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You, O LORD, are over all, through all, and in all.

But there was a day when all of you could be found in one place–the City of God.

Such joy, because you were so present in that place!

I’ve seen glimpses of that city.  Been in places where your presence was pronounced.  A worship service in Nashville.  A quiet moment on the shores of Malibu.  A sunrise mesa outside of Las Cruces.

Those hints make me hunger for that new day and that new city–the City of God where we’ll finally meet face to face. 

[image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benheine/3883532523/]

In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, N. T. Wright challenges us to rethink our notions of heaven and the implications of the doctrine of heaven for the entire Christian faith.

In Chapter Nine Wright addresses Jesus, the Coming Judge.  This is the second of a two-chapter examination of the Second Coming.  Wright argues that judgment as it relates to the Second Coming is a good thing: “The word judgmentcarries negative overtones for a good many people in our liberal and postliberal world.  We need to remind ourselves that throughout the Bible, not least in the Psalms, God’s coming judgment is a good thing, something to be celebrated, longed for, yearned over…In a world of systematic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance, and oppression, the thought that there might come a day when the wicked are firmly put in their place and the poor and weak are given their due is the best news there can be.”

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In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, N. T. Wright challenges us to rethink our notions of heaven and the implications of the doctrine of heaven for the entire Christian faith.

In Chapter Eight Wright takes up the issue of the Second Coming.  He writes that “Jesus’s appearing will be, for those of us who have known and loved him here, like meeting face-to-face someone we have only known by letter, telephone, or perhaps e-mail.”

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