A Groaning Creation

People often cite Romans 8 when arguing that the whole earth groans for redemption. I sure hope this is true. All but three verses suggest that the new heaven and new earth are going to be here, on this earth. It would be one thing for God to do an extreme makeover on the earth alone, but truth be told, the whole system has got problems. An upcoming advertised program on National Geographic is all about how someday the sun will do one of those physics star blowing up deals. That means the earth will be annihilated. Something has got to change folks. I heard one theologian say that Satan is responsible for the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy. Lewis commented on it in “Miracles,” but most Christian authors that dream up utopias deal more with social behavior than they do cosmological conditions for the everlasting earth. So…as Third Eye Blind asks I similarly wonder, “How’s it gonna be?”

Well let me tell you about two places that I think give me small insights. This summer, when I had the luxury of spending my summer in one of my favorite places in the world, Tomahawk, WI, I would bike the two miles to Prairie Rapids and make my way down the river, pull out my pocket size Bible and read a Psalm or two. The background noise to my reading was the rushing sound of the river of over the rapids. You know the sound. If I had to pick something to sound like God’s voice, that would be it. As I would pray and listen I could hear God speak to me…”Be still and know that I’m God.” The river whispered.

My second example comes from this last spring break. My friends, wife, and I spent a week in Durango, CO. Our cabin was located in the mountains next to a river that flowed not more than 20 ft. from our bedroom. Amazing. On our last day there, my friend Chris and I spent some time sitting on some rocks on the river’s bank. After discussing some Bruggeman and Kafka we got the Pantheism discussion. As we gazed at the top of the mountains in front of us and listened to the river before us Chris commented that, “I know that sometimes people comment that this world is fallen, but man…there doesn’t seem much fallen about this.” I couldn’t agree more. It was gorgeous.

If these are only glimpses I can’t wait.