day before Easter

Saturday, tomorrow is the most important festival in the Church year besides Christmas. Without either one, we would be people of no hope.

Today I read: According to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:13

Helps me get it into perspective. Today Bell and I found two more marvelous churches on a mountain-hill here on the southern bank of the Arno. They are a stone's throw from each other. One is shiney, green and white marble with gold mosaic above the main entrance. The other was that lovely sand colored cement and simple, but still huge. We are quite used to feeling dwarfed when we go into a church anymore. The pillars going up the nave seem to disappear into the dimness of the roof. Then sometimes we see hints of fantastic paintings up there, sometimes it is just too dark. Then along either side, we stop and contemplate the paintings in the various chapels. Paintings reminding us of Christ's life and work as well as some incredible saintly people who paid a very high price for their faith. Just a few candles and the long, thin windows let in light.

Every church is a new experience and I feel the dedication of those who worked so hard to leave a reminder this massive and vivid. The Kingdom, over time, is an immense whole that it hard to contemplate when you are limited by finity.

Then the verse just popped out at me. I've been reading 2 Peter quite a bit lately, it is the book the Quelimane Thursday group is studying while we are on this trip.

We are waiting for new heavens (plural) and a new earth. Imagine what they must be like. These immense, soaring cathedrals and monuments to Christ and the change He brings to a life, they will all be gone in a flash. They will be burned to nothing.

It would make me sad except for the great promise that the new heavens and new earth will be where RIGHTEOUSNESS dwell. Something to give you pause.

May this be a most blessed Easter for you and yours.
The peace of the Lord be always with you.