And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.
Revelation 21: 23, 24
This is a dream, an aspiration of the imaginations of people that love God. There will be a time when the darkness of strife and the cloud of death will no longer exist on the face of creation. That day has not come, but it is promised to us by the Lord, and He is more than good for His word in matters both small and great. In that glorious day when redemption has been fully deployed and sin and rebellion against God have come to an end, whatever stands as national distinction will cease to be a cause for separation. Instead, it will probably be a source of beauty in the sense that the aggregate of human difference and variety are all a part of a grand tapestry that in its summation fleshes out a picture of the fullness of humanity.
Imagine with me, if you would, the world without strife, absent violence, and void of all forms of anger and distrust. Consider what it would mean to never fear of anything or anyone again. Then contemplate how it might be if love, respect, and acceptance were the singular vocabulary of all interaction and the language of formal and informal discourse. This is the work that Christ’s blood will do upon this broken world. This becomes the final and total outworking of the torment that Christ endured upon the cross, for the redemption of creation is God’s final and ultimate objective. That redemption brings about the restoration of the perfection of God’s original handiwork, and it is the world where all that follow Christ will dwell as God’s glory fills every aspect of the visual space in the universe.
Yes, this is a promise and a hoped for future, but I think that it is more than this. The glory of the Lord is not absent from the ground that we walk and the air that we breath today. Christ is considerably greater than just a once and a future king. He is alive today, and His Spirit is very active in our world. Each of us that call upon Christ as our Savior and Lord is an important part of the God’s redemptive work in this place where we walk today. He desires to shine forth the light of love and truth into every corner of the world, and this work of bringing light into dim and darkened places is something that all of Christ’s people has been granted to do as a gift and as a responsibility. We are to live in the comprehension of the light that was granted to us by Christ through the work of the cross, and we are given the privilege of living out the presence of the Lord in all that we think, say, and do. In this way, we bring the light of eternity into the reality of the places where our journey will take us this day.