Text: Revelation 21:1-6, 21:22-22:5
Many of you know that I love to garden.
Digging in the dirt is a spiritual practice for me.
Pulling weeds is cathartic.
There is nothing better than an afternoon spent tending and nurturing life in my yard.
And enjoying the fruits of that labor – whether the beauty of a flower or the taste of a fresh tomato – is nothing short of holy.
This year, my garden is being renovated.
Well, the entire back yard is being renovated.
Our retaining wall had started to buckle outwards and our deck was beginning to rot. Both needed to be replaced.
And so we found some experts to help us out and they have brought in big machines to tear everything out and recontour the land and prepare for what is to come.
Only, this has been a very weird and wet spring.
It was too muddy to work for weeks.
The new deck was completed in between storms and we are almost, finally, just about ready for the new retaining wall to go in.
Perennials were moved around in order to prepare for all of this work and most of them have found a temporary home in what had been my vegetable garden.
So right now, that space holds irises, black eyed susans, salvia, strawberries, herbs, and one gigantic pile of dirt.
I have spent much of this spring itching to get busy and get dirty and get to growing.
And I must admit, there are times that I feel a bit impatient waiting for it all to get done.
I can imagine… sort of… what it will look like when it is all finished… but we aren’t there yet.
Throughout our study of the Book of Revelation, we have kept before us a couple of truths:
- Jesus is coming and will sit on the throne… and the powers of this world will not.
- Only Jesus is worthy to transform the world as we know it into the world as God intends for it to be. And he does so not through violence, but through love.
- Our job is to allow God to make us into a kingdom. The role of the church is to be a community of diversity, equality, and praise. We serve the Lord and witness to his glory.
John of Patmos looked around him and saw all sorts of problems.
Christians were being persecuted by Rome.
Churches were giving in to the lure of empire and siding with economic and national powers.
Or, they lost the energy and fire of their faith and grew lazy and comfortable in the world around them.
They didn’t see or respond to the needs of their neighbors.
They forgot to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those who were grieving, oppressed, or lonely.
In some ways, they were like my retaining wall and deck… starting to fall apart, sagging, rotting.
And the vision that John of Patmos received is that the world as he knew it…
The world as we know it…
Needs to be renewed.
Renovated.
Made new.
I must admit that in the past I thought of this process in the Book of Revelation as wiping the slate of everything that was and starting from scratch… just like God created everything in the beginning from nothing.
I had a picture of everything being totally destroyed.
But the Greek word kainos is also used to talk about transformation, renewal, and renovation.
Eugene Boring writes in his commentary: “This world, God’s good creation, is not replaced but redeemed.”
The substance is the same, but it has been freshened up and it is better than it was when it started.
In other words, I’m still going to have a deck.
I’m still going to have a retaining wall.
I’m still going to have a garden.
But it is going to be way more amazing than it was before.
Today in our scripture reading, John of Patmos is given the blueprints, the architect’s rendering, a picture of what it will look like when all of the renovations are complete.
We aren’t there yet, and we have to use our imaginations, but we are at least given an idea of the process and are reminded what the key features have always been and always will be.
First: God dwells with us.
He is our God and we are his people.
And we have to remember that this isn’t anything new.
It is how God has intended it from the beginning when the Lord walked in the garden with Adam and Eve…
and led the people through the wilderness.
God became flesh and lived among us, the gospel of John tells us.
The Holy Spirit is poured out upon us and lives within us.
And in this newly renovated creation, God moves into the neighborhood and is intimately connected to our lives.
There are times we might forget this or turn our backs on God to embrace the powers of this world… but God has never left our side.
In this new creation, this truth will be so apparent that the glory of God will shine over every part of our lives.
We will not be able to hide from God’s light, but it will always be seen, always accessible.
In the world as we know it, there are places where things might stand between us and God, casting shadows.
There are times of night that feel like separation, but all of that will come to an end, and the radiance of God will known by all.
Not just morning by morning, but every day and night in every time and place.
God reminds us that these words are “trustworthy and true,” because God has always been faithfully present in our lives.
Second: There will be an end to sorrow, pain, and death.
We are shown a crystal clear river and a Tree of Life planted on each side, bearing twelve kinds of fruit and whose leaves will heal the world.
This image takes us back to the garden.
In the beginning, God gave humanity everything we needed to have abundant life.
But our sin, our turning away from God, our striving after what we thought we wanted, had consequences.
The pain of childbirth.
The violence of brother against brother.
The sweat and labor needed to produce basic necessities.
Death itself.
Magrey DeVega describes the promise we find in these chapters in this way: “God will not stop transforming the pain, heartache, and dark places of our lives until the moment with the transformation reaches ultimate completion in glory… All that humanity has lost in its downward spiral of sin is reclaimed and transformed by the power of God’s grace and power.”[1]
The curse, the consequence, is brought to completion.
God intends, as God has always intended, for there to be abundant life and health and joy.
Third: it is all happening right here and right now.
There is another theme that has been pretty consistent throughout the Book of Revelation that is important to remember.
On one hand, all the nations gather within this holy city, a multitude that cannot be numbered.
The gates of the city are always open.
But there is also a sense of exclusion.
There are some things that just don’t belong in the new heavens and new earth.
The message here is not one of eternal condemnation by a fierce and angry God.
After all, the Lamb of God has died for his enemies, defeated the spiritual forces of wickedness, broke the chains that held us captive to sin and death.
We now have a choice.
Just as John of Patmos wrote to the seven churches, we can choose the powers of this world or we can choose to live as servants of God.
If we choose to worship this world – its power, its practices, its glory – then we have separated ourselves.
Or as Christopher Rowland writes: “Rejecting the lure of the beast and Babylon is the criterion for inclusion in the new age. Sharing the diving reign is a key feature of the eschatological future. This is something already glimpsed by those who share the life of Jesus and are a kingdom of priests.”[2]
We choose to follow the Lamb.
We can reject the powers of this world.
We not only pray the words Jesus taught us: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” but we act upon our prayers.
Theologian C. Wess Daniels reminds us that “revolution and redemption do not happen someplace else, they take place right here with the material of the world we live in.”[3]
In other words… the world as we know it is not going to go away.
It will not all be destroyed.
And we don’t get a golden parachute to escape out of here… beamed up to some heaven light years away.
God is in the business of redemption and restoration and revolution!
The first will be last and the last will be first.
Nations and kings will be toppled.
The lowly will be lifted up.
And these promises are about the real people and situations that we are experiencing in our lives today.
This passage of scripture doesn’t say that God has made everything new, as if it is done and over with.
It doesn’t say that God will make everything new, at some point in the future.
God is making all things new.
It is happening all around us.
And as servants of God and followers of the Lamb, our work is to embody God’s presence among our neighbors.
It is to share God’s love and mercy with all we encounter.
Our job is not to hunker down, turning inward, but to reach out as disciples of Christ and work for the transformation of this world.
You know, my back yard right now is a mess.
It is a work in progress and not yet complete, but it is being transformed and even in the midst of the chaos there is work of tending and weeding and watering to be done.
This world is a mess.
There are nearly ten million people who have been displaced by the war in Ukraine.
We have lost one million neighbors to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Families in Buffalo and Milwaukee and Laguna Hills are grieving and entire communities are filled with fear because of the hatred and violence that stems from white supremacy.
The world as we know it is broken and bleeding.
But God is with us.
And God is at work transforming the pain and sorrow.
And God is calling us to be servants of that new creation right here and right now.
It is the work that we share through UMCOR – together we have allocated millions of dollars through grants to United Methodists in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania to welcome and care for refugees.
United Methodist camps in Estonia and the Czech Republic are being transformed to care for those who have fled the war.
Our Love Beyond Borders initiative has helped to supply 4.1 billion COVID-19 vaccines across the globe in 2022 through UNICEF and other Covid-19 responses have helped 300 partners in 57 countries provide equipment, education, and basic needs assistance to vulnerable communities.
Work within our denomination and conference, and even small group discussions in our church around anti-racism is equipping us to respond to hate, to take responsibility for our complicity, and to work towards a future in which all of our siblings can live without fear.
God knows we aren’t there yet.
But we know where we are going.
And with our eyes fixed upon the Lamb, each day we are taking one step towards that reality.
We are living more and more each day in the light and love of God.
And we do it with God at our side.
[1] A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series Vol. 2, p. 202-203.
[2] Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, p. 489.
[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-revelation-211-6-5