach this new place of joy, we won't remember anything about any of the days we spent here on this earth - days that were tainted with sin and the mess that sin creates. When we reach the new creation, we won't be talking about what are actually the "not so good old days" from here on this earth, we will be too busy experiencing the joys and delights of the "best new days," spent in the new creation. And not only will we be taking joy and delight, but God will also be rejoicing and taking delight in us and with us! "[God] will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in [His] people." How awesome will that be? Amen - come Lord Jesus and take us to Your new creation! Amen!