Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Soon

The snow falls quietly outside. It blows and swirls, making the line in that song relevant just 3 days from March. You know the one, “Oh the weather outside is frightful…”

We’re under a winter advisory for another 30 minutes.

The good news, we are within 30 days until the first day of spring.

There are probably many of us who are tired of the snow. In comparison to our friends out East, we have had a pretty mild winter. A total of 12 inches or so over a season is a little easier to deal with than 12 inches or so every week for the last month.

That is a little dramatic, but you get the point.

Before you know it the sun will be shining across my old Illinois home, buds will be budding on the trees, and kids will be kidding around outside in short sleeves and shorts. Soon, the world will be green again and it’ll look like paradise.

However, I was told paradise is a word we must use carefully. This piece of advice came again via a Christian tract. This time the card consisted of two lawn chairs sitting next to a palm tree, on a sandy beach, looking out over the ocean, a perfect juxtaposition to the weather we are currently experiencing here in Illinois.

On the backside of a card is the explanation of why this world is not paradise. That if you believe a peaceful existence is possible then you have believed the lies this world has to offer. Furthermore, paradise is where God dwells. And that dwelling place, is not here. Rather, it is up there, somewhere. And the only way to get there is if you ask Jesus into your heart and repent. If not, don’t expect sunny skies where you’ll go. You’ll be enduring an eternity of living in Death Valley…

Before sounding too pejorative, or judgmental, there is a need to repent, to believe in the good news that God loves us, and to further the incarnation with our lives. I’m not denying this. However, to declare this world is not a place of paradise is ludicrous.

Anyone who has ever resisted or mourned the destruction of the earth or the demise of one of its living species

or has wondered at the beauty of a sunrise,

or the awesome power of a storm,

or the vastness of prairie or mountain or ocean,

or the greening of the earth after periods of dryness or cold,

or the fruitfulness of a harvest,

or the unique ways of wild or domesticated animals,

or any of the other myriad phenomena of this planet and its skies has potentially brushed up against an experience of the creative power of the mystery of God, Creator Spirit. As the Bible’s love songs show, the love of God for the world is revealed through the depths of love human beings can feel for one another.

What does this have to do with paradise? It speaks to God’s continued creation in our lives. To believe paradise is some far off place is to deny the very real presence of God here and now. God is not a god who set into motion the world, destined it for corruption, and then leaves, only to return just in time for some people and not others. Creation is not a one-time event. Rather, God’s creative activity involves a continuous energizing, an ongoing sustaining of the world throughout the broad sweep of history.

God is the giver of life and the lover of life, pervading the cosmos and all of its interrelated creatures with life. If God were to withdraw God’s divine presence everything would go back to nothing.

And that nothing is a far cry from

                                             

paradise.

The last sentence of the card encourages its readers not to “live in a fool’s paradise thinking this life is all there is. God is inviting you to the ‘real’ paradise through faith in Jesus Christ.”

Honestly, while we have hope in the resurrection, what we have is now and this now is a gift. What is so compelling about God’s love and God’s goodness is that God has promised to remain with us as we return to God’s original vision of earth—paradise. Perhaps we would actually come to know what paradise has to offer if we believed in the goodness of all people, committed to the uplifting of one another, and made sure care was taken of all.

If God can make dry bones walk, why can’t God use us to usher in paradise?

God loves us and this love God has for us creates goodness, making the entire world and us lovable.

That sounds like a place I could call paradise…even when it does snow.