And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
Revelation 21:3 (NIV)
The City Comes Down
The gate across the causeway carries a sign that reads ROAD CLOSED NOVEMBER THROUGH APRIL, and a man in a windbreaker steps around the end of it, because the walking is still allowed and he checked. The lighthouse is a white stub a mile down. He has a paper bag of fries from the gas station and he eats them as he goes. He came out here on purpose.
A city comes down out of the sky in what John is shown, dressed like a bride for her husband, and a voice off the throne goes up loud. Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
John hears that inside a world that has just arrived. By then the first earth has passed away, the sea is gone, and the old order of things is finished. It’s hard to picture a missing sea from a causeway with water on both sides of it.
The motion in the vision runs against his too. He walked out to the light. People do that with a lighthouse and with most things they want. The city travels instead. It comes down out of heaven to where the people already are, and the voice says it four times over: he will dwell with them, they will be his people, God himself will be with them, he will be their God.
The two directions don’t meet this afternoon. He will reach the white stub, stand there a few minutes with cold hands, and walk the mile back to his car with the water on both sides of him the entire distance. People read these lines at funerals as though God had already moved in next door, and then everybody drives home to the same rooms.
The vision moves in one direction the whole way through. The city comes down, God’s dwelling place ends up among the people, and nothing in it climbs. The voice announces that about a world nobody has walked in yet.
The road opens in April and the light will be where he left it.
A Prayer to Remember
I want the end of the story more than I want this week. That’s where I am. Teach me to live at the speed you are actually working, and give me something useful to do with the next few hours that has nothing to do with waiting.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
