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Matthew 6:9-10; Revelation 21:1-22:5
Whenever I read this passage from Revelation about the New Jerusalem coming from Heaven to Earth I immediately think of an old Carter family tune called “Fifty Miles of Elbow Room”. If you will tolerate me, I’ll sing it for you. So:
Twelve-hundred miles, it's length and breadth that four-square city stands.
It's gem-set walls of jasper shine, not made by human hands.
One-hundred miles, it's gates are wide; abundant entrance there;
With fifty miles of elbow room on either side to spare.
Oh, the gates swing wide on the other side, just beyond the sunset sea.
There'll be room to spare as we enter there; there'll be room for you, room for me.
Oh, the gates are wide on the other side where the fairest flowers bloom;
On the right hand and on the left hand, fifty miles of elbow room.
Sometimes I'm cramped and I'm crowded here and I long for elbow room.
I long to reach for altitude where the fairest flowers bloom.
It won't be long before I pass into that city fair
With fifty miles of elbow room on either side to spare.
Oh, the gates swing wide on the other side, just beyond the sunset sea.
There'll be room to spare as we enter there; there'll be room for you, room for me.
Oh, the gates are wide on the other side where the fairest flowers bloom;
On the right hand and on the left hand, fifty miles of elbow room.
I like that old song, but like so many songs in that Old Time Gospel genre it emphasizes our going to Heaven when we die to the extent that we have nearly lost any idea of the foundational Biblical belief that the movement of salvation is actually the other way – from Heaven to Earth. Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” He did not teach us to pray, “God get us out of this sin-ridden mess so that our souls can spend eternity in spiritual bliss in a place called heaven.”
The Christian belief about what happens when we die is not the hub of the wheel of the Christian faith. How to go to Heaven rather than to Hell when we die is not the Gospel message we find in the Bible. Jesus preached the Gospel that “the Kingdom of God is at hand, turn around and follow.” The early church proclaimed “Jesus died for our sins. God raised him from the dead. He’s coming back. Until then, come be filled with the Holy Spirit and follow him with us.” What we find with respect to what happens to us if we die before he comes back is that if we die before Jesus returns, we will be with him in someplace called Paradise in a state that is somehow disembodied until at a time known only to the Father, Jesus will return, Creation will be made new, and we will be bodily resurrected to live in it.
So, what of heaven then? We’ve been culturally traditioned from Christianity of the Middle Ages with images of pearly gates, sitting on clouds playing harp, getting angel’s wings, and some other pretty bizarre stuff we think the Bible teaches but it doesn’t. Biblically speaking, heaven is a behind the scenes reality and not a far away, way up there thing. Heaven and earth overlap. If you imagined our reality as happening on a movie screen, heaven would be like stepping out of the movie into the movie theatre. Heaven is veiled to earth. We can’t see it. It has to be opened to us or we have to be taken there in a vision in the spirit by the Holy Spirit. God the Father is visible in heaven as a really spectacular light show seated on a throne. Jesus, God the Son, is visible there with a body along with angels and other living creatures. In heaven, what God is up to can be known while here on earth that information is relatively hidden and so often realized in hindsight. In Heaven there is worship. On Earth, when we worship both privately or publicly or on our own or together it is a participation in the events of heaven. So also, it is with prayer. God has a plan, a will for how he wants history to go that will play out on earth and somehow God’s will includes room for human free will and choice. The only thing we can say is that in the end, it will be on earth as it is in heaven; God’s presence will be visible here as in heaven and the creation will be filled with worship, and no more sin and death and suffering and evil.
John’s vision here gives us a glimpse of that end. It is New Creation, a new Heaven and a new Earth, where Heaven and Earth are open to one another rather than Heaven being veiled to Earth; and of the New Jerusalem coming from Heaven to Earth. For me, when I first caught a glimpse of that, it was a game changer about what the Christian faith is ultimately about. The Christian Faith is a down to Earth faith not a get me out of here escapist faith. This Creation and what we do in it does and always will matter.
The New Jerusalem in this vision is a symbol. It means something. Jerusalem in the Old Testament is the city, the place on Earth where God chose to dwell, to dwell in his Temple. The Temple in Jerusalem was the one place on Earth where the overlapping of Heaven and Earth was most transparent. When Jesus came, he became the Temple, the place on Earth where God lived. Now, as we are the Body of Christ indwelt by the Holy Spirit, this extends to us. We, the Body and Bride of Christ, are now the place on Earth where God lives. We are the place where the overlapping of Heaven and Earth is most transparent.
Therefore, in our passage today what we are to understand the New Jerusalem to be is us, the Christian church as it is in heaven and which is coming to be on earth. The New Jerusalem is what we are at heart as the church, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ. It is humanity, humans, you and me in community and God the Father Son and Holy Spirit in whom “we live and move and have our being” is in our midst.
The New Jerusalem is Holy Spirit-filled human community. It is human community in which the image of the loving communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is growing like fruit on the branches of the Tree of Life. Because the Holy Spirit is with and in us we are living in the presence of the communion of the Trinity and thriving on it.
In the world of the early church Christians had to gather in secret at night. They were not safe in the cities in which they lived. Yet, when they gathered for worship the light of the glory of God was with them and in the New Jerusalem, they were safe. Darkness was no more. In the early church they had to meet behind closed doors, but in the New Jerusalem the gates are always open. The Holy Spirit-filled worship behind those closed doors then, as it is today for us, is the New Jerusalem breaking through from heaven coming to earth. When we gather for worship the breaking through of the New Jerusalem is what’s going on. We do not have an escape to Heaven faith. We have a heaven down to earth faith, a heaven opening to earth.
The Christian faith is a down to earth faith. In the past, the church has tended to stress living the faithful life now so that we can go to Heaven when we die. But that is not the image that John is giving us with the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem follows a “from heaven down to earth” trajectory. The loving, worship-filled community of disciples created here by the Holy Spirit’s work in and among us is the New Jerusalem imaged in John’s vision. Our efforts to love one another as Jesus has commanded us are the fruit and the leaves on the Tree of Life that is for the healing of the nations. The New Jerusalem is here. It is coming. And it will come to its fruition on the day when all things are made new. Living faithfully now is part of the New Jerusalem coming.
I feel as if I’m blubbering a bit here in trying to describe meaning of this image of the coming of the New Jerusalem. So maybe I should just finish. The New Jerusalem shows us what the church at heart is and ought to be and what humanity will one day become. The church is humanity indwelt by God and thus is and ought to be a community that is safe and secure for all peoples, a community whose doors and gates do not exclude people. A River of Life flows forth from us. The Tree of Life grows among us. The Trinity has called us, chosen us, and paid the price of the blood of Jesus to buy us back from the sick futility of sin and death so that we might be a people set about on the work of healing the nations through prayer and challenging people to forgive and to risk being wastefully compassionate by the way we forgive and are wastefully compassionate. We are part of God’s work of bringing his kingdom and will from heaven down to earth. Amen.
