Great White Throne

by J. B. Simmons

  I take a sip from my glass. The water tastes pure and cool. One billion divided by infinity equals zero. The math works. But it doesn’t explain much. “What did you mean by ‘the old earth’?”

  “The earth where we once lived,” she answers. “It was—” she pauses as Bart returns. “Dear, would you care to explain?” She looks from him to me again. “You probably already know Bart’s the bookish type. He thinks often about such things.”

  “Evelyn knows more than she cares to admit.” Bart sets down a tray and begins laying out a spread of steaming loaves, butter, and jam. It smells better than a Parisian baker’s shop at dawn. “But then, so do you Elijah. You were there to see the old earth’s end. I’d love to hear you describe it. We saw it only from a distance.”

  I try to find words, but none do it justice. “It was very hot.”

  Bart laughs. “Still making me drag out answers, I see. Well, I imagine it was hot, and probably loud, too. Peter said, the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” He pauses. “So was it the sun?”

  I nod. “I think it exploded, maybe started a chain reaction. There was so much heat, like all the stars melted into a lake of fire.”

  “That must have been something to see,” Evelyn says, holding out a loaf. “Here, have some bread.”

  I take the loaf and set in on my plate. My body feels no ache of hunger, despite the amazing smell. I’m staring down at the bread. My mouth is watering. My stomach is full.

  “Not feeling hungry?” Evelyn asks. “Welcome to the new earth. There is no hunger here.”

  “How does that work?”

  “You have a stomach,” Bart explains, “but like the rest of your body, it’s perfected. Hunger was a symptom of brokenness, of emptiness. Everything is full here. We eat for the joy of it, and for fellowship. There was a reason our Lord taught us to break bread together. May I bless the food?”

  “Okay.”

  Bart closes his eyes and holds out his hands. Evelyn takes one of his hands in hers, so I do the same. My eyes close. Bart prays, in a patient and measured voice, “Our present God, be with us now, dine with us, fill us with your holy light.” He speaks for a while, thanking God. The words deepen my relaxed happiness.

  When I open my eyes, a familiar man is sitting with us at the table.

  I’M STARING AT the man. I’ve seen him before. I saw him just before I came to this place. “Jesus?”

  “Welcome, Elijah.” He holds out an open-lidded jar. “Here, try this with the bread. Evelyn’s jam is wonderful.”

  “Thank you!” Evelyn says.

  I nod, speechless. I take the jar and spread some of the dark purple jam on my bread. Jesus takes a bite, and so do I. The taste is more than a taste. It is a sensation of immense joy. I’m eating bread with God. I can’t get my mind around this.

  Jesus picks up a pitcher of wine. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He fills my glass, then Bart’s, then Evelyn’s, then his.

  “A toast!” Bart says, raising his glass.

  “A toast,” Jesus replies. “To our Father’s glory.”

  We clink glasses and drink. The rich red liquid satisfies more desire than I knew I had. It’s like I’ll never need to drink again.

  “This is part of my Father’s creation,” Jesus says. “Every good and perfect thing is from Him.” He studies me, smiling. His eyes are halos of light. His face is a royal welcome. “You have many questions. What do you want to know?”

  Everyone imagines this moment. I get to ask him a question, anything I want, but only one word comes to me. It’s too simple. It’s too big. I ask it: “Why?”

  “A wise question,” he says. “Human thoughts, human words—they can never answer this question. But I am the Word, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I can show you the answer.”

  “Will you?”

  He looks to Bart and Evelyn. They are beaming up at him.

  “You’ll come again soon?” Evelyn asks.

  “Whenever you want, call on my name.” He rises from the chair. His movements are fluid and easy, as if nothing could ever resist his motion. He holds out his hand to me. “Come, follow me.”

  I stand and take his hand.

  And we shift.

  We’re somewhere new. There’s an immense tree above us, bigger than any oak. The ground under my bare feet is soft, green moss. A stream gurgles to my right. The sound of children laughing comes from a stone cottage to my left.

  “You are showing me why?” I ask, and he knows what I mean. I want to know why God did it. Why make the earth, why create the humans, and why pick me?

  “Yes, I’ll introduce you to my beloved friend. He enjoys answering these questions. He has a word for it. In the written Word, the Spirit breathed out all the answers that humans could grasp. The answers are a story, of course.” He walks toward the cottage, and I fall into step with him. “Now the story continues, and you may understand more, as much as your spirit allows.”

  My spirit? The Spirit? I ponder this as I follow the Lord’s stride. I’ve never felt happier walking from one place to another. My legs are flawless, fast. Our movements are in unison.

  We reach the wooden door and he knocks.

  “I’m going now, but I’m always with you,” he says, and then his body vanishes before my eyes. He is gone, but he isn’t. I still feel him with me, like he is everywhere. I realize he’d let me walk beside him because I’d wanted that. Now I just want to know what’s behind this door.

  The door opens.

  “Elijah!” Brie rushes out and catches me up in a tight embrace. Chris follows right after her and sweeps both of us into his arms.

  “Come, come!” Chris says. “We just got here, too. We’re about to have a reading.”

  “A reading?”

  But they’re already whisking me into the cottage. We walk through the orderly little home and out the back door. There’s a ring of thick stumps overlooking a vast range of mountains. Seven people are sitting around the circle.

  I know Chris, Brie, and another man. “Patrick?”

  His athletic frame rises, even stronger than I remembered. He looks me up and down with his bright blue eyes. They look a little older but a lot wiser, a lot happier. “You’ve aged well, my friend.” He’s laughing warmly, and I realize I don’t know what I look like.

  Brie escorts me forward. There’s a basin of still water in the center of the circle. “Take a look,” she says.

  I look down and see my face. The eyes are the same, except brighter. Everything else is a little different. I look stronger, fuller. My hair is curly and long, brushing my broad shoulders. I look older than I was on earth, but not old at all. What I remember of myself before is like a flat, two-dimensional mask, and this is four dimensions—timeless.

  “Our bodies here reflect our souls at their best,” Chris says. “Some bodies are older or larger. Some are younger or smaller. We’re each where we are most comfortable, and we can change, we will change. Looks like you start around thirty.”

  “I’m nine!” says a boy in the circle. I know him, too. He’s Chris and Brie’s son, Toph, now a few years older. “I can still beat Patrick in a race.”

  Patrick gives him a friendly shove. “When I let you.”

  “That’s what you think.” Toph is laughing. He stretches his arms high in the sky. “Last one to the tree’s a rotten egg.” He’s already running around the corner of the cottage, and Patrick leaps up and chases after him. A blond man and a blond boy, sprinting as if nothing else mattered but their motions, as if their race were worship of the highest order.

  “Joy comes in many forms,” says a woman’s voice. I turn and see her. She’s standing in the door of the cottage, smiling at me.

  I could never mistake her almond eyes. “Aisha.”

  She rushes forward and hugs me. “I heard Jesus brought
you here. I couldn’t wait to come.”

  “But how are you here?” I say, and I realize that could be an awkward thing to say, but no one seems to mind.

  She puts her hand to my cheek. “The Lord used you to save me. I was all pride. I thought the Mahdi and I could save the world. I thought we could defeat the enemy.”

  “What happened?”

  “When I was at my most broken, after the crash, after I lost my legs…” She looks down and bends her legs, as if to remind herself that they are whole and perfect. “You came with the angels and fought for me. I still don’t fully understand why, but it chipped away the darkness and let the first light shine through.”

  “The first light?”

  She nods. “When you climbed out of that tunnel with me in Jerusalem, you were fearless. Not like a soldier bravely going into battle, but like a man who believed without doubt that the battle would be won. I knew the fight was over when one of the machines grabbed me, but I remembered your faith and its source. I called out to Jesus then, and He was there, with me at the end.”

  “That’s amazing.” I shake my head, struggling to accept that my pitiful example had helped her, especially when I was the one who had so needed help. I think of my question again: why? “Jesus brought me here. He told me he’d show me why.”

  “And so he will,” says a man who is sitting on one of the stumps. He holds out his arms in welcome. He has a thick brown beard and neatly cut brown hair.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “A citizen of this kingdom, like all of you. I’ve lived in this cottage and many other places. Sometimes I clean clothes for my neighbors. Sometimes I wash their feet. I study the stars, too. In all this, I serve the Lord.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “John.”

  THE MAN NAMED John urges our group to sit in a circle. He’s standing facing us and the cottage, with mountain ranges behind him. He looks like he knows everything there is to know, but he’s not the old John from Patmos, at least not the one I met.

  “You were with the Lord on earth?” asks Chris.

  “I was.” John’s voice is warm. “All of you were. He was always there.”

  “But you could feel him, touch him!” Brie says.

  John nods. “I wish everyone could have seen him as I did. No one could have doubted. But of course, that’s not how God planned it. Even many who saw his son during his life on earth had clouded eyes. The enemy used many tricks, but that is over now. Jesus had to die for us, so that we could know him, so that we could be here.”

  “Why?” The question boils out of me again.

  “We’re all new to this forever place, but I’ve been in his presence for ages. I understand more of it now, though we’ll always be getting closer. Each step forward will make our lives sweeter. It’s eternal progress. It’s eternal joy.”

  He pauses, as Toph and Patrick race back around the cottage. They’re not even breathing heavily as they sit. I realize the crowd has grown. I didn’t notice the others come. There are dozens of faces around us. One of them I know: my uncle, Jacob, only he looks even younger than Toph. He doesn’t see me yet. He is grinning with boyish innocence, intent on John’s words.

  “All of you, watch,” John says, “and you will understand.”

  He lifts a white towel and steps forward to the basin of water. He dips the towel into the water, and as he does, a gorgeous light begins to emit from him. The light flows in waves like living threads. It swirls around John. His hands holding the towel are glowing.

  He bends down in front of Toph, the little boy, and he begins to wash his feet. After the race with Patrick, Toph’s toes and heels are dusted in dirt. But as John rubs the towel over them, the light swirls around and into and through Toph. The boy holds out his arms, marveling as the warm and brilliant threads wrap around him.

  “The Lord abides in me,” John says. “He abides in all of us. What was unseen is now seen.” He holds the towel out to Toph. It shows no sign of dirt. “Now you.”

  The boy takes the towel and dips it into the water. He goes to Patrick and washes his feet. The light is dancing around the three of them.

  John has another towel. He kneels in front of me and begins washing my feet.

  I watch in awe as the light ebbs and flows around my legs, my waist, my chest. It goes through my chest, out my back, and I can feel it. The feeling is strong and pure, like one of those brief, fragile moments on the old earth when existence made sense—and it was good. Only now, that feeling isn’t going away. It’s deepening and wrapping around me.

  John finishes and holds the towel to me. “Sin is gone. The law is fulfilled. We abide in his love. We see the Comforter, the Spirit of truth which proceeds from the Father.”

  I feel weightless as I stand. I dip the towel into the water. I feel brighter than the sun, and I want to share this brilliance. I turn to Aisha and the threads of light spread from me to her. We understand each other now as we never have. She is my sister. We have the same love. We both abide in it.

  I wash her feet, and so it goes.

  In the end, it’s not our feet that matter. It’s the light we’ve shared, and the sharing gives glory to the light and to its source. It is glory to the Father. It is what we were made to do, to serve and love each other for the beauty that God made in each of us.

  I look around at the smiling faces and, for the first time, I realize I want to see a face that is not there. I remember her name. It is from so long ago, but it is still bright in my mind: Naomi.

  John comes to me. Maybe he senses my unmet desire, because it is so out of place. “Elijah, what do you want?”

  “Where is Naomi?”

  John turns to Chris. “He is ready. Will you take him to Elijah?”

  Elijah? I don’t understand, but Chris nods and leads me away. We don’t say goodbyes. We don’t need to, because the infinite circles always lead back, away, and back again.

  As I follow Chris, I’m fascinated by what John said, that I’ll live in a place here. And it must be where Naomi is. “Who is Elijah?” I ask. “Is he going to take me to Naomi?”

  Chris pauses. We are under the great tree again. “I will show you, but you should remember, there is no marriage here.”

  I remember Evelyn and Bart, and Brie. She was beside Chris, just like she was on the old earth. “What about Brie?”

  Chris smiles. “My love, my soulmate. What we have here is better than marriage. We share God’s glory like the angels. My bond with Brie is deeper, richer. We are all one, but some souls still gravitate toward each other.”

  “I want to see Naomi.”

  “You will. The first Elijah meets us here. He will take you.”

  “The first—?”

  Before I finish my question, a man appears beside us. He’s wearing a robe whiter than white. His face glows like the sun. It’s not Jesus, but it looks like a man who has soaked in light for lifetimes.

  “I am Elijah.” He holds out his hand to me.

  “Me too.” I shake his hand and the glowing threads of Spirit wind around us. Chris waves to me and walks away.

  “I know,” says this other Elijah. “We are of the same mold. I was one of the few to see into things as you did in the old earth.”

  “You’re the prophet?”

  “Yes, as you are.” He pauses. “Ready?”

  “I think so. Where are we going?”

  “Before I show you,” he says, “you should know this is not the forever place. The whole city, this whole creation, is the forever place. You, me, everyone—we will move as time passes. We have room to grow. There may be times when our souls crave the city’s beating center, nearest to the light. There may be times when we desire solitude, in the farthest reaches of the universe. Eternity ebbs and flows.”

  I understand this, at least pieces of it. “So how do we know when to move, and how do we acquire a new place? Do we purchase homes, like on the old earth?”

  “No. Think of it, how cou
ld anyone own what God alone created? And here, how could currency exist where all are completely satisfied?”

  “I see.”

  “God made you to see.” Elijah smiles. “The workings of eternity’s perpetual motion remain beyond our vision, but what we can understand is balance. God created us to live in balance. When you desire a cottage in a forest, someone living in that cottage will desire something else. The places open as you are led to them.”

  “It seems too—” I struggle for the word, and an old, small idea arises from my memory. “Too utopian.”

  “Utopia is an idol, a myth that could never exist outside God’s will. Perfection is possible only in God’s new earth, within his will.”

  I don’t answer. I’m still puzzling over his words.

  “We will have eternity to consider how this works,” Elijah adds. “You will know much more as soon as you come to the throne. First, you should see your home. Others will want to join you when you go before the throne.”

  “Like Naomi?”

  He nods. “She is there. Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  He clasps my shoulder and we shift. We’re standing on a street of gold. To the side is a river of glistening water. Around us are towering buildings. Everything is bright, reflecting the light that shines ahead of us. It’s more dazzling than the sun, but I don’t have to shield my eyes. I want to bask in its warmth.

  “Would you like a drink?” Elijah’s eyes are fixed on the river.

  Yes. I’m already walking toward the river. Elijah bends down on its bank, and I do the same. We dip our hands into the water. It’s cool, refreshing. I lift it to my lips. As the drops enter my mouth and slide down my throat, I feel pulsating energy, like that of a thousand lives filling me. The current is electric but without shock—my body conducts the energy and delights in the sensation.

  “The river of life.” Elijah rises to his feet. “Reminding us, through the Spirit, that we will never die. Come.”