The Perfect City

Jim:

Ezra 10:1-17
Revelation 21:9-21
Revelation 21:15-16 say, “The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measure the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal.” According to the footnotes in the Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV), “the city is represented as being a cube, symbol of perfection…” Now I would find life in a gigantic cube (made of gold and jewels, no less) to be less than perfect, but that’s not really the point. The city’s perfection comes not in its appearance, but in what it represents. Whatever the city looks like, whatever shape it takes, in its nature it is what God intends life to be. The perfection comes in its ordering toward God. This is why the reading from Revelation stands in such contrast to that from Ezra where the returning exiles are compelled to divorce their foreign-born wives in order to no longer offend God. Frankly this notion offends me. The thought that God would desire broken families, fatherless children, women and children unable to support themselves over mixed marriages, or that by simply ridding the land of foreign-born women would somehow make it more acceptable to God is utterly absurd. It is shameful that these events ever took place. To me the contrast couldn’t be more stark. Perfection will not come with good city planning or tight marriage restrictions, will not be derived from precious stones used as paving. Perfection will come when all of life is focused on God and on what God desires from us and for us. And it will have nothing to do with geometrically shaped metropolitan areas or divorces compelled by religious statute.