New

"I will create new heavens and a new earth", God says.  But how will he do it?  What will it look like?  And is that even good news?  After all, we're pretty attached to the old earth.  We're made out of it.  Will there be space for us in this new heavens and new earth?  Will everything that we love be swept away to make room for it?

How does God make everything new?

For starters, he doesn't wipe out the old.  Quite the contrary.  He comes to visit it, pitches his tent here, takes on flesh, takes to himself that very old dirt and calls it his own in a new way.  In the womb of the virgin, a new life begins, which is in some senses just the same old life.  Still dust, still fragile, still surrounded by sin and destined for suffering.

But new.  This new life is God's life, God's life united to ours.  This is where the new heavens and the new earth appear: in the womb of Mary, in the manger of Bethlehem.  Behold!  God is doing a new thing!  Here it is.  Here he is.  Tiny now, but here is all of heaven and earth.  Here, everything old is made new.

And he who was seated on the throne said "Behold, I am making all things new".