Thursday, February 24, 2011

Dead Man Over the Edge

At first I didn't see anything but a hazy darkness as I looked down over the edge of… I don't know what. I thought it strange that, where a moment ago there was the magnificent panorama of the "smallest bit of Heaven", now there was nothing. Or mostly nothing. As I gazed more intently I began to see more (is that how everything works here, I wondered). At a very great distance, a sphere began to emerge, like a pale, wavy-colored marble. More than anything it looked like a gray-scale rendering of the Big Blue Marble.

"Is it Earth?" I asked. I sensed more than saw him nod affirmative. "Why does it look like that? I would have expected it to be in giga-pixel color depth. You know, trillions-and-trillions-of-colors."

"You are seeing it from the context of Heaven. C.S. Lewis called it Shadowlands. You can see why. In comparison to the reality of this place, the material Creation is quite dull and drab. Of course, it wasn't that way in The Beginning, nor will it remain that way forever, but that is how it is now."

There were so many things I could have said, then. But what I ended up saying is, "why would anybody want to go there?"

"It's destiny is to be recreated, as part of the New Heavens and New Earth of Revelation, but seen at this time from here, you are viewing its true appearance."

"It looks dead."

"Yes, but it's not. It is filled with life; life lived in the shadows of death."

"It is unpleasant to look at. What are those darker patches there and there?" I asked, pointing to where I began to see them appear on the planet's surface. Again, as I willed myself to look closer, the Earth's image enlarged. I felt that if I wanted to, I could have visually dived beneath its lackluster atmosphere.

He sighed then, and it was the first hint I had gotten from him of anything less than a vast, serene joy. I looked over at him. He was sad, and for some reason that shook me to the core.

"Whoa, whoa whoa!" I almost yelled. "I thought in Heaven there would be no more tears or sorrow or pain!"

"We are not in Heaven proper, nor anywhere near His throne, nor are we in the Time of the Restoration of All Things. Those dark patches are human souls dying in unbelief. We are witnessing the black gateways of Hades opening up to consume their immortal souls, where each one will remain until they are cast, with Death, Satan, and the rest of his minions, into the Lake of Fire at the at the end of history. And there in Outer Darkness they will remain in torment for all eternity."

The timbre of his voice as he spoke was full of a grief so profound and ancient that it seemed to come from the beginning of time itself. As I turned away from him and gingerly looked back over the edge, I saw an increasing number of the blackened discolorations. These grew larger and appeared more frequent, as if the Gates of Hell itself were multiplying and spreading like some kind of planet-sized malignancy consuming all life and hope. I desperately wanted to turn away, to look once more at the vastness and beauty of Heaven, but I could not. I could only continue to gaze downward through my tears.

But then, a blaze of light! There on the surface below! Tiny pinpoints at first, but a stark contrast to the pervasive darkness. While these did not obscure the black holes peppering the fabric of the earth's drab surface, their appearance seemed miraculous and powerful nonetheless. They were beacons of something, maybe hope, or life, or I didn't know what, but something good in a horrible sea of despair.

Then I did know, as sure as I knew anything.

"Believers!" I cried excitedly, wanting to hug my counterpart in a sudden ferocious joy. Instead I pounded him enthusiastically on the back. "Yes! Yes!" I shouted. "It's not all darkness and death and despair! There's…"

"Light!" he finished for me. "And life!" His face was now as it was before, but more… radiant. His smile returned, seeming to dispel the crushing aura from the planet below. "Yes! Brothers and sisters in the faith," he continued. "Young and old. Alive and ALIVE, although their outward shells are perishing, their inward parts are being transformed from glory to glory. They are the ones bought with a price. Saved from the fires of Hell by faith in the Son of God!"

Although he was merely speaking, it seemed like he sung a glorious Hymn of the Ages that echoed throughout the Realm of Heaven, accompanied by an invisible chorus of music and voices so sweet, so powerful that my heart soared.

And then a flash of light brighter than all the others, and more sustained, like a sunspot or a brilliant, city-sized flare blazing across the darkness.

"What is that?" I asked, as if a two-year old seeing my first sunrise.

"Who is that," he clarified.