April 28, 2013 – Revelation 21:1-6
Revelation 21:1-6
Heaven is Coming, Heaven is Here
5th Sunday of Easter – April 28, 2013
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Many years ago I came across my favourite definition of art.
Art, at its best, is not an escape from reality, but an intensification of reality.
Emotions are intensified in art, whether you listen to a romantic piano concerto or punk rock.
Nature and its beauty are intensified when you look deep into a landscape painting.
Suffering is intensified when you look at a work like Picasso’s Guernica.
And the human body in all its beauty and all its wondrousness is intensified when you
study the portraits of both the famous and the forgotten.
Art has the capacity to lead us into the real, to uncover what is already there but
which we do not always see.
It leads us, at its best, from the real into the more real.
As C.S. Lewis writes about the “New Narnia” in The Last Battle,
New Narnia is not an escape from the old Narnia,
but an entry more deeply into the very same place.
And I think this is what John’s vision is doing for us this Eastertide.
John’s vision, as crazy as it is, is not an escape from the world; far from it.
John’s vision is leading us more deeply into the fabric of this world,
uncovering for us what is already there but perhaps deeply hidden.
He unveils for us at the very beginning who is really reigning in this world,
and it is not Caesar, it is Fluffy the lambkin with his lamb-power.
He 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.
In a courtroom scene that the lectionary skips over this week,
John unveils the dire consequences of human sinfulness.
But like the visions given to Scrooge in A Christmas Carol,
these visions, while terrifying, are given to us not as things that must be,
but as warnings to wake us up shake us from our lethargic lullaby.
And then, in the midst of all that, John unveils for us the great hope of Christian community
gathered around Jesus, the slain but standing one, even as we are this morning.
This morning we woke to more news of suffering and human indifference and cruelty.
But we gathered together to witness to something greater,
something that John has unveiled to us.
We busted our butts to get here because we know there is something more real,
there is something greater, there is something finer at work in our world and
that is at work in our lives that deeply desires to reveal itself to us.
And that something John continues to unveil for us and reveal to us this morning.
This morning John unveils something for us that is pretty surprising.
He’s looking deep into the world right? Through the layers and layers of fabric,
some of it beautiful, and some of it not so beautiful.
And 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 in the beginning of the Bible.
Somehow we want to return to Eden.
But God, God wants to move forward, forward to the city that God imagines for us.
It is a city with a river that gives free water to those who thirst.
It is a city with trees that bears free fruit every month of the year to give to those who hunger.
It is a city made up of people of every tribe and every nation and every colour and every tongue.
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 where death itself will die.
That city is our intended future,
and it is held even now deep within the fabric of the world God has already made.
That city is our future, and that city is our potential.
It is a city that is safe and free from death.
It is a city in which there is no mourning, no crying and no pain.
It is a city in which tears are not shed.
The gates of this city are never shut, for this is a city of safety and a city of peace.
In this city there are no hospitals, no mental health clinics, no addiction treatment centres,
no gated communities, no prisons, no jails, no lockdowns:
that city, John reveals, is our final destination
and it is here, deeply embedded in this world.
The vision this morning reveals that it is this world God loves,
and it is this world God wants to redeem.
It is this world God has made and it is this world God seeks to make new.
It is your body, your mind, your spirit, your community of First Lutheran Church that
God wants to renew, restore, and redo.
John, on his island, is not looking at some other world far away.
He’s looking at this world
and with his resurrection glasses on sees everything the way God sees it.
A few years ago, I Google-Earthed Patmos.
And you know what I saw?
The same things John saw: a city, a river, trees, and . . . people.
People of every tribe and nation, every language and race.
Some of them were imprisoned, and some of them were jailers.
But even though he’s in prison, John sees it all the way God sees it:
he sees the river, and he sees it 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 for the hungy.
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.
That was the good news for John in his prison on Patmos all those years ago,
and that is the good news for us this morning.
The old thing – this age-old creation with all its people – this old thing is redeemable.
It’s so well made by a good and loving God that is has the possibility of restoration built into it.
A long time ago my sister saw an old piece of junk in an antique shop.
Only she didn’t just see an old piece of junk –
she saw a beautiful chest of drawers.
So she refinished it and made it new.
That’s the kind of new John is talking about when he talks about a new heaven and
a new earth this morning.
He’s not talking about replacing anyone or anything.
He’s talking about the love of God pulling forth from deep within creation and
from deep within each of us and each of our relationships the wondrousness that is there.
He’s talking about the new thing embedded in the old thing.
Can you see the new thing embedded in the old in your life?
In your relationships?
In this community?
On this street?
The invitation to put on these resurrection glasses John offers us this morning is grace indeed.
It’s the ability to look at a fabric swatch and see a gorgeous piece of clothing.
It’s the ability to hear a thunderstorm and imagine a symphony.
It’s the ability to look at a marriage in trouble and imagine a better relationship.
It’s the ability to look at an empty Parish Hall and imagine a food bank.
It’s the ability to hear about a shooting on our street and imagine a Kids Club that
provides a safe place for children.
That’s looking at the world with your resurrection glasses on.
That’s looking at the world with John.
That’s looking at the world and having unveiled for you what is always there.
And in the middle of it all, what you see is a slaughtered but standing lamb,
holding a scroll with the world’s destiny on it,
who looks at you and sees you for who you really are:
a beloved child of a loving God with the potential within you to
make a difference in this world God so loves.
The lamb looks at you, and looks at our community this morning,
and wants to bring forth the new from the old once again.
Putting on the resurrection glasses of John is a wild ride.
They intensify the world around you.
And when Fluffy looks at you with them, it intensifies his view of you.
Heaven will come to earth, God promises in Revelation this morning.
But in a real way, heaven is already here in John’s view, waiting each moment to be unveiled.
The writer Kathleen Norris tells a story in her book Amazing Grace about a friend of hers.
The mother of this woman was dying, and near the end, the daughter said,
Think, Mamma, you are about to enter heaven and everybody you love will be there.
And her mother said, No, it’s not that everybody I love will be there.
It’s that I will love everybody who’s there.
On the one hand, death is just another opportunity for God to bring the new from out of the old.
And that is good news: seeing death with the resurrection glasses on changes
how we Christians view death and our attitudes towards it.
But on the other hand, we don’t have to wait till God’s promised future comes to
love everybody’s who’s here: the future comes into the present already now.
The future is already present now, deeply embedded in this creation,
although it is not yet fully completed.
We can participate in that future beyond death even now by loving everybody’s who’s here.
Every person we’ve known for ages,
every person we know at First Lutheran Church and every person we don’t yet know,
and every person we have not yet served at our community meals.
This love is our future.
And this love is our present.
See, the thing is is that God is revealing this promised future not just through John and his words,
but through you: through your worship of the slaughtered but standing lamb this morning as you share and greet and embrace and treat one another with dignity and remembrance.
And God is not just revealing this promised future through John’s words and
through your worship this morning, but through your ministry to one another and
to the people of this neighbourhood.
You’ve looked at one another and seen not people to be annoyed by but people to love.
You’ve looked at the people of this neighbourhood and seen
not people to drive past and be indifferent to but people to love.
I know we call John’s book Revelation, or apocalypse,or unveiling.
But really it turns out that you are the unveiling.
Christian community with its resurrection glasses itself is the sign of God’s presence among us.
Christian community itself is a sign of God’s reign of love over all that is.
I’ve heard a person say once about not attending worship anymore that
she just didn’t get anything out of it. That made me pretty sad, let me tell you.
Well, perhaps that’s a failure of leadership,
and I’m willing to accept my portion of blame for that.
But perhaps it’s also a failure of perspective,
a failure to see the crazy beauty of what God is working among us and through us,
a failure to see oneself not just as a recipient, but as a giver, a lover,
a difference maker in the life of whoever shows up here on Sunday morning,
or whoever shows up at our food banks and community meals,
or whatever kid shows up at Kids Club.
A failure to see that even now, God is bringing forth the new from the old,
a failure to see the heavenly city descending upon us in grace even now,
in this moment, at this table, through this people gathered today.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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