Rev. 21:1-7
Easter 5
May 19, 2019
“All Things New”
I think
most of us can appreciate when things are “new”. A new baby is a joy like nothing else. A brand new article of clothing. That new car smell. A new job.
A new home. A new store. Even a new friendship. There’s an excitement when something is new.
A whole new set of possibilities is opened up.
But also, in contrast to something old, there’s no baggage. That new baby hasn’t made the mistakes of
life we have. The new car hasn’t had
anyone spill coffee all over it yet. I
like the new Walmart where everything is still relatively clean and fresh. The new friend doesn’t know all your flaws
and failings, and wasn’t around all those times you did something embarrassing.
And in
spiritual terms, it is much the same.
When God made the world, when everything was new and fresh – it was
perfect. Creation was without a
flaw. God even declared it “very
good”. He made everything and every
creature according to its kind, and with perfect purpose. And finally he made man, and also a helper
suitable for him. A perfect match. There was no sin – and so there was no
disease, no corruption, no chaos.
Nothing broken down and in need of repair. Nothing worn out. No crying, no pain, no death.
Furthermore,
their relationships were also unbroken.
They had perfect communion with God and each other. There was no sin or shame to mar the “very
goodness” of it all.
It’s hard
even to imagine such a world, what it must have been like. “Paradise the blessed” we sing about it, but
we can barely conceive of it.
Because
our everyday experience is with the broken world that followed. We know only the corrupted and chaotic world
that is stained and shattered by sin.
This old thing. Age has not been
kind to this creation, now under the yoke of death. Nothing good seems to last forever. Things wear out. Things break down. So much of today’s world is disposable – we
just throw things away when we’re done with them. You drive a new car off the lot and it
instantly loses much of its value. You
start a new job and you find out it’s not all you’d hoped it would be. You marry a spouse and you start finding out
they aren’t always so easy to live with.
Or you buy a new home and you find yourself longing for the place you
left.
Jesus
describes this phenomoneon so poetically in the Sermon on the Mount, where we
warns us not to get too attached to this world:
Do not lay up for yourselves
treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where
thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in
and steal. (Matthew 6:19-20)
It’s
true. This side of heaven, moth and rust
destroy things. Thieves break in and
steal things. Nothing good seems to last
forever, but it fades, it falls, it breaks, it dissolves.
And you and
your coffee mug might say, “some things get better with age!” And of course it’s true. Wisdom comes with age, sometimes. But so does the accumulation of a lifetime’s
sin and that thing we call regret.
Experience and confidence may come with age, but so do the aches and
pains of a body that is giving in toward the grave, inching ever closer to its
end. So while there are joys and
blessings of old age, they are tinged with bitterness and marred by decay and
imperfection.
What it
comes down to for us, is that our predicament is so bad that we don’t just need
a spiritual makeover. We need a complete
and total do-over. We need a full and
perfect renewal that is just as thorough as the corruption under which we
labor.
Thank God we have a Jesus who
does it for us. And by the way, the promise of Jesus in our Gospel reading - to send the Spirit who will declare the things to come - is fulfilled, at least in part, by our reading from Revelation 21, where John is
blessed to see in his vision a future day
when all things are made new. And that
day is the day of Christ’s return:
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.
Along with Christ’s second coming, the final judgment, and the
resurrection of the dead – we have this other detail about the last day: This
world will pass away. Scripture speaks
in various ways about it. The world will
“pass away” (our text), also Matthew 24:7, “Heaven
and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
“The heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear
out like a garment” (Isaiah 51:6)
2
Peter 3 puts it this way: “then the heavens will pass away with a
roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth
and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
But
far less important than exactly how it happens is that this broken, fallen,
corrupted world will not simply be “fixed” or made better. It won’t be healed or patched up. God is starting anew. Afresh.
From scratch. So complete will be
the change, it is an entirely new re-establishment of creation – and we will
live there with our resurrected and glorified bodies, in perfect communion with
our Triune God forever. The pictures of
John’s vision continue:
And I saw athe holy city, bnew Jerusalem, ccoming down out of
heaven from God, dprepared eas a bride adorned
for her husband.
What John sees next is a strange but joyous thing – a mixed
metaphor of sorts – it is a vision of the church as both a city and a
bride. All of this is simply a picture
of the church in her glory. The sum
total of all believers in Christ, ushered into our blessed eternity. A New Jerusalem – and just what was wrong
with the old one? It was corrupt. But not this one – as John later sees its
magnificence – pearly gates, streets paved with gold. And adorned as a bride – the Bride of Christ,
that is! Holy, blameless, without spot
or blemish. The entire people of God
united with Christ for eternity. And if
an earthly wedding is a time of great celebration, how much more the marriage
feast of the Lamb in his kingdom that has no end? And by the way, also, we get a foretaste of this in the Lord's Supper even today!
3 And I
heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, fthe dwelling place1 of
God is with man. He will gdwell with them, and
they will be his people,2 and God himself
will be with them as their God.3
Perhaps the greatest sadness of the fallen creation is that it
separated us from God. But now all that
is changed, reversed, overturned. In the
New Heaven and Earth, God dwells with man once again. They are his people, and he is their God –
without anything to get in the way of it.
Perfect unity. Perfect communion. A perfect relationship and the privilege of
his perpetual presence.
4 hHe will wipe away
every tear from their eyes, and ideath shall be no
more, jneither shall there
be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed
away.”
All the troubles that flow from sin are wiped away with the very
tear from your eye. And what a tender
and intimate picture, of God wiping away your tears – like you’d dry the eyes
of a little child. All the hurts are now
“former things” and they are passed away – never to bother us again.
5 And khe who was seated on
the throne said, “Behold, I lam
making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for mthese words are
trustworthy and true.” 6 And he
said to me, n“It is done! oI am the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end. pTo the thirsty I will
give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 qThe one who conquers
will have this heritage, and rI will be his God
and she
will be my son.
He
reiterates these promises – he who makes all things new – that is, the Alpha
and Omega, that is, the beginning and the end, that is, Jesus. The one who declared “it is finished” at the
cross, is the one who declares here, “it is done!” For us, it’s a future promise as good as done
– we rest so secure and sure in the promise of all things new – because we have
heard the news of Jesus – who conquered death by death and brought life that
death cannot destroy.
And of all
the things he makes new, it begins with you.
The New Creation that he has made you in baptism. The daily renewal he works in you by
repentance and faith. The New You still
wrestles with the Old You, and that’s nothing new. But it won’t last. A time will come when even our Old Adam is
entirely destroyed, and only the New will remain. Whether by the gate of death, or should we
live to see the last day – either way – God will bring us to this fulfillment.
Far better
than that new car smell is the promise of the new heaven and earth. Far better than this old corrupt creation is
the eternal home God will provide for us all.
A blessed promise from Jesus, who makes all things new. John saw it, and we believe it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
