The City That Never Needs to Turn On the Lights

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy plunged lower Manhattan into darkness. For days, residents south of 39th Street stumbled through pitch-black stairwells, charged phones in idling cars, and watched the skyline above them blaze with electricity they couldn't reach. Photographer Iwan Baan captured it from a helicopter — half the island glowing, half swallowed by shadow. The line between light and dark cut through the city like a wound.

But something unexpected happened in the darkness. Neighbors who had never spoken knocked on each other's doors. Strangers shared candles, meals, and generator power. A bar in the East Village served warm food by flashlight. People discovered that when every screen went black, they could finally see each other.

Now imagine a city where that hurricane-born intimacy never fades — but the darkness never returns either. John saw exactly that. In the New Jerusalem, there is no temple to visit because the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. There is no sun to rise or set because God's own glory is the light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The river of life runs clear as crystal down the middle of the street, and the tree of life bears fruit in every season.

Sandy showed us what we long for — presence without barriers. Revelation 21 promises what Sandy could only glimpse: a city where nothing separates us from God or each other, where the light never fails, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.