Monday, May 16, 2022

Sermon - Easter 5 - Revelation 21:1-7

 


Revelation 21:1-7

“All Things New”

We have been hearing, this Easter season, from the Book of Revelation in the place of our usual Epistle reading.  And I, for one, really appreciate that the lectionary does this.  Not only because Revelation is one of my favorite books of the Bible, but also the passages that are chosen – some of the highlights, really, some of the most precious passages of promise in this last book of the Bible.

We see Christ as he appears to John in chapter 1.  We see him again pictured as the Lamb who once was slain in chapter 5.  We glance over John’s shoulder, as it were, to see the great multitude clothed in white in chapter 7 – a picture of the church in glory.  And in these last couple of weeks we read from chapters 21 and 22 – the last couple of chapters of Scripture – and see a picture of the eternal destiny of all who are in Christ.  And what a glorious destiny it is.  Like the happy ending of all happy endings.

There appears the new heaven and the new earth, for the first heaven and earth have passed away, along with the sea.  What does this mean?

Revelation makes no sense here without an understanding of the world that is rooted in Genesis.  There we read about creation – how God made the heavens and the earth and everything in them – and it was all very good.  But that all changed when the serpent slithered in with his lie, and our first parents cast their lot with him in rebellion against God.  Not only did Adam and Eve change in that bitter fall into sin, but all their children were doomed to the same corruption.  Their fall was our fall.

And furthermore, all of creation would now be touched by the brokenness that corrupted man, its steward.  In Adam, the first heaven and earth were broken.  And they’ve never been the same since.  Thorns and thistles, to be sure, but also disease and death, disasters and calamities of all manner.  St. Paul further characterizes the fallen-ness of creation as a woman in childbirth – with groaning and labor pains – just like the labor pains that Eve and her daughters would now face – but on a creation-wide scale.

What a sad day it was.  When the newly minted creation was shattered by sin.  Like the first time you wear that new white outfit, and dribble the meatball right down the front of it.  Or the new book that cracks when you open it, and then you spill coffee all over and stain its pages.  Like the brand new car you drive off the lot and at the first intersection gets into a crash.  But far worse than any of these. Creation was marred and scarred by sin.  This world that God created good became the valley of the shadow of death.

Now, in a way, we are all victims of this fallen creation.  And sometimes troubles happen to us through no discernable fault of our own.  Sometimes it’s the wicked world – other sinners – that trouble us, like when Pilate mixed the blood of some Jews with their sacrifices.  Sometimes it’s just a freak accident, like when the tower fell and killed those other poor souls.  They weren’t worse sinners than anyone else, so says Jesus.

And yet, there is also a sense in which we do bear responsibility and blame for this fallen world.  As our hymn puts it, “In Adam we have all been one, one huge rebellious man”.  Adam’s sin is our sin.  We are, in our flesh, fruit of his poisoned tree.  And though we didn’t personally eat from the forbidden tree, we are brought forth in the same iniquity and we ourselves sin just as willingly and whole-heartedly.  We are in our father, Adam’s, image.  And so we can’t really claim victim status.  We deserve death and punishment, temporal and eternal.

It’s a sad state of affairs to be a sinner living in a world corrupted and broken by sin.  Look closely enough and you’ll see the flaws in everything.  No one is good.  Nothing lasts forever.  Moth and rust destroy.  Death comes for all.  But we are not without hope.  For Jesus has come – and he makes all things new.

Jesus, of course, has no sin of his own – he is conceived by the Holy Spirit – his father is not Adam, but God.  He bears no blame whatsoever for this fallen creation, and therefore he is the only one who could truly claim victim status.  Only he suffered without sin, only he unjustly bore the sins of the world.  Only he died without deserving it in any sense.  But he doesn’t play the victim in the sense of whining about it, or expecting some justice for it.  He goes willingly to his destruction.  He obediently fulfills the Father’s will.  He did it all, though, for us.  He did it to make all things new.

It’s been a while since I watched the movie, “The Passion of the Christ”.  And as with all movies based on a book – there’s going to be some artistic license.  One detail that sticks in my mind along that line is that as Jesus is pictured carrying his cross on Good Friday and he stumbles, there is a brief comment he makes to one of the women who followed weeping and wailing.  He looks at her and says, “Behold, I make all things new”.  Now, that’s not something he said then and there, according to the Gospels.  It’s definitely artistic embellishment.  But as a theological statement, it’s actually really good.

At the cross, Christ makes all things new.  By shedding his holy precious blood in his innocent suffering and death, he makes all things good, very good, once again. Like at the very beginning.

By his agony and bloody sweat, he cleanses not only us of our sins – but he purifies all that is touched and tainted by sin – and that includes the creation itself.  So we can rightly see this promise at the end of Revelation – of a new heaven and earth – as rooted in Christ’s work at the cross.

He closes the loop on what was lost in the Garden of Eden.  In the Fall, sin and death came.  Now in Christ they are no more.  In the Fall, man was cast out of the garden, doomed to the wilderness.  Now, in Christ, we are welcomed into a holy city.  In the Fall, sin brought sorrow, pain, and tears.  Not only to Adam and Eve, but it still brings such sorrow to you and me.  But all of that is gone in Christ.  He will wipe every tear from our eyes.

And here’s another connection.  Part of the bitter consequence of sin is the separation of God and man.  In Eden, God walked in the garden and they stood in his presence.  There was nothing to get in the way.  Now in Christ, that’s restored.  The dwelling of God is with man – God makes himself a man, takes on human flesh in the person of Christ.  And because of Christ, we have an eternal dwelling with God in the new creation.  That’s what makes heaven so great anyway – that we get to be with God.  That the dwelling of God is with man.  We his people, and he our God forever.

The next couple of weeks we will hear more from Revelation about that eternal home of ours.  First it will be pictured (as briefly mentioned here) as the bride of Christ, and as the Holy City.  The Heavenly Jerusalem will have perfect dimensions and rich features – gates of pearl and streets of gold.  In other words, our new home will be the best – and a place of perfection.

And then we will see more of what was lost in Eden restored – the tree of life reappears. River water flows – not the 4 rivers of Eden but the River of Life flowing from the very throne of God.  We will have life in abundance.  God will provide for our every need.  There won’t even be night there – for God will be our light and our life.

Friends, when Jesus does something, he does it all the way.  When he says he makes all things new, he means it!  What a blessing that when he returns we will have a new heaven and a new earth, that the former things will pass away, that the dwelling of God will be with man for eternity, and that we will live in newly resurrected and glorified bodies built for eternity. 

Sin ruins everything.  Death touches every corner of this creation.  But Jesus makes all things new.  He undoes the curse.  He restores you and me and creation.  Thanks be to God. 

Now may the peace….

 

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