Sermon Title: - “A Tale of Two Gardens”- Pastor John
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When I came back from Africa in 1978 after two years in Liberia, I’ll never forget flying into JFK airport in New York City. It was 8:30pm and New York was flooded in light. New York is probably the most impressive city in the world for the mere fact that you have all these skyscrapers compressed into the island of Manhattan which is about eight miles long and two miles wide. New York gleamed and shone almost like a mini-sun in its own right.
In our lesson from Revelations we have this spectacular vision of the New Jerusalem, coming to down out of heaven. We’ve all seen prefabricated houses that come to pre-cast foundations and then are set in place by a crane, but imagine this – a whole city – prefabricated by God’s own hand and set down for God’s Saints to dwell in. St. John is using the city Jerusalem as a sign of God’s intention to make all things new.
Jerusalem enjoy a special, pivotal place in Hebrew people’s thinking. It was David’s city, a splendid city. Solomon had built a huge temple there and David had built a palace. It was a walled city – protected, mighty and impregnable. Jerusalem was a symbol of God’s intention to rule the earth with peace. In fact the word Jerusalem comes from two words which mean “to establish peace”.
That might be a theme of or our lesson from Revelations. God promises peace; God delivers it. Death is abolished and all that attends it including mourning, crying and pain. St. John writes: “the sea was no more”. The image of the sea as a place of chaos and destruction is carried all throughout the Bible. In the beginning, God drew out life fro m the waters and created the dry land for us terrestrial creatures. Jonah was swallowed by a gigantic sea creature when the waters of the Mediterranean were rolling and boiling. The great flood of Genesis which wiped out humanity was a symbol of chaos and destruction. Here, In John’s vision we are promised order and peace.
Notice that it says God himself will be with us, his people and he will wipe every tear from their eyes. It is a gentle, beautiful image. In the Garden of Eden, when our ancestors and first parents Adam and Eve disobeyed, they tried to hide their guilt. God gently sews clothing for them out of fig leaves and hides their shame. In fact, there are many, many parallels between the Bible’s beginning, and this, the last chapter of Revelation, its ending. God places us in a paradise, Eden, then God gives us a place of ultimate peace – Jerusale m - the new Jerusalem – a world beyond death, grief, sin, shame, crying, remorse and pain of all kinds. It is a new Heaven, an eternal one. Death is done and sin is done in by the victory of the Lamb who is Alpha and Omega, beginning and end.
Today’s lesson proclaims this vision and blessed expectation forcefully. Through Christ, God has brought in the new creation. The new creation is not subject to decay and death. The new creation is eternal. God fuses with us, God makes us one with the triune being in our baptism – we become the true body of Christ and we will live as eternal beings in a world of peace beyond death. Our passport to this new world is found in our baptism. God claims us the moment we are baptized and from that mo ment we are God’s. We live in this world as ambassadors of the next. We give evidence that we belong to that new cretion by how we live out our lives here.
I have been impressed by the Amish people of Lancaster County, our neighbors, a mere 50 miles away. The story is still fresh and vivid. A 32 year old man, a father himself of two children, loses his mind and maliciously kills five little Amish school girls in a crime so violent and so wan ton that it takes our breath away, especially since it was directed against little Amish girls who are a people of peace. The Amish community immediately forgave Charles Carl Roberts, Jr. and fifty of them went to his funeral to support his wife and children in their grief. More than that they started a fund to help support the Robert’s family and shared a portion of the funds they received from people and supporters from around the country and the globe.
Their forgiveness was unhesitating. They didn’t have to go through a process; they simply forgave him and included his family in their own mourning.
I have a daughter. I asked myself “Could I do what they did and so immediately?” I would hope so, but I can’t say for sure. I confess I am in awe of their faith, their love, their courage. Truly they are ambassadors from the Christ who is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. They are the new creation. Yet, so are we, no matter how well we perform or how flawed we are. Christ lives in us and will never let us go.
We remember today, and take comfort from the vision of the city of peace that God will give us as sheer gift. We will be reunited with Lazarus, Mary, Martha, the disciples and all the baptized faithful who have lived and died in Christ. We are residents of the new Jerusalem. We are creatures of the new and eternal creation and we have the one who sits on the throne the Alpha and the Omega, Jesus Christ, to thank for giving us our “Green Card”.
In Jesus’ Name
Amen
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