We were in north Georgia for a week and left the cabin one morning to eat breakfast at the Rusty Bike Cafe in Clayton, one of our favorite spots in the mountains.
I was opening the truck door when I felt and heard a rustling in the leaves around my feet.
I turned and looked down to see a long black snake “race” away from me and try to climb the stone wall beside the cabin door.
I don’t know whether I stepped on him or close to him. It was not poisonous, so my fear was momentary.
But this snake seemed more afraid of me than I was of him. A verse in Isaiah came to mind.
“And the nursing child will safely play over the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den and not be hurt.”
— Isaiah 11: 8
So, there will be snakes in God’s new creation, but neither we nor the snakes will be afraid.
Maybe you’re a “snake person” if you were born in 2013, 2001, 1989, 1977, 1965, 1953 or going back every 12 years … the next year of the snake is 2025.
It’s the sixth year of a 12-year cycle in the Chinese Zodiac beginning January 29, 2025 (Chinese New Year) going through February 16, 2026 (Chinese New Year’s Eve).
The “snake people” are said to be filled with wisdom, charm, elegance, and transformation. They are believed to be intuitive, strategic, and intelligent.
Revelation 21 expands on Isaiah 11.
“By day (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed in fear of evil; and they will bring the glory (splendor, majesty) and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing that defiles or profanes or is unwashed will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices abominations (detestable, morally repugnant things) and lying, but only those (will be admitted) whose names have been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”
— Revelation 21: 25-27
God’s new creation will not know any night or fear and John, as he so often does, separates the world into two sides — good and evil, light and dark, love and hate, profanity and purity, truth and lie. He does that in the gospel of John, in the three letters from John, and here in Revelation.
John also separates people into two groups depending on the side they’ve chosen, God’s people (“those whose names have been written in the ‘Lamb’s Book of Life’”) and everyone else.
I pray you’re in the book!
Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving Dawson Street Methodist in Thomasville, Ga.
