A Different World
Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Isaiah 65:17-21; Psalm 30:2 and 4, 5-6, 11-12a and 13b; John 4:43-54
Imagine you are a writer. Or a singer. Or a game designer.
You build a world. You compose the soundtrack. You create the rules.
In your world there are:
No wars. No corruption. No anxiety at 2 a.m. No pretending. No starting over again and again.
People enter it. They are hooked. They forget reality for a while.
But then the book ends. The song fades. The game powers down.
And we have to face our world again.
Long before writers, singers, and game creators — long before you and I — a Jewish prophet dared to imagine differently.
And he gave it a name:
A new heaven and a new earth.
The Bible begins like music — light breaking into darkness, water separating, land rising, life unfolding in rhythm.
“It was good… it was very good.”
But harmony does not last.
Jealousy enters. Violence follows. The strong take. The weak hide.
The world is still beautiful — but something in us bends it.
So God tries a reset.
Flood. Ark. Rain washing the earth clean.
But when the waters go down, the human heart is the same.
The problem was never only “out there.”
It was also here.
Inside us.
So the next movement goes deeper.
Not washing the ground — renewing the heart.
And then Isaiah steps forward.
Not whispering. Declaring:
“Behold, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth.”
Not in one explosion. Not in one breaking news alert.
A process. A slow revolution.
A future where death does not dominate the conversation. Where crying is not permanent. Where life is not cut short before it begins.
Children grow old. People build and enjoy what they build.
And the final pages of the Bible dare to say it plainly:
“Death shall be no more.”
That’s the direction. That’s the horizon.
But here is the paradox.
When songs end, when stories close, when games power down —
the biblical vision refuses to fade.
It persists.
Like a bass line under everything.
“Behold, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth.”
“Death shall be no more.”
Not just lines on a page.
More like something written into the structure of reality — and into us.
New creation is not only future tense.
It breaks in — quietly.
Every time war ends. Every time debt is cancelled. Every time someone walks out of the hospital alive. Every time addiction loosens its grip. Every time shame meets forgiveness. Every time someone whispers, “I thought it was over — but it wasn’t.”
“Behold, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth.”
“Death shall be no more.”
Something like that happened to a father walking home from Cana holding only a sentence:
“Your son lives.”
Spoken by Jesus of Nazareth.
No proof. No confirmation. No visible change.
And at that very hour — life turned.
This is the rhythm of the Gospel.
Not fantasy. Not denial. Not escape.
A stubborn claim:
The story is not finished.
New creation reaches its climax in a cross and an empty tomb.
Death does its worst. Love answers back.
And something irreversible begins.
So maybe we do not need to imagine a different world.
Maybe that vision was planted in us by the God who spoke the first word.
And its first decisive note was struck when Jesus walked out of the grave.
“Behold, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth.”
“Death shall be no more.”
Do you dare believe that it can begin — even now?
A new heaven. A new earth.
In your heart. In your mind.
And life — begins to taste good again.
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Content License
© 2025 Krakus.
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial).