April 24, 2016 – Revelation 21:1-6
Revelation 21:1-6
Unveiling Heaven
5th Sunday of Easter – April 24, 2016
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
People often ask me why I like tikis.
They are so primitive!
Well, that is why I like them.
It is hard for us to now imagine just how popular tiki culture was back in the 50s and 60s.
Not only were there tiki bars and restaurants, but tiki theme parks.
Tiki apartment complexes. Tiki bowling alleys! Really!
Most theories account for this by saying that tiki culture provided an escape from
everyday reality for women and men who felt somewhat trapped by
the conformist post-war culture in North America.
And maybe that is true: so now you get people going to tiki conventions all over North America
to escape their everyday lives.
And I’m sure you could add a lot to the list of things people do to escape their everyday lives:
video games, shopping, addictions: you name it.
But here’s the thing about tiki culture: I think it is not so much an escape from reality as
it is an intensification of reality.
It takes us into a primitive part of who we are, a primitive, less inhibited part,
a primal, wondrous, whimsical part.
Tiki, like all great art I would say, is not so much an escape from reality,
but an intensification of reality.
It takes you deeper into the heart of the really real.
And you don’t have to go to Tahiti to do it:
you can do it from the comfort of your own living room.
It is an entry more deeply into the very same place.
John’s vision in Revelation is like that.
It is called “Revelation” or, in Greek, apocalypse, which literally means “unveiling.”
It is not – I repeat not – about the end of the world.
It is about the restoration of the world, as we see today in this reading from very near
the end of the Bible.
John’s crazy vision is not an escape from this world but rather
leads us more deeply into the heart of the world.
What is it that John’s vision unveil for us in Revelation?
At the beginning, John unveils for us who is really reigning in this world,
and it is not Caesar: it is Fluffy the lambkin with the lamb-power of suffering love:
that is what is really powerful in this world.
And throughout, John unveils for us and exposes the truth about Caesar’s empire,
its basis in greed, its operation in cruelty,
and its consequent indifference to human and ecological suffering.
John looks deep into the world, through layers and layers of what purports to be real.
Some of it he sees is beautiful, and some of it he sees is not so beautiful.
And he peers so deep – he is not peering up, he is peering down and in – he peers so deep that
he catches a glimpse of heaven deep, deep down there.
And heaven, he discovers, is a city, a beautiful, beautiful city.
I know we want to think of heaven as a garden, like the garden at the beginning of the Bible.
But John sees heaven as a city with a garden incorporated into it.
A city with a river that gives free water to those who thirst.
It is a city with trees that bear fruit every month of the year to give to those who hunger.
It is a city made up of all kinds of different people who all get along and respect and
appreciate the differences between themselves.
And most surprising of all it is a city not that we go to when we die, but
that comes to earth as a gift from God, a city in which death itself will die.
That city?
That city is our intended future.
And that city?
That city is held even now deep within the fabric of the world God has made.
That city of restored relationships is our future.
That city of renewed relationships is our potential.
It is a city that is safe and it is a city that is free from death.
It is a city in which there is no mourning, and no crying, and no pain.
The vision this morning reveals that it is this world that God so loves,
and it is this world that God wants to restore.
The vision this morning reveals that it is your life that God wants to renew,
and it is your relationships God wants to reconcile.
John, on his island, is not looking at some other world far away.
John is looking at this world and with his resurrection glasses on
he sees everything the way that God sees it: he sees the world and he sees you with
all your potential for beauty and amazingness deep inside you,
the way you were created to be.
I have told you a couple of times that a few years ago I Google-Earthed the island of Patmos,
where John was exiled to.
And you know what I saw? The same things that John saw!
A city, a river, trees, and . . . people.
People of every tribe and nation.
Patmos is where the Romans put political dissenters from all across the empire.
So the prisoners were of every language and race – and so were the jailers.
And John is given the gift in his vision of seeing it all the way God sees it:
he sees the river not as a natural resource to be exploited but as a refreshing gift to be
given away.
He sees the trees and he sees them not as wood to be chopped down and sold but as
bearing gifts of free fruit all year round to feed the hungry.
He sees the people, and he sees them not as enemies of one another but each person as
hand-made by God for the purpose of loving and healing and worshipping the
the one true God of lamb-power and self-giving love.
John sees the new thing that God wants to bring about deeply embedded in the old thing.
The old thing is redeemable, like the old piece of junk you see at the thrift store you know
could be something fabulous and beautiful.
The good news this morning is that the old thing is redeemable.
You are redeemable.
Your relationships are redeemable.
This whole world is redeemable.
You and this whole world, like a quality piece of furniture, are so well made by
a good and loving God that you have the possibility of restoration built into you.
That is the good news this morning.
And the good news comes along with an invitation.
An invitation to put on the same glasses John was wearing all those years ago when
he was given a glimpse into the true, wondrous, beautiful nature of things
beneath the surface of chaos and cruelty that
appeared to be what this world is all about.
Buried in this world is the potential for unimaginable beauty.
Buried within you is the potential for healing and helpfulness and joy.
Buried within your relationships is the potential for goodness and mutuality and freedom.
When you have these glasses on you see everything differently,
and that is the real gift John offers us this morning.
It’s the ability to look at a fabric swatch and see a gorgeous piece of clothing.
It’s the ability to look at a thunderstorm and imagine a symphony.
It’s the ability to look at a stranger and see a friend.
It’s the ability to look at a Parish Hall and imagine Community Meals.
It’s the ability to hear about a shooting on our street and imagine a Kids Club free drop in that
provides a safe place for children.
Heaven will come to earth, God promises in Revelation this morning.
But in some weird way, God is telling us, heaven is already here.
Not completely, but certainly in potential.
And so how we treat creation, how we treat every person we meet, how we think of ourselves
and how we spend our time matters.
Heaven is already here, waiting each moment to be . . . unveiled.
When you are wanting to unveil the primitive within, you host a tiki party.
And when you are wanting to unveil heaven you celebrate Holy Communion.
Not that different in some ways.
There is hospitality, there is inclusion, there is the enjoyment of the gifts of creation.
And there is community.
So come to the table and have a glimpse of the heaven buried within this world.
Come and commune with one another.
Come and receive a free gift of beautiful homemade bread and good wine.
Come and give thanks for what is.
And then put your resurrection glasses on, and leave this table with the best gift of all:
the gift of being able to see this world, creation, the people around you, and yourself as
full of the potential of heaven – and of the lamb of love that sits at its centre.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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