June 2, 2019 – Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
How the Story Ends
Seventh Sunday of Easter – June 2, 2019
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
We all want to know how the story ends, right?
The last page of a book can change how you think about everything that has gone before.
The last page of a book can determine whether the book is comforting or distressing,
whether a story is hopeful or depressing,
whether it is a tragedy or a comedy – that is, whether or not it has a happy ending.
Have you ever wondered how the story of the Bible ends?
Well – today I get to play Aladdin and grant you your wish.
Today we get to hear the very last words in the Book of Revelation –
which is to say, the very last words in the Bible.
Now: before we get to that, full disclosure: it’s also true that there is judgment in Revelation.
And it comes near the end – it is unfortunate that the makers of the lectionary
decided to simply leave out the verse containing judgment in the reading today, verse 15.
This is what they omitted:
Outside the gate [of the New Jerusalem] are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
Here’s the thing: we have to hear this as good news: in God’s realm there is ultimately
no room for evil and injustice and exploitation.
John is not being simplistic: he knows these evil things exist in all of us.
He knew they existed in the church people he was addressing in his time.
And he knows they exist in us now.
The good news that John is announcing is that the evil within us and the evil around us
has no place in God’s ultimate plan for this universe.
Revelation is a great call to everyone out from the evil we are all implicated in
toward the goodness and mercy and justice of God’s realm.
In John’s way of thinking this is an exodus from the Roman Empire towards God’s empire.
Today we might say it is an exodus from everything that prohibits God’s peace and
healing and justice and community and friendship between all peoples.
John is saying that God is calling us out of anything that gets in the way of that.
So: one question to ask this morning is: is First Lutheran Church getting in the way of
peace and healing and justice and community and friendship between all peoples?
Or is it a bus stop along the way to that ultimate destination?
And what is the ultimate destination, exactly, in John’s imagination?
Well – as I always say – you have to keep reading to the end.
Please, please, please always keep reading to the very end of the Bible!
Don’t stop with the judgment! Because Revelation doesn’t end in judgment!
Keep going!
Because if you keep going, you arrive at a destination that is very beautiful.
John has been very good all along at acknowledging the difficulty of life in the Roman Empire.
He has not shied away from cataloguing the struggle and hardship that this life often entails.
But in the midst of all that we hear, in the end, two invitations.
The book and the Bible’s story ends not with judgment but with two beautiful invitations.
The first invitation is for Jesus – the risen Jesus – to come now with his healing and peace.
“Come” say the Spirit and the church to Jesus: come now and bring your gracious healing.
And let everyone say to Jesus, “Come,” come now and bring your gracious peace and be with us.
The first invitation is for Jesus to come. And to come now.
The second invitation is for . . . everyone.
For literally everyone to also come.
Come: everyone who thirsts for life and for justice.
Come everyone who longs for healing and peace.
Come everyone who is hurting . . . and everyone who has inflicted hurting.
Two invitations: come Jesus, come everyone – and meet!
Come, everyone, come Jesus, and commune together.
This vision that John had and that he wrote down was sent round to seven churches.
And it would be read as part of worship.
Then, as now, worship on Sunday morning had two parts: the word part and the meal part.
So, John wrote his book so that it ended with an invitation to communion . . . to everyone.
It ended with an invitation for everyone to meet the risen Jesus and
to be part of his realm of peace and healing and justice.
The book ends not with judgment, not with destruction, and not with cataclysm.
Rather, it ends with communion: with peace and healing, and with an invitation to justice.
The book ends with a vision of communion between Jesus and all peoples.
The Bible ends with communion between God and all peoples.
The story of the world ends, John is saying, with communion.
And, if you read to the very very end, you have an indication of just who, exactly,
is invited to this great feast of communion and harmony and peace.
The very last sentence says, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.”
Only, only . . . John probably didn’t write that.
It appears that some scribe wanted to limit God’s love and grace for everyone by
adding the words “the saints” after John wrote:
May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.
For many manuscripts that we have simply end that way:
May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.
The Bible ends with an invitation to communion for all – not just for the insiders.
Not just for those in the know, not just for those who think they have the inside track.
But for all.
For those who think they do not deserve God’s love.
For those who think they are being punished for something they have done.
For the incarcerated.
Grace is for all.
Grace is God’s lavish favour, without condition and without limits, for all people.
Grace for those among us who have died and
grace for those who continue to live seemingly without hope.
Grace for those who are suffering and grace for those who are hurting.
Grace, too, for those who are different from us.
Grace for those outside our congregation and grace for those in our neighbourhood who
so badly need it.
Grace for those we love, grace for those we don’t know, and grace even for our enemies.
Grace for you when you are stretched to your limit.
And grace for you when you feel you do not measure up.
Grace for you when feel like you have screwed everything up.
Grace for you and grace for the person you can’t stand.
Grace for all. Grace for all.
That is how the Bible ends – with an invitation to come to the table where there is grace for all.
The Bible ends with an invitation to the world and its peoples to be in communion with Jesus and
with one another.
This is how the world ends – not with a bang, certainly not with a whimper,
but with communion: the destination is communion,
a communion of all things and all people.
A communion into which everyone is invited.
A communion that starts here, at this table, at the intersection of Sargent and Victor,
where everyone without exception is invited to come for grace, for healing,
for forgiveness, for peace and for justice.
First Lutheran Church, let’s pray, is a bus stop on the way to the communion of all peoples.
So come: be in communion with Jesus.
Come be in communion with one another.
Come be part of the happy ending of God’s story.
And together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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