Audience of One

Dreaming of the City

During a lecture, something suddenly twigged. It started with a strange feeling as a city-state was mentioned – a thought association. I thought of Ynysmant (featured in the Lamb Among the Stars series), and Merral’s love for his hometown; the idea of its loving community, as well as beauty.

I thought of Minas Tirith: a shining white fortress city; the passion that Boromir, son of the city’s Steward, had for it; Howard Shore’s score in the films, where Gandalf and Pippin ride towards the city.

I wanted to have the experience of living somewhere like that. A city where everyone felt part of it – had their role in serving the master of the city, whom they loved. Why? Why did I want this? Why did I empathise with the men and women of Gondor so much? Surly I didn’t want a monarchy, or feudal service to a lord?

But, and you’ll have seen where this is going, I do serve a lord, one who is far greater than any human, and far more worth serving. In fact, the experience I desired, of loving service of a master who loved us first, is exactly the experience that God gives us in serving him. True joy can only be found through serving him. Jesus says “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). Later, he says:

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. (John 15:10-16)

I’m not trying to look at everything in this passage, but in the second sentence we get the idea that our joy is somehow linked with Jesus having his joy in us. It’s all tied up with remaining in his love, and that’s all tied up with obeying his commands. What does that look like? Well, it’s us loving each other as Jesus loved us – and Jesus loves us in an incredibly self-sacrificial way. We’re also to go and “bear fruit”, which can mean all sorts of things, but seems to refer to developing godliness, as well as possibly the fruit of the harvest, or new Christians. Either way, in this life we serve a master, and in serving we receive joy.

But the desire I had was for even more than an experience in this life. My church is a wonderful community. I moved to a small church plant in October, and have loved everything about it – the ability to get involved in all aspects of church life, and to get to know people of every age rather than just students! I’m playing the piano later today, and went round to a family’s house last night with other friends of theirs for an evening of games and food. I love my church, but it’s pointing somewhere better.

There is a future city where a community of people will worship the only Lord worth it. A city with no need of a sun because the Son gives it light. This is a city to be passionate about. The is why I wanted the experience: a group of people, united in love for God and each other, perfected.

There’s more than that, though. Both Minas Tirith and Ynysmant were beautiful places. Julian Hardyman (in his book Glory Days) describes the new creation as a garden-city, citing Revelation 22:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.

God has given us a beautiful creation, full of variety and richness, full of beauty for all the senses. Often we don’t think of cities as beautiful places – whether because of the communities, or the architecture, or the traffic. But in the new creation, this new city, our home, will be.

As I’ve said, we can see something of this on Earth, however imperfect. The church is becoming the kind of community pictured here (and by “becoming”, I mean that this is God’s plan for the church, however slow or even backwards the progress seems to us). Our homes should have an openness, a welcoming atmosphere, and even a beauty as part of that. We should do what we can to honour God through living in a loving, outward looking community. We model what we long for. Time spent with our Christian brothers and sisters should be like a foretaste of heaven – and that should be something our non-Christian friends can see too.

Matthew @ 11:39, February 10, 2008 to Discussions | Comments (2)