Eternity: All Things New
Rev
Dr Mark Porizky
Revelation 21
For
a few minutes on Tuesday morning I watched Cinderella with my secretary’s 4
½ year old daughter, Nina. Every time I view Walt Disney's masterpiece
something new about the fairy tale of Cinderella fascinates me. It seems Walt
Disney has been able to tap into a universal human longing for the day when a
prince will take our hand and lead us off into the sunset to live happily ever
after. Do you remember the architecture of the castle? It seemed larger than
any domed stadium. The concourse leading into the grand ball room appeared as
wide as a four lane highway. Everything about the castle was grand, majestic
and made of marble.
I thought I would only watch for a few moments, but I had to stay to the end,
just to make sure that Cinderella still got the golden slipper and the happy
ending. I even told the secretary,
Debbie to tell callers that Nina and I were busy watching Cinderella.
She did. One telemarketer
said, “Is this Saint Andrew Presbyterian Church?”
Why
does the Cinderella fantasy fascinate me? What is it about these stories that
capture your imagination? Many of you remember the plantation songs that came
out of the deep South. After long hard days in the cotton fields under the
sweltering southern sun the African Americans would gather around the camp
fires and sing of heaven. "Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry
me home."
I guess that fairy tales like Cinderella have soul appeal. All the young bare
foot girls wearing tattered dresses dream of a Cinderella experience. Deep in
the hidden recesses of our hearts there is that yearning for castle living
where all the hassles of life vanish. To people who lived in hovels with dirt
floors, the castle where the prince lived was heaven.
Or at least that’s what we often think heaven is like: castle living.
And maybe it is, but it may surprise you to hear the Bible’s
description of heaven.
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. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
"Behold, the dwelling of God is with men.
He will dwell with them,
and they shall be his people,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe away every tear from their eyes,
and death shall be no more,
neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more,
for the former things have passed away."
And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things
new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and
true." And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the
Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the fountain
of the water of life without payment. He who conquers shall have this
heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son. But as for the
cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators,
sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns
with fire and sulphur, which is the second death."
Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and spoke to me, saying, "Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." And in the Spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
And he who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and
its gates and walls. [The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its
breadth; and he measured the city with his rod, twelve thousand stadia; its
length and breadth and height are equal. He also measured its wall, a
hundred and forty-four cubits by a man's measure, that is, an angel's.
The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, clear as
glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every
jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth
emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the
eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth,
the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the
gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold,
transparent as glass.
And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty
and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for
the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall
the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it,
and its gates shall never be shut by day -- and there shall be no night there;
they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing
unclean shall enter it, nor any one who practices abomination or falsehood,
but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles I
have lived in cities for much of the first ¾ of my life – San Francisco,
Los Angeles, and Miami. City life still excites me.
Last week in New York City was wonderful.
So much to do, so much to see. I
was continually fascinated at how a Starbucks Coffee shop could be on every
OTHER block!
And
yet, I also couldn’t wait to get back here to Southeastern Connecticut.
As I have grown older I find myself drawn to the country – to the
scenic beauty of open space, the lack of traffic, the freedom of movement that
we have here in New London County. There
is something spiritually renewing about living in open space away from the
hustle and bustle of traffic, crowds, noise, and pollution.
I have the sense that many of us feel the same way.
Americans by-and-large have a distrust of big cities. In cities there
is an endless bustle of activity, with people rushing around in a great fever
to make a living. Moreover, moving
around in a big city requires physical intimacy with strangers – on
sidewalks, streets, buses and trains – with which we are uncomfortable.
Here, in Southeastern Connecticut, most of us travel in the privacy of our own
cars. Not so in big cities like New York
where most people use public transportation to travel to and from work.
In rush hour on the subway, you are literally squeezed up against other
people, so that if the train were to come to a sudden stop there would be no
place even to fall. When you ride the subway during rush hour, forget about
privacy! There is none.
It comes, therefore, as something of a shock to find that in the last book of the Bible, in its last two chapters the ultimate destiny toward which God is leading us is life in a city¼ a huge city, an inclusive city, an active city as beautiful as a bride. If the story of humankind begins in a Garden of Eden, it ends in the city of the New Jerusalem. And that, of course, provides the key to why God has a city in mind for us: the more fully we take other people into account, the more we cooperate with them in the daily affairs of life, the more we reflect the communal life which God intended for us, the more heaven will become real, both here and for all eternity.
Notice how the New Jerusalem is a continuation of the earthly Jerusalem that
is still one of the most revered cities of the world. In Revelation 21:5 God
does not say, “Behold, I make all NEW things,” implying the destruction of
all that was and the building of something totally new. God says, “Behold, I
make all THINGS new,” implying the renewal and perfecting of that which
already is. In this New Jerusalem all that has contributed to pain and tears
will be abolished. All that has contributed to satisfaction and joy will be
enhanced.
It is not just our “religious” deeds that we are talking about here. They are, in fact, secondary. This New Jerusalem will not even have in it a temple in which to worship, because in this city every deed we do will be an act of worship, and the God whom we worship will be right in the midst of us. Can you imagine that? Every good deed on earth will be magnified in heaven.
Good
deeds do matter in eternity. I
read about a man only known as “Jimmy” in the paper after a fire in
California. Jimmy awoke at 3:00
a.m. and saw the wall of fire approaching his Muth Valley home. He got in his
car, and began making the rounds to the neighbors – honking his horn until
they acknowledged that they were awake. Jimmy’s house burned to the ground.
That’s not the important thing, says Jimmy. The important thing is that
every neighbor escaped safely. They are grateful. “I’ve never been a
material kind of guy,” says Jimmy.
In
heaven Jimmy’s good deed will be magnified beyond anything he can now
imagine. That’s good news for all of us, because in the New Jerusalem there
is no good deed that goes unnoticed by God.
Moreover,
the New Jerusalem far exceeds in size and shape, any city of our experience.
In it, John writes, are “a great multitude which no man could number,
from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues” (Rev. 7:9).
Certain
faith groups like the Jehovah Witnesses and some other sects think that heaven
will only be composed of people like them – and relatively few of them at
that! They think that heaven will only consist of themselves and those who
believe, think and behave as they do. This is not the picture that John
paints. The New Jerusalem is radically inclusive.
John
sees a great multitude of people from every race, every tribe, every nation
and every tongue. All of them are in white garments and carrying the palm
branches of victory. What an amazing vision! All these people, sinners all,
bloodied but not beaten in their earthly life are now standing in their
starched white purified garments with the palm branches of victory. It’s a
United Nations kind of gathering but without any conflicts to resolve. People
who are not normally seen in my imagination of heaven are all there. Chinese,
Africans, Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, Pakistanis, and every tribe and
every tongue – all of them are there by the grace of God.
Can
you imagine that kind of inclusive community – a city without outcasts,
absolutely none! In the world in which we live, where religious and ethnic
violence is commonplace, that image of comprehensiveness may seem foreign to
us, or even unrealistic. But if we look hard enough, we can find it, even now.
At
Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, for example, “Jews save Arabs and Arabs
save Jews.” Most of the employees and doctors are Jewish, but ten doctors,
along with about 10% of the staff are Palestinian. One woman physician
attended medical school in Baghdad. She was urged to work at Hadassah because
there was a shortage of doctors.
Now,
she lives in a one-room apartment, works in the emergency room, and visits her
parents in Nablus regularly. It takes her a whole day to get through the
Israeli checkpoints to her home. She continues to be criticized by her parents
and neighbors. She also continues to care for the Israeli victims of Arab
violence, because she knows what it would be like to be in their position.
So,
even in Jerusalem, and even now, something of heaven is already here on earth,
in the doctors and nurses, both Arabs and Jews, who heal and make whole the
battered and the broken torn apart by conflict.
Of
course, when the Gospel writer John speaks of the New Jerusalem, he is
implicitly contrasting it with the earthly Jerusalem of his time – the
Jerusalem that lay in ruins by the time John wrote his Revelation. The earthly
Jerusalem had a temple wall that separated Jews from Gentiles, men from women,
priests from laity. The New Jerusalem seen by John has no temple, no dividing
walls within it, and the twelve gates of its outer wall have only one-way
traffic, outside to inside!
This is no special enclave for a chosen few. “By its light,” writes John, “shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut.(Rev. 21:24-25).
This
gigantic multi-racial, multi-national, multi-cultural, pluralistic metropolis
is also a city of light and beauty. John compares her to a bride adorned for
her bridegroom. If we did a little exercise of writing down or calling out the
things which come to mind when we hear the words “bride” and
“marriage,” I suspect we would bring forth words such as¼
beautiful, fresh, intimate, loving, festive¼
and expensive!
The
materials out of which the city will be built include gold so pure it is
“clear as glass” and jewels of every kind¼
jasper, sapphire, emerald, topaz, and pearl. And it will not need sun or moon
to shine upon it because the glory of God will be its light.
There
will not be any dirty slums, ugly ghettos, restricted zones, or red-light
districts. It will be a city of beauty and light and color whose inhabitants
enjoy each other as friends enjoy one another at a wedding celebration. The
New Jerusalem will reflect the hope of Katherine Lee Bates, who wrote one of
our most beloved national hymns:
O beautiful
for patriot dream that sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam, un-dimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea.
The
New Jerusalem is not a place of eternal rest but a city of vibrant activity.
Now
John gives us this picture of heaven so we can transform earth. What heaven
is, earth is meant to be. Those of us who are going to find ourselves joyfully
at home in the New Jerusalem are those who are doing all that we can to make
the cities in which we now live as inclusive and cooperative and prosperous
and beautiful as we possibly can.
Remember:
true diversity is not a concession to our differences but a celebration of
life as God intended it to be. You see: the social mission of the church is to
break down the walls of prejudice that divide people one from another and to
reflect that heavenly city of true community and equality where there is a
place at the table for everyone.
Of course, it’s important to remember our table manners.
An
extremely pious and devout Minister desired with all his heart, to see both
heaven and hell.
God
granted his wish... And one evening, while all alone in the church, and occupied
in prayer, He suddenly found himself standing before a huge wooden door without
any markings on it. On the other side, he knew instinctively lay hell itself;
full of tortured and tormented souls! The door began to creak open, he stood
frozen with fear...Begging God to forgive him for being so presumptuous as to
think that he was strong enough to behold the terror.
As
the door opened, he saw a large room, in the center of which was a large table
furnished with all the necessities for a feast fit for a King, and enough food
to feed an army. The priest also noticed that everyone who was seated at this
table had been provided with extremely long spoons, with which they could reach
across the table to sample any dish no matter how far away it was.
Also
because of the great length of these spoons, they could not, no matter how hard
they tried, reach their own mouths to feed themselves. Therefore, they cursed
God for providing them with such a tempting feast to behold, but not giving them
the means to feed themselves and enjoy the food. They cursed and wailed in
despair, for they were famished.
As
the door closed before him the minister understood that these were the cries of
the tortured souls suffering in hell.
Then
the same door that stood before him, without any signs or markings, began to
open again. He saw the exact same scene as before; the large room, the table
dressed in the same manner as before, with just as much food, the self same
people, and the same long spoons! His mind reeled...
Then
as he stood there with his eyes closed tightly, he noticed something
different...The cursing had turned to praise, and the wailing to sounds of joy
and laughter! As he opened his eyes,
he saw that this time the people seated at the table used the long spoons to
feed each other, rather than trying to feed themselves. They thanked God for
providing them with this great feast, and for enabling them to serve their
fellows rather than themselves, and thus, be fed in the process.
Every
once in a while we get a glimpse of the promise...
In Eternity, all things are made new.
As we say in the Lord’s
Prayer, may it be so on earth as it is in heaven.
Will
you pray with me now?
St.
Andrew Presbyterian Church, Groton,
Web Site: WWW.SAPC-CT.ORG
Office Email: OFFICE@SAPC-CT.ORG
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