Healing Leaves

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Revelation 21-22

One afternoon while coming out of the Jerusalem temple one of Jesus’ disciples remarked how beautiful the temple was saying, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!"  And then Jesus dropped a bomb.  He prophesied saying, "Do you see these great buildings?” Which means do you understand what they are about, what they represent? “There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down."  In 70 AD that prophecy came to pass. 

Flavius Josephus was a Jewish historian in the first century AD.  In his book The Jewish Wars he recounts how the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD.  He recounts of how Titus Caesar ordered his army to utterly destroy the city and the Temple leaving only its two towers and the Western Wall of the Temple in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, and yet the Romans were powerful enough to demolish it.  They even destroyed all the gardens and trees around it in order to make it like a desert.  Josephus claims that 1,100,000 people were killed during the siege, of which the majority were Jews, and that 97,000 were captured, enslaved, and most were made gladiators.  The Jews that were left mostly fled to areas around the Mediterranean. Titus reportedly refused to accept a wreath of victory, as there is "no merit in vanquishing a people forsaken by their own God". 

Building further on that note, the God forsaken note, the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem temple on the last day of the Jewish month of Av (our July), a day they call Tisha B’Av, the Day of Five Calamities.  On that same date in 586 BC, the first temple, the temple Solomon built, was destroyed by the Babylonians.  In those days the prophet Ezekiel had a vision in which he saw the glory of the Lord leaving the temple in Jerusalem and heading east to be with the exiles in Babylon.  A very touching message proclaiming that God had not abandoned his people even though he had cast them off of the land.  Seventy years later when a remnant returned none of the prophets in that day claimed a vision of the glory of the Lord returning to the temple.  Isaiah 65:1 which dates to this time indicates that God didn’t want to live in the temple anymore.  “Heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool.  What is this house that you would build for me?”  The Lord God apparently did not return to the Jerusalem temple after it was rebuilt by the remnant that returned and certainly not after Herod the Great did all his glorious renovations just before Jesus was born.  It was not until Jesus that the presence of the LORD God of Israel again dwelt among his people.

Coming to John in exile on Patmos, he was a Jew and his love for Jerusalem, the Holy City, would have been quite strong.  The destruction of Jerusalem by Rome and the dispersion of the Jews was only 20 years prior to the writing of the Revelation.  Talk to any war refugee and they will let you know full well that what happened 20 years ago might as well have been yesterday.  To a Jew the Roman destruction of Jerusalem was as vivid and traumatic as the eruption of Mt Vesuvius to the Mediterranean world 9 years later. 

Jerusalem was more than just the symbol of national identity over which people swell with patriotism.  The temple was in Jerusalem and to a Jew the Jerusalem temple was the one place on earth where heaven and earth were open to each other.  To a Jew the temple symbolized the presence of the LORD God with his people.  Therefore, the opposite would be true as well.  Jerusalem destroyed, the temple destroyed, and the Jewish people cast forth from the land would have been clear indication that God had not only rejected his people, but abandoned them as well.  

It is into this context that we must place this climatic vision of John’s.  He saw a new creation, a new Heaven and a new Earth.  The old had passed.  It was gone, never to be again.  The Greek word for “new” here, kainos, is more powerful in its emphasis on utter newness than is the typical Greek word for “new”, neos.  Neos is like having a new car.  Kainos means coming up with an altogether new mode of transportation, the flying car of The Jetson’s.  The old was gone and the new had come.  And then there in the midst of this utterly new creation where heaven and earth are openly now joined as one, where it finally is on earth as it is in heaven, John sees the New Jerusalem coming from God.  I suspect that the heart of John the Jew leapt.  Like the tower of Babel, God had destroyed the Jerusalem his people had built as a symbol of the name they had made for themselves and sent them asunder.  Now God himself is giving a new holy city to his people to symbolize the name that the LORD God had made for them and it was as beautiful as a bride prepared to wed her husband.

Then a voice came from the throne of God saying that God himself is with his people and he himself will comfort them.  Not only would a new esteem be given to his people, Jew and Gentile alike, but God would once again be with his people and this time personally.  He would intimately involve himself with each of them to heal and comfort them.  God himself will wipe away their tears.  Moreover, death will be no more and mourning, crying out, and toilsome suffering will be no more.

Then, God himself speaks, “Behold, I am making all things new.  Write this down.  It is trustworthy and the Truth.”  This is the most important word spoken in the entire book, indeed in history.  God is making all things new.  Time in the Book of Revelation is two faceted.  John sees what is and what is to be.  Sometimes, it’s skewed to one side more than the other, but in this passage John is seeing both what God is doing now and what will be in the future.  In this world that is a mess, God is presently working to make all things new until the day comes when the old is utterly gone and everything is made utterly new with the glory of God.  It may not seem like it to us, but behind the scenes of history God is making all things new.  That’s the Truth; capital “T”.

Then God speaks directly to John and it is a message for John to give to his churches in Turkey who are about to undergo great persecution for refusing to call Emperor Domitian Lord.  He says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” This means the buck stops with God.  The LORD God has the final word in every matter and his final word is all things are being made new; all things on earth will be as they are in heaven.  He says to those Christians about to suffer and some even be martyred that the one who conquers, the one who keeps the faith even unto death, he will freely give of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Living Water.  But those who cowardly deny Him and in turn resort to a pagan life, they will suffer the bitter fire of judgment for there is nothing left for those who knowing the Truth, turn back from it, who put their hand to the plough and leave it in the field when the ploughing gets tough.

Then John sees a river of living water flowing out from the middle of the city from the throne of God and straddling it is the Tree of Life from which humanity was banned from eating after the Garden of Eden fiasco.  John notes that the leaves on the Tree are for the healing of the nations…for the healing of the nations.  Friends, this image of the New Jerusalem with the River of Living Water flowing from it and the Tree of Life with its healing leaves, this is what we are as fellowships of followers of Jesus.  We, who are born of the Holy Spirit, the Living Water, and united to Jesus and to each other in him and share in Jesus’ relationship to the Father so that we know the steadfast love and faithfulness of God and drink of the very communion of love that the Trinity, the LORD God is, we are the new Jerusalem in the making. 

We are the Tree of Life and each one of us is one of those healing leaves. Love one another.  It’s important.  Feed the hungry. Give drink to the thirsty.  Give home to the homeless.  Clothe the naked.  Visit the prisoner.  Care for the orphaned and the widowed.  Show hospitality to the stranger, the refugee, the immigrant.  It’s important.  Those are the actions that heal the nations, that point to the coming new creation.  The ways of Empire are exercises in futility that lead to death but the work we do in the Lord is not in vain.  In these interesting times in which we presently live, when Empirism is making itself so blatantly obvious (except to those who are deceived and deluded by it), what the world needs is for us Christians, each and every one of us healing leaves, to step up and show our loyalty to Jesus through acts of unconditional love.  Amen.

 

Finally

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Revelation 19-20

By skipping chapters 15-18 of the Revelation we’ve missed the most “Mature Audience Only” content in the book.  Regardless, please allow me a moment to bring us up to speed.  Chapters 15-16 tells of seven angels pouring out the seven bowls of God’s wrath upon the inhabitants of the earth who worship that first beast who came out of the sea from chapter 13.  The Beast supporters are smitten with painful boils.  Then the entire sea and all the rivers and streams turn to blood and everything in them dies.  Then the sun gets really hot and scorches everything.  And, astonishingly and true to form, the Beast worshippers don’t turn to God but rather curse him.  There’s a point to all that as we learned from the Seven Trumpets series: God could pour upon humanity the most unimaginably horrible yet deserved wrath and we still wouldn’t turn to him.  So, there must be a means other than the infliction of ultimate suffering to get humanity to be what God created it to be and there is, the message and mission of the love of God in Christ embodied in the church.  The message and mission of the Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, is next week’s sermon.

That was just the first four bowls of God’s wrath.  The fifth bowl affects the Beast’s power to reign and his kingdom is thrown into darkness.  A Dark Ages full of plague and ignorance and suffering and poverty.  If you’ve lived long enough, you may have noticed that Empires seem to think that war and its accompanying industry is the only way out of dark times, especially economic dark times.  So…the sixth bowl brings a demonic deception that convinces all the kings of the earth to gather for war in the Valley of Armageddon in Northern Israel, which is not big enough to host such a thing.  They gather for war, but it doesn’t seem to happen.  Jesus show’s up as we read today.  

The seventh bowl of God’s wrath starts with a voice coming from God’s throne saying, “It’s done”.  There’s a great cataclysmic upheaval of everything that resembles very much the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD that destroyed Pompeii and other cities, and which also had a dramatic psychological effect throughout the Roman Empire.  John wrote Revelation within fifteen years of that event.  Instead of lava and fireball rocks falling from the sky, this bowl’s disaster involved hail, horrible hail, the worst hail imaginable.  And as you might guess, instead of repenting, the people cursed God.  Again, there has to be a better way to hold humanity accountable than the total destruction of everybody and everything by disease, war, and natural disaster which incidentally actually arises as the consequences of the way of Empire.

Chapters 17-18 are an extended sort of lament concerning the Fall of Babylon.  All empires fall.  It’s interesting to note how Babylon’s fall affects things globally particularly in the area of economics and particularly among the wealthy who lament it greatly.  I think this is so because Empire is built on economic exploitation.  You can’t have Empire without wealth and the ultra-wealthy who build Empires don’t come by their wealth honestly.  They have exploited someone along the way.  It’s also interesting that John describes Babylon (Rome) as a whore and the trade relationships that Babylon has with other nations as prostitution and adultery.  You would think that Rome did its business on Jeffery Epstein’s Island under the secrecy of his sealed ledger.  Babylon (Rome) did eventually fall.  After a couple of centuries of debauchery and scandal which led to gradual decline, Alaric I of the Visigoths (a former ally) made a week of it in 410 AD and sacked Rome.  That event kicked off a period of time known as the Dark Ages which lasted for six centuries.

And so we turn to Chapter 19 with a big sigh of “Finally”.  God acts and takes rightful vengeance for those who have suffered on his behalf.  It’s now time to feast if you’re a buzzard.  Remember back how all the kings of the earth were demonically deceived by Beast 1 and Beast 2 into gathering for war at Armageddon?  We were left hanging with the thought that this was going to be the world war to end all world wars.  But as we learn here the war isn’t between the kings themselves but rather between the Beast with his followers and Jesus, the King of King Lord of Lords, with his followers.  This scene has the makings of some pretty gory Hollywood stuff.  The computer graphics/AI people would have a field day with it…but it doesn’t pan out that way.

So, do yourselves a favour and don’t read this literally.  Jesus is not going to show up someday with a double-edged sword sticking out of his mouth hacking all those who won’t follow him to pieces.  That’s what Empire literally does, but not Jesus.  This is symbolic.  The sword in Jesus’ mouth is the Truth, and particularly the Truth of God’s love in Christ Jesus and its embodiment in the communities of people who loyally follow him.  It is by Truth-telling that the Beasts are taken captive and finally thrown into a lake of fire.  The rest of their armies are slain by the truth.  They are forced by the Truth to own up.  Again, please don’t read this as a literal bloodbath.  It’s a grandiose description of what happens when we are confronted by the Truth of the Love of God in Christ.

Chapter 20 gives us a vision of an event of ultimate accountability.  Everyone is held accountable for everything we have done or left undone.  The Dragon (Satan) and the two beasts are thrown into the Lake ofFire.  The ultimate powers of deception will be put to their deserved end.  Moreover, everyone whose name is not written in the Book of Life is also thrown into the lake of fire.  There’s quite a bit of discussion as to what the Book of Life is and we don’t have time for it.  The point here is that everyone is held accountable for their lives and everyone will be confronted with the love of God in Jesus Christ.

There’s a lot more that can be said here but I think the point should be kept simple.  The only way out of this world of Empire that ends well is Truth-telling, with letting oneself be held accountable by the Love of God in Jesus Christ experienced by the cutting sword of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  This Truth cuts through all the deception Satan and his beasts have to offer and binds them and their power over us.  

God’s big “Finally” comes through being honest with ourselves and each other and proclaiming the Truth of God’s Love in Christ Jesus embodied in the Holy Spirit-filled communities of those who follow him.  In these interesting times when Empire seems so inexplicably powerful with seemingly no apparent way to hold it accountable, Truth-telling the love of God to those who follow the Beast is the way that will win out in the end.  We will suffer for the Truth, but telling the Truth is the only thing that ends well.

The Unholy Trinity

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Revelation 12-14

I don’t want to say too much as far as a preramble because we have yet another long passage.  But to set the context, one of the reasons, if not the main reason, John wrote the Revelation was to encourage early Christians to remain faithful to Jesus in the face of persecution that for all shapes and purposes appeared politically motivated.  Calling Jesus “Lord and Saviour” and refusing to worship or offer incense at Imperial Cult temples on civic occasions at a time when the Roman Emperor was demanding to be worshipped made early Christians appear treasonous and they suffered for it.  There are questions that those suffering for their loyalty to Jesus would ask.  

The main driving question showed up in Revelation 6: “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood upon the inhabitants of the earth.”  With respect to the question of how long, the answer was a little while longer until the number of martyrs is complete.  To illustrate that answer, John was shown a countless multitude of white-robed worshippers in heaven who had come through this great ordeal.  Judging by the uncountable number, that’s going to be a long little while.  Apparently, God wants as many people as possible to turn to him in faith which requires the Gospel to go out into the world and unfortunately those who proclaim it will suffer and sometimes even die for their loyalty to Jesus.  

The last sermon involved a vision of angels blowing trumpets resulting in a third of everything on earth and in the skies being destroyed.  The message was that God could take the tough guy route and destroy a third of everything and still the inhabitants of the earth surprisingly would not turn to him.  Thus, God is choosing the route of proclaiming the Gospel throughout the world by means of Jesus' followers and their fellowships of unconditional love and that will yield a better outcome. 

This week we’re looking at the question of who or what is the behind-the-scenes reality driving humanity away from God and persecuting/killing those who bring the Truth.  The short answer is Satan by means of Empire undergirded by False Religion.

 

Unfortunately, we don’t really have time to unpack all the symbolism or coded images here so forgive me for being brief.  Chapter 12 begins with an obvious reference to the birth of Jesus and as Matthew’s Gospel recounts. King Herod of the Jews wanted him dead and killed all the male children around Bethlehem born around the time that Jesus was born.  This political and religious opposition to Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, continued throughout his life in the form of opposition from the religious authorities until finally he was crucified by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish authorities on trumped up charges of blasphemy (claiming to be the Son of God) and treason (claiming to be Lord).  Both of these charges stood in the face of what Caesar claimed himself to be – Son of Zeus and Lord of all the world.  Finally, God raised Jesus from the dead.  Interestingly, there was also an urban myth that circulated about Emperor Nero after he died that he had been raised from the dead.  That’s what all that talk about the first beast being raised from dead was about.

As evidenced in the Book of Acts, what happened to Jesus was the pattern of persecution that affected early Christians.  Sometimes it looked like bigotry and at other times like systematic ICE raids or Kristallnacht.  Throughout the Roman Empire in the early church, the followers of Jesus were often accused by Pagan and Jewish religious authorities for blasphemy and treason for claiming Jesus was the Son of God and Lord of all (Pantokrator).  They would lose their trade jobs and businesses, were forced out of town, were stoned, and publicly whipped.  Some had to fight wild beasts and gladiators in the coliseums as public entertainment.  Some were themselves crucified, skinned alive, or burned to death. 

To explain why this is to early Christians suffering for their loyalty to Jesus, John gives a behind-the-scenes explanation that goes beyond saying, “Power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately”; though that is certainly the case.  He says Satan is behind it all, the Red Dragon.  In the biblical worldview there is a personal unseen force in God’s very good Creation that is violently opposed to God and seeks to destroy God’s good works, particularly humanity.  

Satan’s means for destroying what God is up to in, through, and as Jesus Christ is to persecute those who follow Jesus.  The fullness of Satan’s plan is simply to destroy all of human community through the vehicle of Empire.  To do this he raises up two beasts, one from the sea who is blatantly an Emperor-type leader who controls everything particularly by pulling economic strings and demands singular loyalty (worship).  One cannot buy or sell without having received his brand.  

Satan then causes a second beast to come up from the land that forces everyone to worship the first beast.  This beast represented the Imperial Cult.  Refusing to worship the Emperor at the Temples that the emperors built all over the empire was likely the test for whether or not a Christian would be sentenced to fight beasts and gladiators for public entertainment in coliseums or worse.  So, to sum up thus far, Satan’s means of destroying human community made in God’s image and the vehicle through which God is trying to restore his image to human community – Jesus and his followers – is the populist authoritarianism that is endemic to Empire and Emperor undergirded by civil religion - the idolatrous worship of those who are ultimately corrupted by wielding the power of the State.  

The warning of chapter 14 is quite clear.  When this Emperor/Empire worship stuff comes to a head, those who buy into it are going to drink the wine of the grapes of God’s wrath.  Babylon/Rome/any Empire will in God’s time fall.  Therefore, it is a time for patient endurance on the part of God’s people.  It is time to abide by God’s commandments and loyalty to Jesus at all costs.

All that said, these are interesting times that we are living in.  I don’t know about you folks, but I can’t help but think and feel that these three chapters of the Book of Revelation are particularly relevant at this moment in history.  Speaking as an American serving as a Presbyterian minister in Canada, I realize that what I’m about to say might be lacking in appropriateness and I apologize.  That said, I am astonished at what I see happening in the US.  My comments need to be brief as we’re having communion today.  Perhaps that’s fortuitous.  

True power looks like the Jesus revealed in this meal – the giving of oneself in unconditional love so that others may live.  Granted, there is yet to be a government on earth that follows this way without some form of corruption.  Still, when tax dollars go to feed, heal, educate, house, clothe, protect, and employ the most vulnerable among us – well, that’s a good start.  But when a nation suddenly stops doing such things and, in the end, it is simply part of a larger effort to make the very wealthy wealthier at the expense of everybody else, particularly the most vulnerable, well something else is at play.  By their fruits you will know them.  Good trees bear good fruit and bad trees, bad.  Moreover, the fact that the current President and majority party in government in the US could not have been elected without the strong, unquestioning support of a certain element of the Christian faith is also telling.  Something else is at play.

The lesson coming from the Book of Revelation today is pretty straight forward – whenever there is a political leader who comes grasping at and attempting to wield ultimate power, demanding absolute loyalty, and claiming to have the backing of an almighty God and this leader/ship is backed by religious groups that for all shapes and purposes worship it…it is entirely possible and likely that it’s the dragon and his two beasts who are at play.  Jesus said, “Beware that no one leads you astray.  Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead man astray” (Mk 13:5,6).  “When the Son of Man comes, will he find loyalty on earth?” (Lk 18:8).

 

Scatter Forth

 Genesis 11:1-9

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Why congregations build buildings is an interesting study?  Back in the 80’s I regularly heard church people remark, “If you want people to come to your church, build a new building.”  The idea was that if a congregation could afford to build, then it was a vibrant and growing fellowship rather than some stuck in mud, always-done-it-this-way club of old stogies.  Consequently, a lot of new church buildings went up in the 80’s as congregations blatantly tried to make a name for themselves in the grand competition for new members that went on between churches.  Unfortunately, the result was mostly “sheep stealing” rather than new disciples of Jesus.  Congregations lost members to each other over what amounts to religious consumerism.  Congregations were making a name for themselves through building up-to-date facilities to house their snazzy church programming and charismatic ministers.  People came, but mostly from other churches.  Sadly, the “build it and they will come” model of church growth did little to further the name of Jesus.  Census figures still showed that Christianity was waning in North America.  

Building a new church these days is a rare occurrence. Today in North America we are dissolving more congregations and selling the buildings than we are planting congregations and building facilities to house them.  Most church buildings are simply ghostly reminders of the day when Western culture and Christian religion walked hand-in-hand, a relationship that has all but withered.  The idea that a culture, a civilization needs a god to make it great has all but died.  

Looking at Genesis, the relationship between a culture and its god is at the heart of what the story of The Tower of Babel is about.  We have a tendency to mistakenly think that the story of the Tower of Babel is about a group of humans who got prideful and wanted to build a tower so high that they could stand equal to God and so God punished them by confusing their languages.  But the story of Babel is better read as the parable of how humans try to use God to make their civilizations safe, secure, and culturally great (or great again).  

If we step back roughly 5,000 thousand years into ancient Mesopotamia with the ort of historical accuracy that archaeology provides, we find that ancient Mesopotamians didn’t build skyscraper-type buildings or CNN towers.  Rather, they built tall step-pyramids called ziggurats and usually right beside the ziggurat was a temple.  The purpose for which they built these ziggurats was not so that they could climb so high that they could go into the heavens to be with the gods.  That’s what mountaintops were for.  These ziggurats worked the other way around.  They were rather staircases for the gods to come down to earth from the heavens to come be with the people by taking their place on a throne in a temple.  The Ark of the Covenant wasn’t just a box for keeping the tablet of the Ten Commandments.  It was also God’s throne on earth.  The lid was called the mercy seat.  

The people at Babel were apparently trying to build the highest of all ziggurats to try to get the highest of all gods to come down and be their god in order to make their civilization great.  Mind you, as the story goes, back in the days of Noah God had commanded humans to spread out over the earth.  But the Babel folks stopped short of that mandate and decided to settle down and build a civilization - the seedbed of Empire, of Conquest.  

Babel represents our human attempts to build civil religions.  Civil religion is when we use God to undergird our ways of doing civic community rather than trying to get our communities to reflect God’s image – the loving communion of the Father Son and Holy Spirit – and God’s way of doing community as modeled by Jesus as the way of unconditional, self-giving love.  Civil religion is asking God to bless our empire building, our ideas of prosperity and power, rather than committing ourselves to God’s kingdom and the way of Jesus Christ.  Simply put, civil religion is our using God to make our own name great rather than lifting up God’s name in praise, gratitude, and humble service by building love-based community.

When I see a new church building, and that’s a rare sight, a question comes to mind: Is this just one more Tower of Babel?  Is this just one more congregation trying to get God to make its name, its programming, its charismatic minister…great.  I am suspicious of this fundamental need we seem to have as congregations to have a sacred space represented by a building.  If we read the Bible from cover to cover, we find the trajectory that God is on is not reposing his presence in buildings. God wants to be embodied in human community.  God doesn’t want a building where he can sit on a throne cut off from the world.  God wants to live in and among us.  That’s why God the Son became the human person, Jesus.  That’s why God filled the followers of Jesus with the Holy Spirit.  I believe God would rather we spread out through our communities meeting in living rooms and kitchens, restaurants, or school cafeterias instead of holing up in buildings that we can’t really afford. 

The last thing Jesus said to his disciples before ascending was to mandate them to go into the world and make disciples and he promised to be with us.  We did that for a few centuries and met in homes, caves, and even tombs.  Yet, soon enough we let ourselves and our ideas of God get co-opted by Empire and we have been embroiled in civil religion ever since…at least until recently here in North America and prior to that in Europe.  It’s this civil religion-based Christianity that’s dying in our culture.  The true church, the body of Christ is still alive and well.  Now is the time to yield to the Holy Spirit and leave the building mentality behind, and as the body of Christ, get back to making disciples of Jesus everywhere we are – in our homes, in our neighbourhoods, in our workplaces, in coffee shops, in schools, and even in church basements.  The mandate and the drive of the Spirit is to scatter forth, not to settle down.  Amen.