WEDNESDAY, November 16

Revelation 21:9-21. The city is pure gold, clear as glass.…And the twelve gates are twelve pearls.

How do you imagine heaven? Our capacity to imagine anything is limited by what we’ve experienced, which means it’s limited to things earthly. It is not surprising, therefore, that John’s several dreams of heaven, recorded in the Book of Revelation, resemble things on earth. How could it be otherwise? Streets of gold, gates of pearl, harp music, white robes, palm branches, endless day—most of our stereotypical images of heaven (often appearing in The New Yorker cartoons, among other places) come from this biblical book and are decidedly of this world. John takes earth’s loveliest things and imagines heaven as made entirely of them. We know that can’t be literally true, but earthly images are the only images we have.

I like what John Donne did with this in one of his sermons:

And into that gate they shall enter, and in that house they shall dwell, where there shall be no cloud nor sun, no darkness nor dazzling but one equal light, no noise nor silence but one equal music, no fears nor hopes but one equal possession, no foes nor friends but one equal communion and identity, no ends nor beginnings but one equal eternity.

View the daily Lectionary Readings at http://satucket.com/lectionary/

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