About 10 years ago Gail and I visited Butchart Gardens. For those that have seen it, it can be hard to imagine that this garden was once a limestone quarry.
In the beginning, under the direction of Jennie Butchart, they started by transferring top soil by horse and cart. Little by little, the quarry blossomed into today’s Sunken Garden.
Maybe equally hard to imagine is the idea that this earth is scheduled for a large scale restoration. It's one of the central tenets of both Judaism and Christianity. Both the Tanakh and the Bible describe it as the "restoration of all things" (Acts 3:21).
All but two of the prophets either describe conditions during this restoration - or events leading up to it. Many of the statements, particularly in the Old Testament and Tanakh, describe this restoration in the context of Israel but it extends well beyond that.
Today, there seems to be an effort to remove Israel from that context. I think that's a mistake.
The thing is, Jesus talked about it and His disciples were anticipating it:
- "will You at this time restore the kingdom?" - Acts 1:6
It wasn't that their expectations were wrong. Just their timing.
