Beauty Beyond Imagination

When people think of heaven, they often think of clouds. Perhaps it's because that's often what we see when we look skyward, or perhaps it's because of all of those horrible man-made depictions of heaven as a place where we sit on clouds and play harps and fly around with weird angel-babies (Note: nowhere in the bible are angels depicted as flying babies. They are more like men, and the general reaction of us mere mortals is that of sheer terror, not "oh look! there goes baby cupid!")

I've been thinking a lot about heaven lately. What does it look like? Obviously, we don't really know; however, I feel like I can say this with absolute confidence: heaven is more beautiful than anything we can ever imagine. And let's face it: we have imagined some pretty beautiful stuff. Check it out:

Heaven is more beautiful than the fantasy game world of the video game "Trine 2":

Heaven is more beautiful than the glowing forests of Pandora from the movie Avatar:

We humans sure love bioluminescence don't we? Source: http://martianchronicles.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/avatar-review/

Heaven is more beautiful than the silver-trunked, golden-leafed forest of Lothlorien from the Lord of the Rings:

Source: http://truepaint.blogspot.com/2008/12/lothlorien-lotro.html

Heaven is even more beautiful than the most beautiful things we can find in this life, such as the night sky:

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daves-f-stop/8079071366/

And it contains more amazingly beautiful creatures and things than this Blue-tailed Emerald Hummingbird:

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/prosper973/3219437415/

How do I know that for sure? Well, think about it. There's no way, when we finally reach the far shore of the Jordan, the Celestial City (as John Bunyan called it...which, incidentally, looks a lot like Minis Tirith in this painting), the Promised Land, the gates of Paradise...there's no way we're going to get there and say "Well that's disappointing. The Thomas Kinkaid painting hanging above our fireplace was prettier than this." God gave mankind the unique ability to create and appreciate beauty. But God Himself is ultimately the author of beauty, and I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see what beauty adorns His heavenly home. Fortunately for us, John attempts to give us a tiny preview of what's to come:

Revelation 4:2-3 says, "Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance..." and Revelation 4:6 says, "and before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal; and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind." Sounds pretty sweet to me!