Grimalkin
I needed a goofy comic about a cat this week. Charles Wesley once wrote a hymn about his pet cat, Grimalkin, or Grimmy for short, who has been featured a few times on Wesley Bros before. It’s also worth noting that John Wesley’s sermon, The General Deliverance, anticipated the salvation of animals (based on Romans 8:19-22 and Isaiah 11:6-9). He argued that God had created a perfect harmony within all Creation before the Fall of man, a harmony that all Creation longs for again through the redemption of Jesus Christ. There’s a lovely article on this sermon by Allan R. Bevere at this link. Bevere reflects on Wesley’s sermon, saying, “Jesus himself counsels us that even though human beings are much more important to God than sparrows, the sparrows still matter, and God cares for them (Matthew 6:26-27).”
If you are concerned about how many gazillions of mosquitos will be in heaven should they all be resurrected, I do not think that is the point of such speculative theology. Presumably, the New Heaven and the New Earth would be so far beyond our comprehension that it will not be a real issue how God plans to house and sustain the resurrected bodies and souls of so many creatures great and small that have existed across the span of time. Grimalkin is more concerned with what our relationships will be with our natural enemies in the next life, especially if predator is finally at peace with the prey. I think for us human-types, the bigger question scripture calls us to is, what types of lives ought we to live here and now that would prepare us for such a future?
When not drawing the Wesley Bros cartoon, the Rev. Charlie Baber, a United Methodist deacon, serves as minister of discipleship for youth and families at Highland United Methodist Church in Raleigh, N.C. His cartoon appears on United Methodist Insight by special arrangement.