‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.’ (21:1-2)

In the final book of his classic, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ entitled, The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis has the Pevensie children, together with their cousin Eustice, trying to take in the new creation. As they do so they find themselves discussing how much it is like and unlike Aslan’s country: ‘If you ask me,’ said Edmund, ‘it’s like somewhere in the Narnian world.’….. ‘I don’t think those ones are so very like anything in Narnia,’ said Lucy. ‘But look there….Those hills…the nice woody ones and the blue ones behind - aren’t they very like the Southern border of Narnia?’ ‘Like!’ cried Edmund after a moment’s silence. ‘Why they’re exactly like.’….. ‘And yet they’re not like,’ said Lucy. ‘They’re different. They have more colours on them and they look further away than I remembered and they’re more…more…oh, I don’t know…..’ ‘More like the real thing,’ said the Lord Digby softly.’