“Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.”
John 2:11 NRSVUE
The disciples immediately believed in him. I’m sure that’s why they continued to follow him. Day after day, they saw his love, his compassion, his miracles. They walked right beside him. They participated with him in his ministry, even performing miracles themselves. Yet they still doubted sometimes and had to be reminded often. This gives me hope.
“Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!”
Psalms 148:7-8 NRSVUE
“Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!”
Psalms 148:9-10 NRSVUE
Sometimes when I am singing and praying, I ask God to add my voice to those of the whole universe that are already praising him. I imagine the elders and living creatures around his throne offering him praises continually, and I want to be part of that holy choir. I wonder about the sounds that the stars make out in space. Is it praise music, like a symphony that only God can hear?
I have been studying the miracles of Jesus. I discovered something amazing that I have never caught before. In Jesus’ culture, the Jews were very exclusive. They thought that they were the only ones blessed by God, and everyone else was unclean. Well, Jesus performed at least 30 miracles that were recorded for us in scripture, and many more that weren’t. I was surprised to discover that many of these miracles were performed to bless “outsiders” or those that the culture of the day considered unclean and untouchable.
We think that the gospel was sent to the gentiles by the apostle Paul, after Jesus returned to heaven. But clearly we see by Jesus’ own actions that the kingdom was available to everyone without prejudice all along.
I had a new thought a couple of years ago that blew my mind.
When Jesus was dying on the cross, he cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” On first reading, this shows is Jesus feeling the separation from God that had to happen for Jesus to die for us. This is deep. But it goes deeper.
Psalm 22 starts with this same cry. It then goes on to describe the scene of Jesus on the cross. So many details: his dry mouth, his bones not broken, casting lots for his clothing.
I think Jesus, on the cross, is taking one last opportunity to show the onlookers, and us 2000 years later, what he was doing. Verse 31 ends this psalm: “They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, for he has done it.”
It is finished
Right now I am reading Isaiah and Jeremiah in a chronological Bible reading plan. I am amazed at the prophecies spanning thousands of years. God promised destruction and restoration of Israel within a 70 year time span, which happened exactly as He said it would. There were also prophecies spread out between these events which pointed to our savior, Jesus. Still others described the destruction and restoration of the whole earth.
I believe all of these predictions will come about, just as the ones that were already fulfilled have come true. The interesting part is that you can’t read these in a linear progression. It jumps from immediate predictions to messianic predictions to end time predictions in seemingly random order. I think this is because God lives outside of time. While we see many thousand years, he sees that, yes, this all happened. For me, this makes the waiting that much easier.
I just finished a study of the book of Revelation. I’ve always been confused by the size of the New Jerusalem as described in Revelation 21. I get that it is huge. I can understand how wide and long it is, but when it says it is also says it is 1400 miles high (see verse 16), I think it is impossible! Maybe it is figurative, like most of the symbols in this book. But now I have a different thought. This is my own thinking, not someone else’s idea:
The New Jerusalem arrives on the scene AFTER Satan and all of God’s enemies are destroyed by a huge fire. In fact, heaven and earth are also destroyed in the fire. Then God creates a new heaven and a new earth.
I always imagined this taking place on this earth. A huge New Jerusalem could fit on a new earth that has different dimensions than this earth. We aren’t told the size of the new earth. We don’t know much about it at all. It has no sun or moon. It may not be constrained by the things that we have now. Gravity? Does it even spin? There is no day/night cycle. I’m seeing whole new possibilities that have never crossed my mind before.
