Crying over Real Estate

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. - Luke 13:34

Jesus clearly wasn't crying over real estate. Yes, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel) were to inhabit a particular land, and in fact are identified with and by it but Jesus isn't coming from nationalistic pride..

In the eyes of God, as seen in scripture, land and people are intertwined in identity: Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Assyria, Israel (Jerusalem). We even see in the book of Revelation a city, a Heavenly Jerusalem decked out like a bride! In Isaiah 62 God says that He would call Jerusalem Beulah ("married") because "the land would be married". The remnant of Israel will one day return in mass to the Lord. Jerusalem and Gentile believers are destined together as the Bride of Christ for a wedding banquet with our Groom. We have - and we are -  a place where God loves to dwell.

So I'm wondering what this speaks to me and why it so resonates beyond my own intellectual curiosity.

When I go traveling to beautiful places I always find myself staring and staring at beauty as if my eyes can capture that moment forever; lock it up so I can take it home with me. With an ache in my soul I come home wondering where the time went. Trying to recall just how green that rain forest was or how majestic Mount Shasta was. The bible says creation itself groans for its own redemption and I groan as well, waiting for the time when this beauty is all mine. But God's appointed time is not until all the people He has called are redeemed.

I believe God created me - and all of us - for beauty. Something deep inside yearns to be united forever with the King but also to never again have to walk away from a stunning array of stars, brilliant skies, a living forest and, of course, rainbows. So is it so far fetched that when we die we inherit not only a Person, but a Place? That in a new Heaven and Earth we have a redeemed estate where a redeemed people will have permanent title?

Lord, I thank You for these mini-glimpses of eternity. An eternal home more stunning than I can now imagine. A place You promised to prepare for us. A place with which we will be forever identified. Home.