OCTOBER 26 2022
THE VERY LAST MARRIAGE
Today Chaos is the universal condition. We have really screwed things up, and it looks increasingly that remedies are impossible, so we have to live with the consequences of our past conduct and our current living habits. The real question is ‘how long’. How long what? How long until living becomes impossible. This is already the case in multiple countries, such as Pakistan, where floods cover a good portion of the land, or Australia, one of the white, rich countries, or British Columbia, that lush Province, the most sought-after living destination in Canada with its beautiful scenery, the salmon streams, the skiing jewel, the endless forests, all under the siege of lung-killing particles.
A recent article by a forester is utterly damming:
“Whole forests with fire-resistant giant sequoias up to 3,000 years in age have recently gone up in flames. Whole stands of drought-resistant Great Basin bristlecone pine, a species that can reach 5,000 years in age, have been sucked dry by bark beetles. Monumental baobabs, the longest-living flowering plants, buckle under the stress of drought in southern Africa. The iconic cedars of Mount Lebanon, ancient symbols of longevity, struggle in warmer, drier conditions. Millennial kauris in New Zealand and centenarian olive trees in Italy succumb to invasive diseases.”
When age-old trees succumb, it is time to stop and think. When nature, which has made 5,000 years old trees to brace wind and drought, floods and ice, hurricanes and wars, fall prey to Climate Chance, it is time to reflect and assess where we are. Trees are our canaries in the coalmine, are our alarms to wake us up. Their peril is our peril; their expiry is our expiry; their plight is our plight: we have to stop and think; stop and look back; stop and change; stop and pray.”
Pray?
We have to stop preying and start praying. David Wallace-Wells wrote The Uninhabitable Earth, life after warming, in 2019, now three, almost 4 years ago. Day by day we read of new extremes in the weather, and the turmoil is not confined to atmospheric anomalies, the political picture is equally chaotic, evident everywhere, in Iran, in England, in Russia, in the USA, as people struggle with food shortages, with inflation, with extreme weather, with fuel prices surging. It should be remembered, and almost entirely forgotten, that this world is God’s world, as Scriptures tells us repeatedly, with Psalm 24 outspokenly proclaiming that “The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”
So, what we really are doing is ‘sinning against God!”. Just imagine Johann S. Bach being alive or Rembrandt, and, in their presence, we openly destroy their music or paintings. Don’t you think they would get upset and become angry? Well, that’s what we, in our arrogance and stupidity are doing to God, the creator!
Primary Productivity.
We, as the human race, have coopted more than 50 percent of the world ‘s basic raw material, the soil, the forests, the seas, the air, and left little or nothing for the land and sea animals, or the birds or the insects. Everywhere they are being crowded out and soon we too, will disappear: it is merely a matter of time, and time is accelerating with tremendous speed. Events are speeding up. Already there are rumors of nuclear war. Russia, the USA, Pakistan, three countries with unstable political parties, are readying their ultimate destructive weaponry just in case.
Holy Matrimony
“The land will be married”, writes Isaiah 62: 4. Revelation 21: 2 fleshes that out, “The New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”
Who is the groom?
The new humanity, including Christ as the “Primus Inter Pares”, the First among Equals, humanity personified.
Who is the bride?
The New Creation. The bride is NOT the church. That same chapter, Revelation clearly states that there, in the coming era, there is no place, no reason for the church anymore, as the Law of God is embedded in each person there.
The old humanity, including its institutions, among which the Ecclesiastical organisations, will disappear, leaving no trace. As we witness today, our course of action or failure to act, is leading to total destruction. The old has gone; the new is on the verge of appearing.
Jesus has told us that in the New Creation marriage will be abandoned, will cease to be a way of life. That means that the very last marriage will be sealed and celebrated when the new humanity, with Christ as a permanent member, will in perpetuity marry the new creation, forming an unbreakable bond that will last into the utmost eternity, growing in love and bonding in ever greater measure.