Eden Restored*
1 Then the angel showed me the
river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the
throne of God and of the Lamb 2
down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the
river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding
its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of
the nations. 3 No longer
will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in
the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be
on their foreheads. 5
There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or
the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they
will reign for ever and ever.
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*The Bible Reading today: Revelation 22:1-5 - New International Version
(NIV)
The interpretation from Our Daily Bread: http://www.odb.org/
In a TV commercial I saw recently, the kids argued in the
back seat of the car about where to stop for dinner. One wanted pizza;
another chicken. Mom, in the front passenger seat, said, “No, we’ll stop
for a hamburger.”
Dad quickly solved the family disagreement with this idea: “We’ll stop at the buffet restaurant, and you can each have what you want and all you want.” The commercial closes with the words, “Take care of family squabbles about what’s for dinner. Go to _____ Buffet, the ‘Land of And.’”
When I saw that commercial, I thought of another “Land of And”: heaven. It is a place that will have all we need. Foremost, we will be in the very presence of Almighty God. In describing heaven, the apostle John said, “The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it” (Rev. 22:3). Our thirsty souls will be completely satisfied from the “pure river of water of life” that proceeds from His throne (22:1), for He says to His people, “I will give . . . freely to him who thirsts” (21:6). Another “and” in this land will be the tree of life for “the healing of the nations” (22:2). What we won’t find in this Land of And are the curse (22:3), death, sorrow, and tears (21:4).
We’ll be completely satisfied in that Land of And. Are you ready to go?
Dad quickly solved the family disagreement with this idea: “We’ll stop at the buffet restaurant, and you can each have what you want and all you want.” The commercial closes with the words, “Take care of family squabbles about what’s for dinner. Go to _____ Buffet, the ‘Land of And.’”
When I saw that commercial, I thought of another “Land of And”: heaven. It is a place that will have all we need. Foremost, we will be in the very presence of Almighty God. In describing heaven, the apostle John said, “The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it” (Rev. 22:3). Our thirsty souls will be completely satisfied from the “pure river of water of life” that proceeds from His throne (22:1), for He says to His people, “I will give . . . freely to him who thirsts” (21:6). Another “and” in this land will be the tree of life for “the healing of the nations” (22:2). What we won’t find in this Land of And are the curse (22:3), death, sorrow, and tears (21:4).
We’ll be completely satisfied in that Land of And. Are you ready to go?
There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain. —Watts
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain. —Watts
Earth—the land of trials; heaven—the
land of joys.
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My thought:
I think I was born with a DNA codes that lead my mind to believe that there is that faraway land, that I always feel like I miss it every time, a kind of unaddressed pain, which I believe it does truly exist, that somehow, some time, I will have the chance to see it, to live in it one day. That it is my real, genuine, original home. For every time I moved, I still felt like something is missing, that I don't really belong here or there, nor the place where I've been before, not the place that I stayed after. That I am, after all, just a small boat sails over the ocean; stopping by at a harbor to see the city, and then leaving to another city and moves on again and again, comma, until one day, I will meet the last ultimate harbor, where I throw the anchor, forever, in eternity full stop. The land of unknown. A kind of land behind the sea swallow curtain of Azlan's Kingdom in the Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis). There must be one last stop for all this travel in this profane Earth. That last stop is this Eden, the restored Eden, that the Bible passage talks about today. The land where people sing and praise the entire day and day (since there will be no nights no more), umm, I'm not even sure if time does exist there, because time measurement: the sun, the planets, the moon, will be no longer exist. Then forever it is, eternal it is, in that far faraway land.
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