on earth as in Heaven
cultivating ancient temples in the wilderness.
By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down, yea, we wept
When we remembered Zion.
We hung our harps
Upon the willows in the midst of it…
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
In a foreign land?
Psalm 137:1-2, 4
I can’t tell you how many times I have sat down to write the second article in this series I am doing on Eden. I actually just hit ‘delete’ on three paragraphs’ worth of what would be called ‘correct’ writing. I’d written those paragraphs on the basis of an outline that I had crafted on a Freeform (something like Milanote or another creative brainstorm online outlet) board with more resources and background information than my brain knew what to do with. That’s when my brain hit the pause button — and I stopped. Stopped thinking so hard about writing, and just let my ideas drift. Drift away, to be more specific. I’m the type to wait for the right time, the right way, the perfect time, the perfect way. The words to enchant and create beautiful imagery, the right caption to burst into bloom within my mind. The right picture to place underneath said caption.
Until, say, the past few months. I have been reading a book called You Are Free by Rebekah Lyons. It has arguably changed my perspective on God, freedom, sin, and enslavement to the powers of the world. Aside from the Bible itself, this book has been one for… well, the books. I cannot imagine a more gracious and free-speaking woman that Mrs. Lyons. But anyway, back to my original point. I was reading this remarkable tale when I came across a specific passage that mentioned Jeremiah 1. I’ll insert the NKJV of the verse she mentions in the chapter here.
“Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
6 Then said I:
“Ah, Lord God!
Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.”
7 But the Lord said to me:
“Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’
For you shall go to all to whom I send you,
And whatever I command you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of their faces,
For I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord.
9 Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me:
“Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
10 See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms,
To root out and to pull down,
To destroy and to throw down,
To build and to plant.”
Leading up to me sitting down and deciding to finally reboot this Eden discovery series, my friend and fellow writer encouraged me not to get lost in eloquence and a charismatic tongue but to preach Christ and nothing less. That settled it. And so without further ado, I present to you, with the blessing of God, the second installment of the window into an Eden narrative.
At the end of my first presentation on Paradise, I promised that we could dive in together and muse on what Heaven on earth would really be like. What a huge topic. I’m not even sure where I would start with that. I suppose that our modernized notion of Heaven is very small compared to the realities of eternal life. But before I can even begin to speak on earth becoming Eden for humanity and all the rest of creation, I can’t really skip out on describing Christ as the epitome of Paradise. For a believer, there is no such thing as a renewed Garden without the Divine. The vow that the Lord made when he ascended, that he would return bearing eternality in his hands, is what I think makes the human heart move upwards and onwards — not a picture of relaxing on a tropical beach somewhere without a care in the world.
Jesus himself promised that creation itself would be recreated, he himself would come to rewrite the entire story of humanity. That started at the cross, when he stamped on the head of the Serpent, and in turn took the Serpent’s poisonous bite for all of us. But does it start at the sign of the cross? I’m not so sure now. Jesus’ work began when He began healing sick hearts, sick bodies, and sick minds — that came before his death.
Christ is a hotspot descending from the Heavenly Garden. An image brought to mind comes from a video I watched about Heaven and Earth from the Bible Project. A part of the video shows a less than life-like stick figure Jesus bouncing around from place to place inside the circle representing earth, creating pockets of life wherever he went, as he healed the sick and dying.
The New Testament isn’t the first place where Eden touchstones are mentioned. Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the imagery leading up to His bodily descent to live among us. The Old Testament, particularly in the Pentateuch and the prophetic books, share visuals and stories. The mention of temples, tabernacles, and personal moments between God and one person are all over the pages of the Bible. Jacob at Bethel; Hagar on her way back to Egypt; Moses and the burning bush; Moses on Mt. Sinai; the building of the Tabernacle; Solomon’s Temple. There are many mentions of a future Paradise in Isaiah and Ezekiel as well. Eden is this wonderful safe haven of goodness, love, unity, restoration, healing — a wellspring for our souls.
But then there’s this nasty thing called sin, a thing which destroyed unity, something I covered last time. Sin created exiles of us all. God’s partners decided not to be His partners after all, and to create for themselves a Babylon. Now, although that ancient city has ended, we carry a piece of Babylonian pride and rebellion in our hearts — every. single. one of us. Since the exile from the Garden, we are destined for hatred, death, cursed tongues, sickness, anxiety, strife, disunity, disloyalty, and dishonesty. Separation from the hotspot. Cut off, from what humanity was meant to thrive on. God’s people have been running, running, running away, since almost the beginning. We’ve built empires based on the idea that we cannot trust others, and we cannot trust God. Just look at Nimrod in Genesis 10. The mighty hunter before Yahweh. He thought he could reach the level of a deity by creating a tower to reach the heavens. Notice Pharaoh, the great king of Egypt. Cain, who went and built a city with walls, to keep enemies out, and his selected few in. And several thousand years into this destruction, darkness has never been as all-consuming as it is now. In the modern age, poverty and sickness run rampant. Disease of the heart and the body dog humanity’s steps. Every exhale of our breath is a fight for survival.
Where did hope go? Where did this Paradise hide itself? “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear? Even cry out to You, “Violence!” And You will not save. Why do You show me iniquity, and cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; there is strife, and contention arises. Therefore the law is powerless, and justice never goes forth.” (Hab. 1:2-4).
Let’s slow down a little bit, and hone in on examples of where God has met humans in the exile wilderness.
Jacob, a man renamed Israel. He had deceived his father-in-law (way to start off on the right footing with your wives’ family). He was afraid. He was on the run. God met him in the His own house, in Bethel. There, Jacob saw wondrous things — steps leading to and from the realm above to the one below. God comforted him, revealed to him something that was taking place outside of Jacob’s personal problems.
Hagar, a woman used and abandoned. Running. Running from slavery, abuse, and carrying with her the only thing important in her life — her son. We can imagine her weeping for the end to come. But God met her there, in her loss and wandering in the chaos of the world that had invaded her own life. He raised her up, and commanded her to return to exile. There was something bigger at work here too.
David, a man who was close to God’s heart, on the run from the wicked Saul who sought to put David out of the running for the ruling of Israel. Psalm after psalm recounts the times of David’s tears as he cried himself to sleep, begging God to hear him call. Jesus was born in the city of David, a direct descendent from an exiled king on the run.
Not to mention the best (brutal?) example of all — the constant removal of the Israelite people from their land. Ancient kingdom after ancient kingdom stormed the gates of this rebellious city, and took everything they held dear. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah (these last three were the men thrown into the fire at Nebuchadnezzar’s command), and thousands of others, given into their enemy’s hands. In a commentary I read while going through Ezekiel, I read this quote: “The escapees [Israelite captives] will emerge from their dispersal among the nations a transformed people. The process of transformation is not without its ironies. First, the spiritual renewal will occur on foreign soil, which most Israelites considered unclean or defiled. Second, to many Israelites, contact with Yahweh depended on residence in his land. Now they would learn that the very opposite was the case—continued presence in the land signified God’s rejection. The future lay with the exiles.” - The Book of Ezekiel, Daniel Block
40 years of desert wandering, because these people were too stubborn to trust that God knew better.
Over, and over, and over again.
In all of these stories, as modern readers of the Bible, there are two ways we can read these narratives. 1) we can see these as examples of God abandoning humanity to their own destruction — no more than we deserve. We can read these and shake our fists at the sky, and say, “See! That God up there doesn’t do a single one of us any good. He left us to be thrown away!” or 2) we begin to see the presence of Yahweh, the LORD of hosts, the God Who Sees. We see him creating stories of people who experienced moments of perfect union with God in an imperfect world that is quickly spiraling into the de-creation that it sprang from. Not only were there personal experiences that have become touchstones for all of God’s chosen priests, but the tabernacle, Solomon’s temple, Zion, Mt. Sinai, were physical locations where the presence of God dwelt and was made manifest. Are there physical locations where the holiness of God can be more tangibly experienced these days? I’m not sure. I’m not sure we are supposed to know.
But the man and woman to your right and to your left, the ones that lift their hands to praise the Creator, they are Eden temples that walk and talk, that are given the opportunity to speak life rather than cursing over others.
When we give freely, walk with others in justice and honor, have patience in affliction, diligence in all our tasks, and show compassion to our neighbor, each act has a domino affect — in those Divine moments, Heaven touches Earth.
Exile can be seen as a desert wilderness, far from the presence of God. And sometimes, the wilderness feels as lonely and dry as in reality, it really is. But there is hope to be uncovered. There is a wealth of a spiritual spring running beneath the foundations of that parched ground. It is our choice, whether we give in to the wild and waste of the earth, or we move forward in incremental steps to partner with the Maker, in stewarding and cultivating little mini Edens in every season of life.
“For as the earth brings forth its bud,
As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth,
So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” - Isaiah 61:11