Escape to Eden
A current TV series is Escape to the Wild, with Jimmy Doherty. He follows British couples who have deserted their affluent but hectic British lives and bought a plot in the northern wastes of Canada, a patch of jungle in Uganda or an Island in Indonesia. Other daytime TV shows (you can tell I'm on half term) include Escape to the Country, where usually rich people abandon city life for a comfortable life in an English village or hamlet.
Is urban life so dire that we must flee it? Or is there some deep-seated instinct within us to live with nature? Secularists might point to millions of years of rural cave dwelling; I point to Eden, the paradise for which we were created. God planned for our race to live in gardens, but fallen man in the person of Cain built a city in the land of Nod, which means 'wandering'. We wandered away from God into our cities; deep down, we long for Eden. Perhaps that's why we bring house plants into our home, we build parks in our cities and plant gardens around our buildings.
The one city to which every Christian does belong is Zion, the New Jerusalem, in which we shall one day live. This will not be city like anything we have known, with cramped, dirty streets, crime spots and masses of grey concrete. It will be the home of the Tree of Life, the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations.
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Sunday Worship 10.45am & 6.00pm