Shadows

The Bible reminds us over and over that our world is only a shadow of that which is to come (Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 8:5; Hebrews 10:1; Psalm 144:3-4; Psalm 102:11; Ecclesiastes 6:12). But what does that mean? Well, shadows can be crisp or they can be fuzzy. They distort the characteristics of the item casting them (they may be taller or wider, etc.). Shadows require a light source to exist. Shadows convey hints of the real -- but they are not the real thing. You cannot grab hold of one. And despite what Disney's Peter Pan has taught us, you cannot manipulate one with a needle and thread (or a bar of soap, for that matter).

One of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, emphasizes this concept in some of his writings. In a chapter called "Hope" from Mere Christianity Lewis describes heaven as the place we were originally created for. "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." He suggests that earthly pleasures do not, and were never intended to, fully satisfy these desires; they merely "arouse" them, and "suggest the real thing." That is, this world is only a shadow of that which is to come!

This idea is more clearly conveyed in Lewis's allegory The Great Divorce. In his "dream" the narrator stepped off the bus in heaven and "had the sense of being in a larger space, perhaps even a larger sort of space, than I had ever known before: as if the sky were further off and the extent of the green plain wider than they could be on this little ball of earth." As he continues to notice things about where he is, he finds it to be "solider" and more real than our world. Against the backdrop of this solid place, humans look like ghosts or phantoms. They're transparent. They're distorted. The grass does not bend under their feet, nor are they able to lift even a small leaf or bend a flower's stem.

These pictures of heaven, while probably not literally accurate (at least not entirely), serve to help us wrap our minds around the scriptural idea that this fallen world is only a glimpse of the reality of God.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17 (TNIV)