The Big City

 The Big City

 

Then Cain founded a city, which he named Enoch, after his son.

GENESIS 4.17

 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.

MATTHEW 23.37

 

He took me in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.

REVELATION 21.10

 

Have you ever been to a really big city, or do you live in one? You can get lost in a big city — you could even disappear in a big city and not be found for a long time, because cities are bustling and crowded and there are plenty of places to hide.

That’s what Cain was doing when he built the very first city. His punishment for killing his brother was that he was to be a homeless wanderer, banished from God’s presence. His response was to build a city, his own world, where he could get lost and try to find satisfaction apart from God. Cain’s city was eventually destroyed in the Flood.

The second city mentioned in the Bible, Babel, was built by some people in an arrogant effort to get to God on their own terms. It ended in a pile of rubble when God confused their languages and they could no longer work together. In Revelation, when John describes judgment, he talks about it in terms of a city that is destroyed: “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!” (Rev 18.2, NIV).

So it’s interesting that the Bible describes heaven as a great city, the new Jerusalem. This is even more interesting when we think about the old Jerusalem. Jerusalem had a history full of paganism and rejection of God. Jerusalem was the city that rejected Jesus. Isn’t this the most unlikely of cities to serve as a model for heaven?

What this tells us is that God is redeeming our idol-loving, God-rejecting, God-avoiding version of a city. He is transforming this idea we humans have messed up, and he has a plan to make it into a place he wants to live in.