Revelation
21:1-6
1 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. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out
of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard
a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among
mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself
will be with them; 4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no
more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have
passed away." 5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See,
I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these
words are trustworthy and true." 6 Then he said to me, "It is done! I
am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will
give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.
There were about two dozen or so of us seated in the red-upholstered
seats in the modern-designed auditorium with its concrete walls, dark wooden
panels, and polished metal railings and accents. We occupied just the first few
rows as the room could easily hold a few hundred people. On the stage before us
was a podium with a single chair next to it, a screen just above that single
chair, and the podium was facing a longer, “L”-shaped table. We had taken the
afternoon to board the metro and embark on a rather long stroll through the
newer side of the city to the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the
Free/Independent University of Amsterdam). We were there to witness a Ph.D.
defense, or “promotion” as they call it in the Dutch tradition.
We sat in that
awkwardly warm auditorium, carrying on conversations about what it might be
like, how long it would be before we’d be in that position, why it took place
in such a big room, what we were going to be doing in class until 9:00 that
evening, when, through the back doors of the room came about ten men and women
in black robes, and black felt hats, led by a woman carrying an odd looking
mace with bits of clanging metal attached to the top. The rear of this parade
was brought up by two men in very formal tuxedos (complete with white ties and
tails).
The woman with the mace was the pedel, a sort of M.C. for the proceedings. We were told that she
was the official time-keeper; she was to make sure that the thesis defense was
to last exactly one hour—sixty minutes—and not one minute more. After the rest
of the robe-clad academics took their seats, the tuxedoed candidate took his
place behind the podium, while a friend occupied the single chair off to the
side (we were told that traditionally, this person was there in case the
candidate couldn’t finish the defense, likely due to being rendered unconscious
from an actually, physical fight with the promoters). After giving a summary if
his research, he fielded questions from the various professors and academics
seated at the table (mostly about his research methods and possible ethical
issues in his reporting). After what I’m sure to him felt like an eternity, a
couple of us noticed the pedel as she
emerged from a side door carrying her mace. She walked down the center aisle of
the theatre, stood in front of the stage, and stared at the clock on the wall
just off the stage to the right. Then, as if she had some pent up need to slam
something down, she raised the mace up in the air and drove it into the floor
as the metal bits attached to its head clanged like a gong, and she shouted hora est! (which means something like “It
is time!”).
I remember the look on the guy’s face when she said those
two words. It was like he had been holding the breath in one lung for an hour,
and when she announced the hour, he could finally let all of that tension out
of his chest. Later, we were told that, while the defense was to be taken
seriously and one could still not be promoted following a poor defense, the
ceremony was more a formal act akin to graduation, so one just had to survive
the hour and he or she would be promoted to Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.).
Just survive the hour, just hold on until the time is up,
hang on until it’s all over. Like a point guard on the leading team holding the
ball in the final seconds of the championship game, just let the clock run out.
Like the quarterback who takes a knee when his team is up by nine with
twenty-three seconds to go, just let the clock run out, just let the end come.
Like a doctoral candidate who’s put in all the labor to earn for him/herself
that coveted degree, just fill the air with words until your time is up.
You know something? I’m afraid that’s what a number of us
who call ourselves Christians do. Seriously. Especially—especially when it
comes to what we believe about “THE END,” how this whole thing is going to wind
up when God slams the mace on the floor and shouts “hora est!” We’re just sort of holding on, holding half our breath,
hoping we’ve done enough of the right things and abstained from enough of the
wrong things that when the mace does fall, when the trumpet does sound, when
the hour finally does come, we’ll be able to uncross our hidden fingers and
fully exhale because it’ll all be over and all the bad stuff—all the people and
things we don’t like—will finally go away, and we’ll be given our reward. So
all we have to do is hold on, wait, stick it out, grit our teeth and bear it a
little while longer.
Some would make
the argument that this is what Jesus’ Revelation
to John is all about, about “conquering,” sticking it out to the end, not
giving in to temptation, discomfort, and persecution. Some would say that the
book of Revelation is a sort of warning, a letter written in order to scare us
straight, to keep up focused on “the end,” a letter written in order to point
believers’ eyes towards the future and the great realization that all of this
stuff is going to end anyhow, so just buckle down because we’re all going to
get through this. And I have to tell you, it’s not a bad way to think about
things—really. To focus on the future, to trust that God will eventually put an
end to all that’s wrong with the world, I mean, isn’t that the only way it can
happen? Of course! But what if we’ve missed something in our obsession with
holding our breath? What if God isn’t asking us to hang on until the end when
God will show up with a sledge hammer and a sword? What if—what if, God is
already here among us, calling us to join in the redemptive work of
transforming this world into God’s perfect kingdom?
Now, I know, this passage we’ve read from Revelation is
one with which many of you may be somewhat familiar, a passage you’ve heard
more than once. And I also know that the book of Revelation comes with all
sorts of baggage for folks, baggage packed by preachers, Sunday school lessons,
science fiction novels, and big-budget, cinematic thrillers, but let’s all
listen to its words together again, specifically those words spoken by “the
loud voice from the throne” in verses 3
and 4: "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every
tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will
be no more, for the first things have passed away." And all God’s
people said…Amen!
That’s a stirring passage, one that ought to bring us
hope, give us a sense of peace about the future, about the certainty of God’s
coming. “The tent/dwelling/home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with
them and they will be God’s peoples…” God will
dwell with mortals? I think this may be where we start to slip gears a bit when
it comes to understanding “the end,” and perhaps more importantly, the present,
the “now.” You see, while these words from John’s Revelation of Jesus seem to
suggest that God hasn’t yet come down to dwell among us mortal folks, there are
other words from Scripture—words from the same (what we call) Johannine tradition
itself—that tell us that God has already pitched his tent among us: “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…He
was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did
not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept
him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to
become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh
or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among
us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of
grace and truth.”[1]
God is already
among us! Christ, Emmanuel, “God with us,” the Holy Spirit, is already dwelling
here with us. So, what then, do we make of these words from Revelation? When
John the Revelator records those words spoken by the “loud voice from the
throne” he is bearing witness to the fact that God has indeed made God’s home
among mortals, that God, God’s self, is among us already. However, God’s presence among us isn’t meant to be
some secretive, undercover surveillance job, wherein the Almighty simply hides
behind the invisible veil of immortality, watching us, making notes about our
every failure and triumph, waiting for the right time to peel back the cosmic
curtain and finally reveal God’s full self to us. No! God’s presence among us
is as real as the very air we breathe just as full of mystery. God’s presence
among us calls us into relationship with God, into communion with the Almighty;
God’s very presence among us is a call to join with God in bringing about the
fulfilment of the prophetic promises of the kingdom!
God’s presence
among us ought to inspire us to action, to take part in ending those things
that bring pain, suffering, and injustice upon others. God’s presence among us
ought to stir us to actively join with God in wiping away the tears from the
eyes of those who mourn as we faithfully set about bringing an end to those
things that cause our crying, as we seek to put an end to causing one another
pain. God’s presence among us along with God’s words in verse 5 of our text call us to be a part of God’s in-breaking kingdom
now, for God doesn’t say,
“See, I’m going to make things new, one day, after it gets really, really bad
and I just can’t stand it anymore. No! God says, “See, I am making all things new.”
The very grammar of these words points to the reality that God is actively
making all things new even now, that the kingdom of God is breaking into this
world even now, and we—you and me, all of us who call ourselves Christians—can
join with God as God’s presence is among us to bring about this kingdom where
all things are new.
Now, I think
here I ought to say that we can’t do this on our own. Maybe that goes without
saying as we witness a world where so many think they’ve got the answers, the
quick fixes, the policies that will put our state, country, or our world back
on the right path, and we watch as they just create further divisions and spawn
more vitriol among folks who would otherwise get along. We can’t bring about
God’s kingdom on our, because, well, it wouldn’t be God’s kingdom if we could:
sure there are a lot of folks who want to see their version of God’s kingdom
come, a kingdom of folks who look, think, and act like they do, a kingdom with
a gate around it, but that’s not God’s kingdom. However we may interpret this
passage before us, one thing is certainly clear—God is among the peoples of the
earth bringing God’s kingdom to reality. God is the main source of the action,
the primary protagonist in producing perfection. However, that doesn’t mean we
sit idly by, waiting for God to do it all so we can get what’s coming to us
when it’s all over.
There are some
words, some memories that are sort of burned into your mind, things that
happened that you know changed the trajectory of your life, moments that laid
the tracks that brought you to where you are now. There’s one I always come
back to, even though it may seem like a rather small, really unimportant
memory. I was thirteen. It was Friday or Saturday night, because I was at my
dad’s house, on the couch in the living room (it was a time when there were
more people than bedrooms at my dad’s house, and as I was the only boy, I slept
on the couch when I came on the weekends). I remember my stepmom getting up and
going out to the carport to talk to my dad (I think she wanted me out of the
living room so she could watch TV or something). Dad was outside replacing the
intake gaskets on the ’78 Cutlass Supreme he and my stepmom drove, and I
distinctly remember hearing my step mom say to him, “Why don’t you let
Christopher help you?” And my dad replied, “He doesn’t want to do any of this.
He won’t want to help me.”
Now, folks,
hearing my dad say that sparked something in me. I got off the couch, put my
shoes on, and went outside where I told my dad I was there to help. He looked
at me (a little stunned) and pointed at a coffee can that had push rods and
lifters soaking in oil and a cardboard box that held the gaskets. I spent the rest of the night out there,
handing my dad wrenches, asking questions about how this worked or how that
worked, trying my best to learn and help, because I knew it wouldn’t be the
last time. Did I fix the leak? Did I replace the gaskets? Did I really do what my dad couldn’t do
by himself? Of course not, but taking part in it, helping my dad do it, that
changed me, that shaped me.
Maybe that’s
what God’s presence among us is all about. Maybe God invites us to bring about
God’s new kingdom—not because God needs
us or because we have to do it in order to earn a spot in it, but because our
participation with God, our
joining with the presence of God among us as God is making all things new, our
cooperation with the ever-living, ever-moving, ever-loving Spirit of God in
bringing about the reality of God’s kingdom changes us. Maybe God calls us off the sidelines, into the action
because it shapes us, prepares us for the coming kingdom, prepares our hearts
and minds for the wideness of God’s grace in the kingdom when we get our hands
dirty with God’s work. Perhaps we shouldn’t simply be waiting for the hammer to
fall, the trumpet to sound, the buzzer to go off, the sky to rend open,
maybe—just maybe—God has already begun bringing about the fullness of God’s
kingdom as God dwells among us even now. Maybe the new is already coming down,
and Christ is calling our gaze upward, to reach our hands upward, but not so we
may long for something “up there,” beyond the clouds, but so we may long to
dwell with the God who is already living among us, that we may long to bring
God’s new kingdom down to us, so we all may live in the presence of God together.
Amen.
[1]
John 1:1, 10-14
No comments:
Post a Comment