hiking2christ

Toward the end of his days on earth, as the darkness of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday raced toward him, Jesus gave us this remarkable promise:

In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will rule gloriously, you who have followed me will also rule, starting with the twelve tribes of Israel. And not only you, but anyone who sacrifices home, family, fields—whatever—because of me will get it all back a hundred times over, not to mention the considerable bonus of eternal life. (Matthew 19:28–29 The Message)

Did you catch that? The re-creation of the world! The religious fog would have us believe that when we die we go to church forever, there to sing hymns for millennia. A horrible distortion, and not the future as Jesus understood it. He called the next chapter “the re-creation of the world,” sometimes translated as “the renewal of all things” (NIV, NRSV). A renewed heavens, a renewed earth. My friends, I hope you understand that we get the entire glorious kingdom back. Sunlight on water; songbirds in a forest; desert sands under moonlight; vineyards just before harvest—Jesus fully intends to restore the glorious world he gave us. Paradise lost; paradise regained. A hundred times over.

This was what was in his own thoughts when he said, as he passed the cup to his brothers in the upper room just hours before Gethsemane and the Gestapo, “I’ll not be drinking wine from this cup again until that new day when I’ll drink with you in the kingdom of my Father” (Matt. 26:29 The Message). Jesus knew as sure as he knew anything that a new day was coming and with it a glorious kingdom. And there he knew we would feast again—not merely sing—and raise our glasses, and he would break his fast. Food, drink, laughter, life. The joy set before him. Cana was just a foretaste.

-John Eldredge, Beautiful Outlaw, 246-247