All Things New

Revelation 21:1-5

September 9, 2018 • Mount Pleasant UMC

When I was a kid, they brought “those movies” to show at my home church. If you were in church in the late 1970’s, you probably know which movies I’m talking about—movies about the end of time. The “Thief in the Night” movie series predated the Left Behind book series by a couple of decades, and I have to tell you: they left me unsettled and frightened. Honestly, I think that was part of the intent of the filmmakers, to “scare people to Jesus,” and there were people at my home church who, because of the film, went forward when the altar call was given. They gave their lives to Jesus, and everyone celebrated, counting the films a success. But, for most of them, once the fear passed, so did the commitment. I wasn’t sure then and am even more unsure now that fear is a good path to faith. I became convinced of that because I spent many, many years afraid as a result of that movie and that theology. Like many of you, throughout my life, I’ve heard endless predictions and promises that Jesus’ return would be this day or that day. We’ve lived through a whole lot of them in the last few years. Every time a prediction is made, there are people, even in the church, even some who have walked with Jesus for a long time, who respond in fear because the message is something along these lines: “You’d better not mess up today, because today might be the day Jesus returns and if you mess up today, you’ll be on the outside.”

I don’t believe fear is the way God hopes we will respond to the promise of Jesus’ return; after all, the Scriptures tell us that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). There is no more perfect love than the love God has for us, and so the Christian story should be one that sets us free from fear. As we come to the end of the bigger story this morning, I want us to perhaps re-think and re-learn what we believe about the end—the end of time, the end of history, the end of the world. Even this part of the story ought to bring us hope, because it’s every bit as good as the rest of the story. Maybe even moreso.

Quick reminder, though, of the four-word outline of the bigger story. Do you remember? The story begins with CREATION, is disrupted with the FALL, and then is given new hope in the work of Jesus that we call REDEMPTION. The culmination of the story, though, we call RESTORATION. As that word implies, this is the part of the story where the creator makes all things new. This is the part of the story where the “good” gets even better. And just to tease us a bit, Jesus came to his friend John on the island of Patmos and gave him a hint—just a hint—of things to come. John, of course, wrote it down (to the best of his ability) in a book we call Revelation.

John, growing up as a faithful Jew, would have been steeped in end-times hope. When you read the Hebrew Scriptures or what we call the Old Testament, over and over again you will encounter an idea called “the day of the Lord.” The prophets spoke about it a lot, and in the time of Jesus, the first century, the day of the Lord was largely understood to be a single day when God would break into history and destroy all of Israel’s enemies. It was to be the moment when the Messiah came, when justice would be done. Most people believed that, on that day, God would justify Israel and establish his people as the center of the world. All of the suffering they had undergone would be worth it. Of course, there were some prophets who said that the day of the Lord was not going to be as great as they thought it would be. Amos, in particular, told the people that because of their sin, they would likely face as much punishment as anyone else. He wrote about it this way: “Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him” (5:18-19). Now, that’s a really bad day! But Amos’ point is this: just because you have a certain ethnic background or pedigree doesn’t guarantee things will go your way in the end.

Of course, when Jesus came, some believed he was the one who was going to bring in the day of the Lord. He would be the one to deal with the sin of the world in a single day (cf. Zechariah 3:9). He would restore Israel and punish all of her enemies. But that’s not what Jesus did. He did deal with the sin of the world in a single day, on the cross, on what we call Good Friday, but not in the way most people of that day expected him to. Even after his resurrection, you might remember, his followers are still confused as to why he didn’t do everything that was expected of the Messiah. Forty days after his resurrection, they’re getting impatient, and they ask him, “Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Let’s get on with this day of the Lord; it’s been over a month already! But Jesus tells them not to worry about it. The timing of everything was in his Father’s hands; besides, he had already told them not to try to figure out the end. Even he didn’t know when it was coming (cf. Mark 13:32).

Several years later, though, he visited his friend John on the island of Patmos, where John had been exiled by the Roman government because of his preaching about Jesus. John was the last of the original twelve disciples still living, a very old man at this point, and maybe because of that or maybe because of their close friendship, Jesus chose to give him a glimpse of what God was preparing. He did not give John a roadmap to the end of time. The attempts to turn Revelation into that are misguided and, quite honestly, wrong. That’s not how the early church understood this strange book; most of the attempts to nail down a timeline in this book come from as late in time as the 1830s. That makes those beliefs relatively new in the grand history of the world, in light of the bigger story (cf. Smith, The Magnificent Story, pgs. 132-133). The book of Revelation never claims to be a narrative of the end of the world. Read the very beginning to find out what it actually is: “The revelation of Jesus Christ…” (1:1, KJV). It’s written to tell us something about Jesus, about his faithfulness, about how he has not forgotten his people even when they go through difficult times (like persecution), about how he will fulfill all of God’s promises. It just turns out that the “day” of the Lord is a lot longer than anyone expected.

So what does the end of the story look like? To be blunt, it’s a lot better than the smaller story we often believe. The smaller story is one of violence, execution and dominance. It is a story that is dark, bleak, and hopeless, more suited to a horror movie than a church sanctuary. In fact, after I got past my fear that was stirred up by those movies, I spent a lot of years completely avoiding thinking or reading anything about the return of Jesus. I guess I somehow assumed that if I didn’t think or read about it, it wouldn’t be a reality. It wouldn’t happen. You see, even though I had gotten past the fear, I hadn’t replaced the smaller story with the bigger story, and the bigger story is this: Jesus will return and it will be good. It will be glorious. And it will bring light, hope and goodness. The return of Jesus is a central tenant to the Christian faith. The Apostle’s Creed says it this way: “I believe in Jesus Christ…[who] will one day come to judge the quick and the dead.” When I realized that truth again, I turned back to the Bible to see what the future actually holds, and the main place where John definitively describes the future is at the very end of this book, in chapters 20 and 21, part of which we read this morning. What I came to find out is that this part of the bigger story is as good, beautiful and true as all the rest. What John tells us is that this God, who once created the world and saw that it was good, will one day remake everything. He is in the business of making all things new.

John gives us a picture of three ways God will make all things new in the passage we read this morning, three promises about the day of the Lord. The first is this: he will make creation new. John writes, “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (21:1). Now, the narrative I was taught or somehow understood growing up is that one day, God will destroy everything we see and start over, build a whole new world. But that’s not the actual story. That may be a popular story but it’s not the Biblical story. The word John uses here in Revelation 21 would better be translated “renewed” or “remade.” It doesn’t refer to something brand new; rather, it describes a change in quality or essence (Mulholland, Revelation, pg. 315). Throughout the vision contained in Revelation, John has been describing the corrosive influence of sin, of brokenness, of evil in the world. But here he’s describing what will happen when God pulls all of that sin and evil out. A few weeks ago, when we were talking about the beauty of creation, you might remember (or you might not) that I said I can’t imagine what creation, as beautiful as it is now, might have looked like before the fall, before the invasion of sin and evil into the world. But here, John says, that’s exactly what will happen: creation will be restored, renewed, made new again. It will be what God always intended it to be—not destroyed, made new.

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Another thing to note: John is not talking about one day there being just a new heaven. He’s talking about a new heaven and a new earth, completely joined together as God intended it from the beginning—forever. When Jesus came the first time, he began to deal with the sin in the world; his incarnation was the first time heaven and earth were joined together, in his person. When he comes again, heaven and earth will be joined fully and forever. Paul says that day will “bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Ephesians 1:10; Wright, Revelation for Everyone, pg. 188).

Not only will creation be made new, but you and I will be made new as well. John writes this: “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God’” (21:3). Now, this verse brings up two questions in my mind, and the first is this: where will we spend eternity? Or, to put it another way, do we go to heaven? Well, of course, the answer is “yes,” except…the Bible doesn’t talk about in the way we think. Here in Revelation, the picture we get is not of God’s people going “up” to heaven, but of heaven coming down to earth. The New Jerusalem, Revelation’s image for the whole people of God, is said to come down from God, out of heaven down to earth (21:2). And in the midst of that vision, what had to be an overwhelming image for John to see, he then hears an announcement from God’s throne. God’s messenger declares something new is going to take place, but actually what will happen is what God has desired since the beginning of time. Again, the voice says this: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (21:3). Do you remember the story of creation, where God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the “cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8)? Their sin made them hide from God, but before the sin, the normal practice of God and humanity was to walk together. God’s invitation to Abraham, when he chose a people to be his representatives on earth, was to “walk before me” (Genesis 17:1). Over and over again in the Hebrew Scriptures, God invites people to walk with him, to be with him. And do you remember what Isaiah and the Gospels both call Jesus? It’s a name we use a lot during the Advent and Christmas seasons: “Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” Now, here at the end, when all things are made new, the voice from the throne announces God’s presence among his people. He will dwell with us, we will be his people. What we know as heaven and earth become one. Ultimately, eternity is not about rewards and streets of gold. It’s not about family reunions or strumming harps. Eternity is about having our deepest longings fulfilled by being in the presence of God. That’s why, even now, the answer to most of our prayers is not what we think it should be. The answer to our prayers is the presence of God. In the midst of pain, in the midst of struggle, in the midst of brokenness and sin and hurt and anger and a world divided, God gives us himself, which is what we most need.

This leads me to a little bit of a tangent, though not really, because we’ve had a rash of attempted and completed suicides in our community lately. In the national news a couple of weeks ago was a pastor in California who admitted he was struggling with depression and then took his own life. Those incidents remind us that life gets hard sometimes, and there are often times when we can’t see any sort of hope. There are times when the depression seems so overwhelming and the world seems so dark that we can’t imagine being able to make it through one more day. This is not a sermon on suicide, but I can tell you that six years later, I’m still walking through it with one of my dearest friends whose husband took his own life because he believed he had no other choice. He left behind his wife and two young sons, and I can tell you whole family continues to struggle. My friend was in church every Sunday, read his Bible, believed in Jesus. But he had these persistent sins that he could not, it seemed, escape, and things in his past that he could not outrun. Those things haunted him and he couldn’t see any other way than taking his own life. For others, it’s a break-up, or the loss of a job, or a betrayal by a friend that brings those situations. Church, we’ve got to do better. We know the hope of the world, and it’s time we started acting like it, started offering him to the darkness, the brokenness and, yes, the sin in this world. We believe in a God who is making all things new, but while we focus on heaven, the world is headed in the other direction. Be hope, friends. Be hope, and be the presence of God to those who just need to know that someone cares, and that the worst thing is never the last thing.

So, back on track, I said there were two questions brought up by verse 3, and the second is this: what are we going to look like? I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked that question over the years. It comes in different forms, like: what age will I be? Do I get to choose my age? Will I be thinner, taller, and will I still have this scar on my face? Let me say this up front: most of what you have seen in the movies is wrong. It’s simply not Biblical. And as much as I love the holiday film It’s a Wonderful Life, the theology in that movie is terrible. It is not true that every time a bell rings an angels gets his wings, and it’s not true that we become angels who then have to “earn” status in eternity. That’s just bad, bad theology. I know, I’ve ruined that movie for you now, and I’m sorry. But not really. Here’s a quick overview of what the Bible says: first, angels are created beings, like you and me. We do not become angels; we are who we are. What happens to us in eternity is that we get a new body. This one, if you haven’t noticed, is wearing out, but in eternity we will get a new body fit for forever. As to what age we will be, I don’t know. But I do have a sense that we will recognize each other, though Jesus says we won’t have what we think of as “normal” relationships like we have here (cf. Matthew 22:30). But I will be Dennis, and you will be you, but everything we need and everything we desire will be found and met in Jesus. Renewed heavens. Renewed earth. Renewed you and me.

And that leads us to the third thing John says is going to happen: God will make all of life new. This promise is one of the most beautiful in all of Scripture, and I read it at almost every funeral I do. I know I want to have it read at my funeral because it reminds us of the hope, the promise, the future that awaits all who trust in Christ. Here it is: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (21:4). Just a couple of weeks ago, the pastor I had while growing up died. Amos McGinnis was the only pastor I really remember; he was at our church for eleven years and was, in ways I only recognized later, instrumental in my pursuit of pastoral ministry. Amos was 96 years old when he went home to be with Jesus, and while I rejoice that he is home and whole, I also mourn my own loss. It reminded me again that life is always a mixture of joy and sorrow. Every day, we face situations that challenge us, and it’s not spiritual or religious or even Christian to say or pretend that nothing is wrong when we all know that mourning, crying, pain—all these things are a normal part of life here on earth. Life hurts. Life is hard. Stuff happens that causes us pain. When we try to deny that reality, we’re not being spiritual. To put it bluntly, we’re liars when we do that. I once knew a woman who would insist loudly that, if you’re a Christian, nothing bad could or would happen to you. To think otherwise was, in her mind, a sign of faithlessness. She and I did not get along well. And when a little girl in our congregation died at age 5, she tried to gloss over it. That didn’t go well with the parents, or with many others, because the reality is whether you're a Christian or not, bad things happen. They just happen; it’s the “normal” way of life. But when God renews the world, when he comes to make it all right again, those things that are normal now will become obsolete. There’s a “new normal” coming to our lives, and those things that we are so familiar with now will have no place. Again, I ask you: can you imagine a life like that? Of course not, and I think that’s at least part of why both Isaiah in the Old Testament and Paul in the New said eternity would be something we have never conceived of and could never dream up (cf. 2 Corinthians 2:9-10 quoting Isaiah 64:3).

Did you catch the utter tenderness of this image, though? Did you notice who is wiping the tears away? It’s not some lackey. It’s not some minor heavenly functionary. It’s not the “associate angel of tear eradication.” John says God himself will be the one to wipe the tears from our eyes. God himself. The God who made the universe. The God whose heart was broken when humanity rebelled. The God who came in Jesus to show us how to live and to save us from our sin. The God who is working up to this very day to put the world to rights, to put it all back together. That God is the one who will personally wipe the tears from your eyes (cf. Wright 190). But even before then, he knows all about the pain, the struggle, the difficulty you've been through. There’s an absolutely breathtaking image in Psalm 56, where David is in captivity. The Philistines, Israel’s perpetual enemy, have captured him, and he cries out to God in the midst of that struggle to “have mercy” on him. Near the end of that psalm, David sings this to God: “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record?” (Psalm 56:8, NRSV). Put my tears in your bottle. There was a practice in ancient Israel where tears were collected and stored so that you would remember the struggle you had been through. It’s sort of how we keep mementoes of those we love who have died, to remember them. I have the Bible my Aunt Helen used. I don’t use that Bible, but I keep it to remember her and her faith. “Put my tears in your bottle” was a way or asking God to remember you, to remember the pain, to not forget about you. But now, at the end, when the creation is made new, God is going to take those tears and throw them away. It’s like God is saying, “You don’t need those anymore. The time of pain and struggle is over. I am here, and I will be with you forever. Pain, mourning and tears are gone forever.” The struggle you go through here is not without meaning. Even when you feel alone, God has not forgotten you. But one day, he will do away with all the pain, all the hurt, all the wounds as he makes all things new.

Creation. Fall. Redemption. Restoration. All things made new. It’s a story with a good, beautiful and true ending, a story we can trust because, as God told John, “These words are trustworthy and true” (21:5). So what does all this mean? Well, among other things, this means we live as people of hope. Paul told the Thessalonians that they should not be like the rest of humanity, who spend their life in grief, but that they (and we) should live as people who have hope, who encourage one another. To be honest, as believers we don’t have any right to participate in the hateful gripe-fest that is our current culture. Now, I’m not talking about being “happy clappy” positive all the time. It’s not about being fake. It’s about living with real hope, knowing that this world has a future, that God is in control, and that God is good and has good plans for us and our world. In the midst of an extremely difficult time in the history of God’s people, God sent this word through the prophet Jeremiah, in what is one of my favorite verses: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11). Here are the things we can affirm: life is hard. God is good. And one day God will bring everything back to the way it was meant to be. These truths should give us confidence. These truths should fill us with hope.

So, this week, I want to encourage you to engage in a really fun soul training exercise. Did you know that eating a meal is a spiritual discipline? If you didn’t know that, you haven’t been around Methodists very long! But think about it: in the Old Testament, people often gathered around a meal as an act of hospitality. Jesus was often found at table with others, so much so that he was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton (cf. Matthew 11:19)! Do you remember the very first miracle Jesus performed? It was turning water into wine at a wedding feast! Jesus’ first miracle took place so the dinner, the party, could keep on going! And in the end, the final gathering of Jesus and his people is called the “wedding supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). It’s a party that will go on forever. So here’s our soul training exercise: as a foretaste of that coming wedding feast, take time this week to slow down, prepare a good meal and enjoy it with friends. Maybe make something you haven’t made in a long time, or make a meal that you save only for special occasions. Call it your “hope meal,” a reminder of the hope we have in the day when all things will be made new. And eat the meal at a leisurely pace; we get so hurried and busy these days. I know I do. There are times I just grab something because I don’t think I have time to really cook something good, or if I do, we hurry through the meal to get on to the next thing. When I was in Italy, one of the things I learned to appreciate about their culture was their lack of hurry when it comes to dinner. I’m sure there are fast food places, but in most cases, no one hurries because a meal is supposed to be a time when you enjoy the taste, celebrate the company you are with, and relax. Dinner would take two hours minimum. When Christopher and I ate at a street cafe in Florence, we finished our meal and found ourselves getting anxious because no one had brought us our bill. We had to ask for it. We came to find out that’s the culture. No one is in a hurry when it comes to eating. So let’s practice that. Let’s have a “hope meal,” a time when we can enjoy good friends, good food, and give thanks to our good God who is, this day, making all things new.

As we prepare to pray this morning, I want to invite you to share in what are some of the last words of the Bible. The words will be on the screen, so let’s share together in the ancient prayer of the church.

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life…Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen (Revelation 22:17, 20b-21).