I have worn eyeglasses since the fourth grade. I switched to contact lenses a few years ago
under the inspiration of William Golding's book The Lord of the Flies in which things did not fair well for the fat
kid who wore glasses. Surprisingly,
thirty-seven years later I can still quite vividly remember walking out of the
eye-doctor's office and looking up at the sky and it was like I had never
really seen clouds before. Instead of
plain white, indistinct blotches in the sky I now saw every billowy
detail. I could see individual leaves on
the trees and individual flowers. The
Blue Ridge Mountains were no longer just a blue, grey bulk in the view from the
back porch. Now I could see the ridges
and the details of trees. To me, my
first day of wearing glasses was like seeing a new heaven and a new earth.
When the Apostle John wrote "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" we should read it in the sense that John is seeing creation
made new, made new by means of the presence of God come to dwell in his
creation and everything is full of his glory.
John wants to emphasize the newness of it not that it is something all
together different. Like eyeglasses
correcting blurry vision so that things look new so heaven and earth become new
when God comes to dwell in it and shine forth his glory.
God speaks to John and says, “Behold, I am making all things new." God is making
all things new, the world and everything in it; us each and all our
relationships are being made new in the glory of God now that Jesus Christ, the
Lamb on the throne has corrected our vision with the indwelling presence of the
Holy Spirit. We now see life by the
light of the Lamp of the Lamb. We see
life according to the light of God-glorifying, other-centered, self-sacrificing
love which shines through us. The light
of the Lamb is the corrector of our vision.
When God the Father raised Jesus the Son from the dead God began making
all things new by the power of the Holy Spirit, the same power of the personal
presence of God which is at work in us now.
Your history lesson for the morning, John wrote this vision of the New
Jerusalem coming down from heaven from God some twenty-five years or so after
the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD. To the Jews and to the earliest Christians
the Temple in Jerusalem was where God lived and from where he would reign and
from where in righteousness he was going to put the world to rights. But the Romans had destroyed the city and the
Temple. So, where was God to dwell on
earth and from where would he reign on earth?
Well, breaking into the code of the Book of Revelation, the New
Jerusalem, the new heaven and new earth are not things we should simply ascribe
to the future and forget them until they come about. The new heaven and the new earth are as much
present realities as they are future. We
see heaven and earth now as if they are the new heaven and the new earth since
we have been made alive in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. Therefore, since God dwells in us what we are
as the church is the New Jerusalem.
Ever since Pentecost the New Jerusalem has been coming from heaven from
God to earth. God has come to dwell with
his peoples. This is who we are. The New Jerusalem, you and I, this
congregation, all congregations, the church all over the world is the New
Jerusalem. Yet, don't think about it in
terms of the institution called the church.
Think of it in terms of a relational network, of people's bonded
together in the new man, Jesus Christ, by means of the communioning work of the
Hoy Spirit. The glory of God shines
through us, through our relational bond.
The light of the lamb shines through us.
The light of God-glorifying, other-centered, self-sacrificing love
shines through us. No matter how small,
whithered, and insignificant we may appear we each and all together are the New
Jerusalem coming from heaven from God to earth.
In us, among us is the place on earth where God dwells among the
nations. Am I being redundant enough on
this? Let me hear somebody say
"amen". In fact, how about all
of God's people say "Amen" because that is what all creation is
saying to what God the Father through Jesus the Son in the power of the Holy
Spirit. That's what John says he saw
happening in heaven in chapter four of the Revelation. All creation saying "Amen". People join in. People of God say "amen".
Time for a commercial to rally you up a little more. Here's a short video of what the Bible
Society of Australia has been up to.
One last thing to mention from the Revelation, we are the leaves of the
Tree of Life watered by the River of Life (the Holy Spirit) that flows forth
from the relationship of God the Father and God the Son (the Throne and the
Lamb). We, the leaves of this tree, you
and me, are for the healing of the nations.
In 1960 the Yali, the people in that video were a Stone Age people for
whom vengeance and feuding were the way of life. Missionaries went to them and worked to get
the Bible into their own language so that they could read it, know it, ingest
it, and live it. Two of those
missionaries were martyred in the 70’s. Today,
the Yali live in peace still relatively unpolluted from Western life. It is hard to watch that and not say “Jesus
is Lord!” Jesus is Lord. There is living proof of that. They drink of the River of Life. So should we?
Therefore, drink of the River of
Life and go and heal the nations. The
missional life of the church arises from the out-flowing of the Holy Spirit which
results in the outgrowing of the church.
We must be growing out there, out there in front of and in the midst of
the people of our communities. The New
Jerusalem comes from heaven to earth.
Therefore, we grow from the pew to the neighbourhood not from the
neighbourhood to the pew. The River
flows forth from the city. It is not a
stagnant lake. The Tree of Life is not
hidden behind walls in someone's courtyard garden. It grows forth into our neighbourhoods that
peoples may be healed.
We are those who are seeing the New Heaven and the New Earth. The New Jerusalem is in our midst. The River of Life is flowing forth from
here. There Tree of Life is growing
forth from. God is making not only all
things new. He is making us new too. Go
your families, your neighbourhoods, our communities and bear the Light of the
Lamb. If the Lordship of Jesus gloried
forth from the Yali people by means of only four “missionaries”, what could
happen in your neighbourhoods? Jesus is
coming. Amen.
