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In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Alleluia. Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed. Alleluia!)
Introduction: Each passing year of life, I become increasingly aware that I’m closer to my “expiration date” (whenever that may be). Not to whine, but forget the stiff joints, just one brief look in the mirror tells me that youthfulness is long gone. So, I find myself thinking more of my death, not in a morbid sense but to think about heaven and the sinless perfection I will experience in eternity. Some of my pondering about appearance, hair? no hair? I admit … is silly … as if any of it matters. Of course, Scripture doesn’t answer. But what it does say is so breathtaking that these inane notions are soon withdrawn.
I’m certainly not the first to inquire about a state of perfect. Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) was an English lawyer, judge, philosopher, theologian and statesman. In 1516 (a year before the beginning of the Reformation he wrote a book about a perfect city called Utopia and so gave us a word for a perfect society. The cinema has certainly had it’s share of films about such a society, and we even hear talk about entering the “golden age of America.” But cinema and society both seem to have more instances in portraying dystopia and the degeneracy of culture, society and government. Despite our political leanings, the level of such corruption in the halls of government might arguably cause us to each question whether this can ever be repaired and restored. Are we too far gone?
So, the idea of Utopia and a perfect city sounds wonderful, but unlike Thomas More, such an idea is not merely in the imagination … it’s described for us in the pages of Holy Scripture. Once again, we focus our attention on today’s Second Reading from Revelation in our ongoing series “Resurrection and Revelation.” Our text is descriptive of “God’s Perfect and Eternal City,” and so we make this our theme.
As always, context is vital to understanding this text. This is especially true because it’s a huge jump from last Sunday’s sermon text in Chapter 7 to today’s in Chapter 21. Revelation consists of 7 visions. The first 19 Chapters consist of the first 6 visions. These visions show Satan’s unsuccessful attempts to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ. The seventh vision begins in Chapter 20. This vision consists of the final public judgment at the “great white throne” (20:11) where all unbelievers, Satan and His followers are judged and condemned to their eternal home in hell. So serious is this vision that a warning is again given in verse 8 which follows our text: “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (21:8).
Believers, however, are those whose names are written in the Book of Life. They also are judged and declared blessed. Their eternal home and ours is revealed in Chapter 21 … today’s text. This eternal home is described as follows in v. 1 – “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away …” Are we to understand the “new heaven and new earth” to be literal? The divinely-inspired Prophet Isaiah reveals that God will “create new heavens and a new earth” (65:17 and 66:22). Likewise, the Apostle Peter declares: “…we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet 3:13) as our eternal home. St Paul also reminds us that creation itself “waits with eager longing” to “be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:19,20).
St. John says that the new creation replaces the old which has been thoroughly corrupted by sin. St. Peter, in his second epistle depicts the destruction of the present order in a fire so intense that the elements melt in its heat (2 Pet 3:10-13). The Rev. Prof. Louis Brighton said “that the present heaven and earth originally created by God (Gen 1:1) would not be a fit home for his resurrected and righteous saints. … The earth was cursed and thus suffered decay and ruin.”[1]
Indeed, and all of humankind has had its very nature utterly corrupted by sin and death. As we come to grips with our mortality we must admit that at the end of our efforts and endeavors are tears, mourning, pain, and death. Our sin not only results in failure in our striving to produce a perfect existence, but it gains us nothing but God’s temporal punishment and eternal wrath. Unless and until … God steps in to repair sin’s damage to His relationship with His creation.
Our text is filled with beautiful pictures of God’s intervention to “make all things new.” The Rev. Prof. Martin Franzmann says that ‘new’ is “not merely as more recent in date but as created and designed to supersede and replace the old, … new with an astonishing end-of-time newness, unheard-of and wondrous, as unpredictably strange as the fact that the new covenant which succeeds and replaces the ruins of the guilt-marred old covenant should be a covenant of divine forgiveness…”[2]
In the text we are promised:
1. A new creation (v. 1) as we’ve just seen.
2. A new condition (v. 2): “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” … the Church is the bride adorned and prepared by the Lord and for the Lord.
3. A new communion (v. 3): “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people…” The Greek words for “dwelling place” and “dwell” are the words for “Tabernacle.” As God was tabernacled among His people in the wilderness, and as Christ was tabernacled among us in His incarnation … so God will dwell with us in unbroken eternal fellowship.
4. A new certainty (v. 4): It is so difficult to describe God’s Perfect and Eternal City that we are here told what will NOT be there. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
I appreciate Pastor Wolfe’s words in his sermon on this text which connect v. 4 to the substitutionary atonement. “Jesus didn’t remove these things, but he made them his own. He makes our tears his tears, our crying his crying, our mourning his mourning, our pain his pain, and our death his death. Crushed and killed by the very things that crush us, he redeems us and restores us. … Our death is his death, and his life, his resurrection, are given to us freely and fully!” (Rev. Edward K Wolfe).[3]
Jesus became our Substitute and paid the full price for our sins, His precious blood, His very life! For us and in our place, He took upon Himself the punishment that we alone deserve. We are no longer slaves to sin, no longer slaves by fear of mortality and death, no longer held captive by the devil. And in Christ’s resurrection we not only have the guarantee that the Father accepted his sacrifice on our behalf, but we have eternal life as well.
Notice that the Lord does not “make new things,” but “makes all things new” by His Word in all its forms:
· In the “trustworthy and true” (v. 5b) Word written for us in Holy Scriptures;
· in the Word with the water of Holy Baptism .. a “new” life-giving water;
· in the Word of Holy Absolution with the Pastor’s touch sets us free to begin anew;
· in the Word with bread and wine in the Holy Supper are the very body and blood of Christ, nourishment for new creations, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins.
By these means of grace the Holy Spirit, “who will guide [us] into all truth” (Jn 16:13, HG), strengthens us that “our hearts may be fixed where true joys are found” (Collect). In addition, God also calls and so enables the “repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18, FR). He makes us contrite on account of sin and gives faith to believe the Gospel which tells us that “sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ” (AC XII.5). When we repent then God forgives us of our sinful nature and all our actual sins. He forgives us for the sake of Christ Jesus.
Conclusion: Movies will continue to depict both utopias and dystopias. Politicians will continue to disappoint us with their corruption and lies. Aging, aches, pains and illness may make awareness of our mortality become more pronounced. And so, in repentance and faith, we look to Jesus, the “founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2) who gives us a hope-filled revelation of God’s Perfect and Eternal City.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Alleluia. Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed. Alleluia!)
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ SDG +