I saw a new heaven and a new earth. (Rev.21:1)

The older we get, the smaller we get, not just literally but most often also figuratively.  Usually, as people get older, they go bent through life.  But it is a well-known phenomenon that with the increasing years, youthful overconfidence and pride also gradually disappear.  Maybe that is one of the reasons why people have to become so old these days.  We realize how little we are, and we become modest, finally…

Just as familiar is the phenomenon that old people, more than ever before in their lives, become religious.  Goethe once expressed this with the following words:

In youth: idealist.

As an adult: realist.

As a greybeard: mystic.

That too is a feature of becoming old: our hands become quiet.  We turn inward and fold our hands in prayer.  And in the silence of our little inner world a great world begins to sound.  We need not wait with this until we have become old and bent.  Every moment in our life gives us the opportunity to learn, to fold our hands in prayer.  In this gesture, the germ of the future creation is hiding, just as in the bud of a plant the flower is hiding.

This future creation, the New Jerusalem, is not only bestowed on us as a new heaven that descends down to us, but also as a new earth, which we ourselves have collaborated to build.

With our helping, healing, praying hands, we assist in silence to build a new heaven and a new earth.

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, November 23, 2025