Defining eternity: The truth in ‘Visions of Johanna’
New York City was bustling as usual on the evening of Nov. 9, 1965, until a sudden power outage caused over 30 million people to go into a panic. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, many assumed this was a Soviet attack on the U.S. power grid, with fears only calmed by reports heard from battery-powered radios. It is thought that on this night Bob Dylan wrote “Freeze Out,” the song which would later be known as “Visions of Johanna,” in the darkness of the Chelsea Hotel.
I have never heard a song that has made me so deeply aware of my fate after death and understand my fear of eternity so fluently.
“Lights flicker from the opposite loft / In this room the heat pipes just cough / The country music station plays soft / But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off.”
This stanza is the setting of the story, placing the listener in the dark hotel room from which it was written, but the setting is never fixed, as storytellers are never confined to one room.
Of course, it is not always so easy to follow where the story leads, but I believe that this is in-part the reason “Visions of Johanna” conveys so well the incomplete story we are all living. This story is one in which we often replace our longing for heaven with false comforts, fleeting images of the light that Adam and Eve were once accustomed to.
“The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face / Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place”
Philippians 1:6 tells us that the story is not complete, and that we can live with assurance that it will eventually be complete. “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
While the thought of completion is indeed comforting as a believer, I still sometimes find myself concerned with the incomprehensible idea of eternity, the unending perfection that I will experience in heaven. It is as if because God is so good, I am far too unclean to be seen by him and spend eternity with him, even though I know that he has already seen me and cleansed me, not to mention suffered and died for me (1 John 1:9).
Additionally, just as Adam and Eve covered themselves with fig leaves after they had sinned, it is easy to fool myself into thinking that I can hide myself from God when I sin. But if by his grace I join him in heaven, I will have no place to hide my shame there. However, Micah 7:19 reminds me that even the sum of my shame has been covered by him. “He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
In “Visions of Johanna,” the “museums” seem to me a series of confining halls in which passersby observe the paintings which remain forever fixed in frames.
“Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial / Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while / But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues / You can tell by the way she smiles.”
And in these lines, I can empathize with Mona Lisa, as she is frozen in an infinite pose, staring at an infinite view, as people outside of her world are free to stroll the aisles as she once was.
It is because of my own spiritual frailty that I ever doubt what the future looks like in heaven. Will I have an infinite view too? Will I ever be able to make my own choices? Stroll the aisles? These concerns of mine are merely an intrusion on my life of servitude to Christ. It is a series of fleshly questions, prompting me to see God’s hand in my life as one which solely confines and does not protect, guide and love. It is a concern of little faith and misunderstanding of what it is like to be made complete.
It is not my responsibility to ponder my future in heaven as a believer; God knows I am incapable of doing so. In looking ahead to my place in heaven, I know that it is not myself who has secured a frame for me, but God. And for this reason, there ought to be no fear of eternity. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
Kilker is the opinion editor for the Liberty Champion