One late summer evening, I was driving along the Pacific coast as the sun was setting over the sea. It was a breathtaking sight. I decided to pull over so I could take it in. As I did so, I noticed something else. Many people—families, individuals, groups of friends—were doing the same thing. People were walking over to a grassy hill overlooking the sea to gaze at the sunset. Some were taking photos, and others were simply taking in the view. Even firemen in their large fire truck pulled to the side of the road and got out.
It struck me that all of us were gathering here, taking a moment to pause from our normal duties of the day, to stare at this beautiful scene of the sun setting over the ocean.
We all recognized the beauty of this moment. But we also knew this beautiful scene would not last forever. In a matter of minutes, the sun would set and the brilliant colors in the sky would be muted. The beautiful moment would be gone, and a part of us would be left longing for more.
Beauty stirs a longing in us. A longing for something more.
C.S. Lewis said, “Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.”
He continues,
Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death…I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.
Beauty stirs in us a longing for Heaven. We can appreciate the beautiful things of this world, but they don’t fully satisfy. They are merely echoes of the true, lasting kingdom. A longing for Heaven, for our “true country,” has been written on our hearts. We are, after all, image-bearers of the one who made us.
“And what know we of the country to which we are bound?” Charles Spurgeon asks.
A little we have read thereof, and somewhat has been revealed to us by the Spirit; but how little do we know of the realms of the future! We know that there is a black and stormy river called “Death.” God bids us cross it, promising to be with us. And, after death, what cometh? What wonder-world will open upon our astonished sight? What scene of glory will be unfolded to our view? No traveller has ever returned to tell. But we know enough of the heavenly land to make us welcome our summons thither with joy and gladness. The journey of death may be dark, but we may go forth on it fearlessly, knowing that God is with us as we walk through the gloomy valley, and therefore we need fear no evil. We shall be departing from all we have known and loved here, but we shall be going to our Father’s house—to our Father’s home, where Jesus is—to that royal “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” This shall be our last removal, to dwell for ever with him we love, in the midst of his people, in the presence of God. Christian, meditate much on heaven, it will help thee to press on, and to forget the toil of the way. This vale of tears is but the pathway to the better country: this world of woe is but the stepping-stone to a world of bliss.
One day, we’ll be with the very source of beauty itself. As I’ve said before, we’ll be with our Maker, “the one who created all the pleasures and all the beautiful things of this world…. All the colors, animals, plants, mountains, and galaxies.” And we’ll find, as Lewis put it, that Heaven is just “the beginning of the real story.” The beautiful things of this world are only a small foretaste of the things to come.
May we, along with all the saints, remember that we have “a better country, that is, a heavenly one,” awaiting us at the end of our journey (Heb. 11:16).