Revelation 21:1-5

Revelation 21:1-5

Now more than a month into the season of spring, with some warmer days and the help of recent rains, we are seeing the signs of the season all around us.  Grass is growing green in our yards and the hillsides.  Leaves are sprouting and re-clothing the bare limbs of the trees.  Wild flowers pop up here and there in the forests to delight us as we walk.  Birdsong fills the air with melodies that celebrate the arrival of new life in this part of the world once again.  As creation cycles back into spring it proclaims to us that God loves to make things new again.  He is the never-tiring Creator, the Great Renovator, giving His creation a fresh look and blessing us with another time for planting and growing on this part of the earth. 

 Today’s second reading, part of the conclusion of the book of Revelation, shows us that the renovating ambitions of our God go far beyond those He set in place when He made the heavens and the earth.  As wonderful and beautiful as this world is, there is still something wrong with it.  This morning two oil spills still threaten to pollute large parts of the Coral Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.  Members of our armed forces continue to face Taliban fighters whose self-righteous and hostile beliefs drive them to fight relentlessly for an Afghanistan where the laws of Islam will be so strictly followed that women will be kept uneducated and all dissenters will be silenced or killed in the name of Allah.   Though our country has so much for which to be thankful and so many opportunities to be a help to others, our national parliament seems addicted to playing out an endless series of political soap operas, investigating scandal after scandal instead of developing sound plans and policies for governing us as a nation now in the future. 

 In the first book of the Scriptures, God reveals to us what is wrong with this world in which we live.  Today’s pollution, power struggles and political incompetence are but symptoms of the problem.    The trouble all began when God’s creation was very young and perfectly good.  At that time, God made two of us, a man and a woman, and He gave them all that they needed in this world: each other, a home, work, and a beautiful place to rest.  He also gave them a command as means for them to express their trust in Him.  Their trust in God was tested when Satan encouraged them to break God’s command.  He suggested that God was holding them back from reaching their true potential by keeping them from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  He claimed that God was exaggerating when He warned them that death would follow disobedience to the command.  They believed him.  They ate and tasted death for the first time.  Satan had lied to them, and everything had changed.  The man and woman were terrified of their loving Creator.  They were ashamed of themselves.  They tried to hide their nakedness, and they tried to hide from God, failing on both counts.  When God brought them before Him for an explanation, they tried to hide behind lame excuses, shifting the blame that was theirs’ to others.  They had no way of making things right, no way of returning to the life they had lost.   

 Little has changed for us today.  On we humans go, hurting each other and damaging the world we have been given.  On we go, feverishly dreaming up solutions to problems that more often than not beget new problems.  One of the most ambitious ideas for dealing with global warming is that we should send some rockets up in the air to spray sulfurous chemicals into the atmosphere, creating a layer of cloud to shield the earth from of the sun’s radiation.  The plan was inspired by observing the cooling effect of large volcanic explosions that have pumped these kinds of materials into the sky in their clouds.  Scientists think it would work, but they admit that they can’t predict all of the results.   If we are causing global warming in the first place, and we don’t seem to be able to make the changes needed to stop it, should we be so confident in a plan like this to manage it? 

 Hope for us is not found in us.  Looking back to Adam and Eve, hope found them when God accepted the life of an innocent animal on their behalf and clothed them in its skin.  They were given hope by God because He promised that He would send one of their children to overcome Satan, sin and death for them (Genesis 3:15).  Hope for us also comes from God.  God sent His own Son as the promised son of Adam and Eve to set things right for us and His whole  creation.  Jesus lived with us in this Satan-sin-and-death-bound world.  He endured and escaped every one of Satan’s sugar-coated temptation-lies wherever they were laid.  In His miracles, Jesus demonstrated His divine mastery over death.  He healed the sick, He dismissed evil spirits who sapped life from human minds and bodies, and on several occasions He raised those who had been dead back to life.  Then our Lord seemed to switch His strategy.  Instead of conquering death, He embraced it.  Jesus gave Himself to be condemned by the Jewish leaders and Pilate.  He submitted to their torture and a shameful public execution on a cross.  He relinquished His hold on life and was swallowed up by death.  Or so it seemed until Easter morning.  As that day’s sun rose to reveal an empty tomb, Jesus had fulfilled God’s promise to our first parents.  God accepted the innocent life of His dear Son on our behalf, allowing Him to be clothed for three days in humanity’s death shroud, and now He had raised Him back to life to clothe us in garment of His never-ending life. 

 Hope for us is found in Jesus Christ.  God, the Great Renovator, has appointed Jesus as His Contractor.  By His death and resurrection, Jesus has brought to an end our old life of selfishness, sin and death, and He has given us a new life to live of faith – joyfully worshipping our God for all His good gifts – and love – considering the needs of others and caring for them.  In our baptism, God has declared us to be new people, His people, forgiven and dear to His heart.  Through His Word, God makes us new, calling us to die to old sinful thoughts, words and acts and to rise up and learn new ways of peace, love and joy.  Through His Supper, our Risen Master assures us that we are part of His renovation project, spurring us to live by faith and love in this old world. 

 And through the vision Jesus gave His beloved disciple, John, our Lord assures us that there is even hope for this old world in which we live.  Jesus has conquered Satan, sin and death, so there is hope of a better eternity for God’s creation too.  Remember what John saw: “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. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 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." And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new."   (Revelation 21:1-5a) 

 John saw a new heavens and a new earth.  Creation will be renewed.  When our Risen Lord who ascended to God’s right hand finally returns to this earth from heaven everything will be changed.  Satan will be cast out and punished forever.  Sin will be erased, abolished, annihilated.  Death will be no more.  But we who rely on Jesus will live in God’s renovated, made-new, creation with Him forever. 

 John saw a new Jerusalem, the former city of God’s people, the place of His presence.  There is much more about eternal life that we don’t know than what we do.  Our minds probably can’t begin to comprehend its glory.  But one thing has been clearly revealed to us.  Our life in God’s new creation will be marked by complete and unbroken communion with Him .  God will live with us, and we will live with Him, perfectly happy with Him, more blissful than a honeymooning bride with her beloved groom.  And this honeymoon will never end!  With  Satan, sin, and death forever absent from God’s new creation there will be no more mourning, crying, pain or tears.

 As you look around you at the signs of spring these days, praise God for His annual renovation of the world.  Even more though, keep your eyes fixed on the vision Jesus gave to John of God’s greater plans for the redemption of all creation.  Don’t be discouraged by the ugly, ongoing presence of Satan, sin and death in the world today; their end is coming.  Live by the hope Christ has given to you in your baptism and still gives you in His Supper.  Meditate daily on everything you hear and read, proclaimed to you from God’s Word of promise.  Live to worship your God and to care for your friends and enemies alike, looking forward to day of completion, when God declares His great reno project forever finished.  Amen.