Seeing The Invisible Series

Every time we pass that billboard I chuckle internally, but have you ever tried to watch an old black-and-white TV? If you haven’t, you don’t fully appreciate color TV let alone HDTV with its two million pixels. All of that is to say this: we take color for granted. But it is an amazing gift from God.

When I was in Arizona last week, I got up early because I love watching the sun rise in new places. As the sun hit the mountains it turned them into a panalopy of purple and pink hues! And the midday sky! I used the word “azure” more during my three days in Arizona than the rest of my life combined. The word “blue” just didn’t cut it.

I have a little book, Children’s Letters to God. I love one of them written by a boy named Eugene. “Dear God, I didn’t think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on Tuesday. That was cool.”

The poet, John Ruskin said, “The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.”

Maybe you ought to stop reading for a second and thank God for the seven million cones in your retina that enable you to see approximately seven million different colors. While you’re at it, on behalf of your shins, go ahead and thank him for the one hundred and twenty million rods in your retina that give you night vision.

More Light

In 1917, Albert Einstein said, “For the rest of my life I will reflect on what light is!”

The German poet and scientist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, wrote a treatise called The Theory of Color. He was fascinated by light. He said, “I have known light in its purity and truth, and I consider it my duty to strive after it.” His last words were said to have been: “More Light!”

For a follower of Christ, that is pretty apropos. More light means more God. And that’s exactly what we’ll get when we cross the spacetime threshold. The Bible says that when we get to heaven we’ll receive glorified bodies. I think glorified minds and glorified senses will be part of the package. I think we’ll taste new flavors and smell new fragrances and see new colors. I Corinthians 13:12 hints at what I’m talking about. “Now we see through a glass, darkly; then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully even as I am fully known.”

We’ll smell things that will make the smell of a pot roast in a crock pot or brownies in the oven or fresh baked bread smell putrid. I know that comes awfully close to food blasphemy! We’ll hear angel’s voices in octaves we’ve never imagined. And we’ll see colors that will heal and inspire and envelope us in the beauty of God.

Revelation 21 gives us a sneak preview of how colorful heaven will be:

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel.

The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.