“Green Acres”

I was talking with a friend last week about heaven. He said he has always thought of wide-open space, of glittering hardscapes and fortified walls. He said, “I’ve never thought of green.”

I always think of heaven as a big garden, next to a big field, next to a big grove with a crick. Lots of green, with trees and grass and goats and bears and lions and lambs (and probably my childhood dog, Zachie). My friend and I were talking about John’s sermon (you can check out my church at fellowshiptoday.com) and I mentioned that the tree of life from the Garden of Eden will reappear in heaven, according to Revelation, and heaven has to have grass for the goats and lions to eat.

He looked at me like I was a little nuts. So I told him he could look forward to his previously deceased pets probably being there, too, and the look of skepticism deepened. I had to show him Isaiah 11, where the prophet talks about Jesus and heaven. It says, “In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat… The lion will eat hay like a cow... Nothing will hurt or destroy…”

In Romans 8, Paul writes, “For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day ... Against its will, all creation was subjected to the curse [of sin]. But with eager hope, all creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

And listen to what David says in 1 Chronicles 16: “Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice! Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise! Let the fields and their crops burst out with joy! Let the trees of the forest rustle with praise, for the Lord is coming…”

The prophets love to talk about how creation knows its Creator: “The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands,” Isaiah 55:12.

And then there’s Jesus, who in Luke 19:40 says that if his people keep quiet, the rocks and stone will cry out in praise of him.

And, when God took the opportunity to make anything out of nothing, what did he make? What did he lovingly craft and rejoice over and call very good? Earth. Plants, trees, grass and the cows and lions to eat it. He made dogs and cats and birds and bears and flowers, and everything lived in peace and harmony, without death or destruction. So why wouldn’t he include his beloved creation in heaven? Why would he not redeem all of his creation? Why wouldn’t he save everything he made? If the stones and trees (and certainly donkeys, according to Numbers 22) know who he is and wait eagerly for his return, why would he leave them out? Why would he not rescue that which he loves?