Seems Like God

Housing (Photo credit: james.thompson)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; Revelation 21:3-4

There are times when I can’t help but agree with the ancient astronaut theorists – this passage sounds for all the world like the way someone from a primitive culture might describe a spaceship landing. That, I think, would be kind of cool.

On a spiritual and metaphorical level, however, I’m drawn to the concept that the “home of God is among mortals.” The author of John’s Revelation still understood God as a separate being but we can apply our modern understanding to the words to see Theos in the universal light of one Creation; one existence that is both immanent and transcendent.

Once we begin to accept the inseverability of our relationship with Theos, and the inseverability of God’s relationship with us, we can begin to appreciate the immensity of what we’re called to be part of.

We also begin to be challenged with the daunting task of living up to, each in our own way, the call to be part of the transformation of the world that we’ve just acknowledged with the celebration of Easter.