What If?

What if Jesus came again? And it all happened as we imagine except for one little difference. Everyone was raised from the dead, we had the last judgement and the world was set to rights, and everyone who desires God ‘bends the knee’ to Jesus and everyone who rejects God gets their wish and is sent to an alternative reality where God is fully absent (it sounds like hell to me!).

But then just when everyone was expecting to fly up to heaven to live in a strange new reality called heaven, Jesus says, “You are not going to heaven! You are staying here on earth and I am coming down from heaven to live with you!”

As confused Christians look around at the polluted, overgrazed, overfished earth Jesus says,” Have you not read the Scriptures? Did I not tell you that your future is eternal life with me on this planet?” And He reads from Paul’s letter to the Roman Church…

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:18-21 NIV)

Jesus then turns to the gathered people and says, “I release you and this earth from bondage to death and decay but you are still this world’s stewards and caretakers just like Adam and Eve in the Garden. Now turn your beautiful God-given creativity to the task of living sustainably and cleaning up the mess. Behold, I will come and pick up rubbish with you and replant the land with you.”

Imagine the many gathered people’s looking at the earth with the dawning realization that God holds the earth (and our place in it) as infinitely precious. “We thought God was going to dump it and we would all live in heaven”, they say. “If only we had paid attention to the Scriptures, we would have treated it differently!”
But then another thought occurs to them as one says, “I really love a challenge. I don’t think this afterlife stuff is going to be quite as boring as I feared!” Looking around they realise that they are surrounded by friends not competitors or suspicious strangers.

Somebody pipes up, “I want to start with Greensborough. What can we improve here?” They start thinking …

Yours in Hope,

Graeme