Healing Rays of Righteousness

Anne Frank was a young, Jewish girl living in Amsterdam when the Nazis came to power. She was no longer able to play along the beautiful canal outside her home. She had to go into hiding, never leaving her neighbor’s apartment. Many of her friends were rounded up and sent to death camps. Anne lived under constant threat of being discovered. One day she wrote in her diary, “I just heard the church bells ring. I believe they are saying, ‘there are better days ahead!’”

This is the message the apostle Peter wrote to his persecuted and suffering fellow-believers in his day. “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and new earth, the home of righteousness.” (2 Pet. 3:13). “There are better days ahead.”

And, it is the message of apostle John, banished on the isle of Patmos, and writing to the persecuted, suffering Christian churches of his day. “There are better days ahead.” 

The book of Revelation records the heavenly visions God gave to John as encouragement for the Christians of Asia Minor who were suffering much pain and persecution. In chapters 21 & 22, John looks beyond the agony of human history, as seen in chapter 20, and receives a vision of a new reality. He sees “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” 

The amazing affirmation of Revelation 21 & 22 is that God, having created a new heaven and a new earth, will return in majestic victory over all evil, pain, and suffering, to intimately dwell with all humankind eternally.

Do you remember what Jesus told his disciples after announcing that he was leaving them and that they could not follow him? “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (Jn. 14:1-3). “There are better days ahead.”

And do you remember the angel’s message to them in? “Men of Galilee, …why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11).

John describes the holy city descending like a bride, beautifully adorned for her husband. The “new Jerusalem” is seen not as a place, but rather as a metaphor for God’s people, in whose midst God dwells, even as the old Jerusalem metaphorically stood for the whole people of Israel, and the temple represented and made real God’s presence in their midst.

The central and most fundamental language of this new reality is “relationship” language. God comes down to have an intimate relationship with us, like he did in the Garden of Eden. Such a relationship with us has always been his desire and creative purpose. And nothing is more intimate than wiping tears from the face of someone who is in deep pain. Imagine the glorious, almighty, holy God now living among us and wiping the tears from our eyes.

In his vision, John sees heaven as a glorious place and describes it with vivid images. Paul says heaven will be better than our wildest imaginings and quotes an unknown writing: … “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived – the things God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9).

In her book, Joy in Our Weakness, Marva J. Dawn, writes, “Whatever description we might offer of what it means to be in the presence of GOD after our death will be grossly inadequate. It is not the place we are interested in, after all, nor some sort of spectacular final event. It is our encounter with the Person, the Lord of lords and King of kings. (p.201).

Imagine being greeted by Jesus and hearing the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. …Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”  (Mt. 25:21, 34). Yes indeed, “there are better days ahead!”

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Ray M. Geigley – “Healing Rays of Righteousness” – www.geigler13.wordpress.com – 9/04/24