When There is No More Sea
If you’ve set your sights on visiting Japan or Hong Kong, but you hate to fly—and the thought of being on a boat for such a long journey makes you queasy—hang tight. Asia may be coming to you.
The continents are slowly shifting. Apparently, the earth has been cooling (and dads all across our country are blaming their kids for touching the thermostat), which means plates under the oceans are slowly losing their strength and thickness. Who knew? But that means the continents are shifting. In other words, Asia and the Americas are getting closer to each other. Scientists are telling us that Asia and the Americas will eventually merge.
You will be able to take an Uber to Hong Kong if you’re willing to wait 200 million years. But don’t open your Uber app just yet. By allowing for a margin of error and federal holidays, it could take up to 300 million years. [Source]
I’m no scientist, but I think something like that will happen a lot sooner. Jesus assured us He is coming back, and in the end, He will set up His eternal kingdom in which the sea will no longer separate us. Don’t take my word for it. The Apostle John saw it.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (Rev. 21:1).
For those of you who actually like the beach (and enjoy sand in your clothes, your hair, your ears …), the thought of no ocean may sound disappointing. But it’s not likely that John was predicting something akin to what scientists think will happen. In Scripture, the sea often symbolized separation. Consider where John was when he had this vision. He was on the Island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. He had been exiled there by Emperor Domitian. The sea stood as a barrier, keeping him imprisoned on the island and away from his church family in Ephesus.
In Christ’s eternal kingdom, we will experience no separation from those we love.
Another possibility is that John saw the sea as the Old Testament prophet Isaiah did. The sea served as a metaphor for wickedness.
“’But the wicked are like the storm-tossed sea, for it cannot be still, and its water churns up mire and muck. There is no peace for the wicked,’ says my God” (Isa. 57:20-21).
Whichever interpretation of the sea you hold to, both are valid images of life in God’s kingdom. There will be no separation from God or those God brings into His kingdom. And there will no wickedness. Sin and death were conquered by Christ, and in our eternal home, they are forever removed.
I don’t think we need to concern ourselves with shifting continental plates. It’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth anyway. And even if the sea is literally no more, you beach lovers can take comfort in the thought that, whatever God has in store for us in the new heaven and new earth, it be far greater than anything we see or experience on this earth.
“What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived—God has prepared these things for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
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