The Assembly
April 18, 2021
I was in a Zoom meeting with 24 ministers, elders, and church leaders from around the world this week. Several ministers requested prayers for their congregations moving forward, because the pandemic has loosened their ties of fellowship. The pandemic is easing, but people, especially the young members, aren’t chomping at the bit to return. To be fair, I think this mentality pre-dates the pandemic, even if a year of Zoom church has exacerbated it. Perhaps it’s instructive to note that the ministers making the observation are in affluent countries, Switzerland and Australia.
I’m struck at how different that is from Revelation 21. In Revelation 21, people are streaming to the new Jerusalem. And it’s not as if they just hop in their car, drive 30 minutes, and voila, they arrive. No, they’re coming from the world over. They’re hopping on boats, crossing mountain ranges and deserts, and bringing with them gifts and offerings to boot! In short, there will come a day when we are no longer bemoaning getting up early to go to church on Sunday, but when we will brave all the ardors of travel to get to where the community of God gathers around his very presence.
Perhaps a note of caution is due here. C.S. Lewis paints an imaginative picture of what happens after death in The Great Divorce. He imagines a hyper-individualized, gray and shadowy existence, where everyone is free to give into all of their lesser impulses and it rains all the time. It’s downright dreary and miserable. But there’s a bus from this place, and it flies up to a different place, one that is bright but also painful. It’s more real and solid. The shadows who arrive here find the grass so solid that it cuts painfully into their feet, and the flowing water of the river so solid that they can walk on it. This place is real, and they are something lesser.
Everyone who makes this journey is greeted by an acquaintance who will help acquaint them with this place, inviting them to stay in this more-real place, this “new creation” place. All it takes is being willing to embark on a (painful) walk to the mountain in the distance, with the acquaintance to guide and help along the journey.
And one by one, the shadows get back on the bus. Having spent a lifetime being their own person, living their own way, they have no desire to submit to this new way of life, whether it’s more real and meaningful or not. After all, when we die, we do not magically become someone new. If we are bored serving God in this life, why would we not be bored serving God in the life after death? If we don’t want God now, why would we later?
So may we be diligent (when it’s safe) in training ourselves to be people who are willing to make the journey to the new Jerusalem, that city where we will gather with people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation (Rev. 5.9).
—John Coffey
