Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, February 1, 2025
A couple of weeks ago a pizza place near our neighborhood closed its doors. Shelley and I felt pangs of nostalgia when we heard about this. We moved to this area in 2005, and since it’s on our route home we would glance at its readerboard sign, which you see in the photo. Most often we’d see messages like “WELCOME TIGERS” or “HB MINDY” or (when things seemed hopeful for baseball playoffs) “GO MARINERS.” On the sign’s opposite side would be news about the latest pizza deal, and most recently, “NOW ON DOORDASH.”
One year, as our anniversary neared, Shelley surreptitiously arranged with the management to post a congratulatory message to me (in response to one I’d posted to her years ago on a readerboard near the seminary I was attending). To her surprise, I drove cluelessly past the Shakey’s sign that day. She had to drive me back so I could read it!
So why am I bringing up the Shakey’s closure? Mainly to reflect on how sad it is when a popular gathering place has to shut down. (At the end of this blog I’ll insert a link to a news article about the closure.)
But the main reason is to reassure myself – and you – that not everything is so temporary. God has prepared a city for us to live in, if we want to be there, and it will be triumphantly permanent. Here’s what the Bible says:
And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. (Revelation 21:10 – 14 NKJV)
That’s the home Jesus told His disciples He was going to prepare for them, in the first few verses of John 14. To read more of what the Bible says about heaven, including how you can reserve a place there, click the link just below. (And if you’d like, glance at the Shakey’s story just below it.)
https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/heaven