The question for this week is “what difference does it make that our story ends with the coming of the new heavens and new earth?”  Years ago, I borrowed a friend’s copy of Bierma’s Bringing Heaven Down to Earth while we were on vacation.  Within no time, I was copying down huge portions of it because I found every word astute and challenging.  Here are some more bits and pieces from that book.  I finally ordered my own copy — though I don’t get any royalties, I think you should too:)!

“What  we need instead is a holy awareness—what psychologists call cognitive dissonance – of t he fact that we are living in a world that is in many ways wrong, a world that is different from what was intended, what was established.  The results of the sin that started when humans invited disorder into t he world – the pain and injustice that we see around us – are not just too bad, they are wrong.  They shouldn’t be.”  (54)

“The marvel of the new earth, promised in Isaiah and 2 Peter and Revelation, is this:  God is not giving up.  The heavens and earth, soiled as they have been by sin, are not a failure, not a wreck, not irretrievable.  The shalom – the heavenly wholeness, the right alignment of everything – is not beyond recovery.  God, it turns out, has a holy stubbornness, a refusal to accept ruin.

Christianity is the only religion in which God reaches down to human beings and stoops to our level. Other religions worship a god whom humans must continually try to please, try to impress, try to elevate themselves to earn his favor and approach his level. God is the only god in all of human religion who lowers himself, as a way of exalting himself.” (56)

“Shalom’s repair is achieved by reversing the process, with the improbable demotion when God becomes human.” (56)

“Nature itself will be free from sin.  Not just souls, but also soil.  Not just people, but the theater in which God performs for them and reveals himself to them.”

58:  The purpose of heaven is not to make us happy but to make things right, to win back shalom and usher in the return of rightness and wholeness.”

59:  “The human creature is called to work with God…both with and on behalf of the rest of creation,’ writes William Dyrness before introducing this intriguing idea:  ‘For it is only in relation to God’s presence and work in creation that the creature finds its meaning.”

“Our duty is to help the natural creation, in anticipation of its final, glorious rebirth. We are to keep our charge as responsible managers, as stewards, and strive to live in a way that refrains from extending humanity’s abuse of nature and instead looks for ways to reverse it.”