From the Garden to the City

From the Garden to the City

Good Morning Friends,

Well we are back from Korea even as Pope Francis prepares to leave for this very interesting place. And after a long plane flight this is the first morning we have had internet service so I am back to writing. Thank you for your encouraging prayers and comments. The trip was primarily to share the hope for a more beautiful world in greater unity using the shared language of the music of handbells with 550 other ringers around the world as the means. Some individual groups found the opportunity to share music with the troops at the DMZ. Others like our family worshipped in one of the largest Presbyterian Churches in the world, in Seoul, and then at the Symposium, in the more rural island of Jeju, where only 2% of the population is Christian. There we shared in daily worship led by the various nations participating in the event. The experience was enlightening and one of the key elements for me was a growing appreciation for the role of urban areas of the world in the Biblical journey of the church From the Garden to the City.

Scripture: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Hebrews 11:8-10 (NRSV)

Message: The urban symbol of salvation implies God’s adoption and transformation of man’s creation into God’s own creation. It is a tale of two cities, one with the confusion and pride of Babel, and the other the hope for unity in a shared understanding in a redeemed city. Yes the story begins in a Garden and ends in a City and the idea of it is God’s. But it is also the story of cities rise and fall. Imagine Detroit nearly 70 years ago and today. Imagine a bombed out Seoul or Nagasaki after war and the beauty of these cities today and know the potential power of God’s redemption. Friends, God’s city is man’s final hope. It is a city of both promise and judgment. But ultimately it is a melding of garden and city that becomes a magnifying glass for our human hearts and a harvest for the human soul. Here music and the arts, manufacturing and trade and technology and family building converge. I saw it in Seoul as I walked along its river that flowed out to the sea and walked in its gardens and stood at its center on a forest mountaintop surrounded by a city.

Pray we become the Church that joins with God to change the city. Pray we have faith in and seek the city which is to come. Pray we look for a city that is eternal. Pray we find refuge in a city of Truth. Pray for our cities to become cultural gardens and places of common grace. Pray for God to bring a New Jerusalem. Pray our cities become instruments for glorifying God where the riches of creation can be experienced. Pray we learn how to be in the world but not of it.

Blessings,

John Lawson