“God’s Vision of Newness”

5th Sunday after Easter C 2007

Revelation 21:1-6

            Our second lesson for today gives us a glimpse of God’s vision for all of creation.  God will make all things new!  Our God is a God that not only created and redeemed the world, but also recreates, changing, shaping, molding us and this world into God’s own vision of what it should be.  As “the former things have passed away,” the one seated on the throne says, “See, I am making all things new.”  God’s vision of newness, spoken through the revelation given to John, is both cosmic in scope and yet very personal.

            First, the cosmic.  John says, “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.”  In these verses, the whole cosmos is being recreated, both heaven and earth, by the gracious God who comes to us in his Son Jesus.  We all know how much our world needs to be changed.  The beauty of God’s creation is marred by the sinful actions of human beings.  Beautiful landscapes are painted over by the dark cloud of pollution, deforestation, and waste.  Our cities decay because of neglect, violence, gangs, poverty, and homelessness.  Our natural resources are used up with no regard to future generations because of our never-ending desire for profit and gain.  Countries are torn apart because of tribal differences and religious rivalries, violence and war seems to be the rule by which people and nations deal with each other.  The Bible says the very creation itself is crying out for God’s intervention.  The Apostle Paul speaks of this very thing in Romans when he said, “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God;…that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”  God’s vision of newness is revealed: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.”  All of creation, the entire cosmos will be renewed, restored, and transformed by the glory of God when the risen Christ comes again to claim all things unto himself.

            But God’s vision of newness is also very personal.  John says, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them.”  God comes down to us, not just to touch our lives and then leave again, but rather to dwell here and be with us always.  Another way of saying this is that God comes “to tabernacle,” or set up residence in our very lives and hearts.  God’s promise is to be with us always, renewing and recreating our lives to conform to God’s will and purpose for us in this world.

            This promise is very reassuring and comforting to those of us who are suffering pain and hardship.  There are those who suffer the pain of illness and loss of health, those who have lost a job or find themselves doing work that is not very fulfilling, those who have experienced divorce from spouses or separation from family members, those who grieve the death of loved ones.  Each of us has been affected in some very personal ways by the evil and sinfulness of this world.  All too often we feel like we are alone and on our own in our struggles.  But in God’s vision of newness, the promise is that we are not alone.  Instead, God comes to be with us and to help us, to strengthen us, to transform us and make our lives new.  In God’s vision of newness, “God will wipe away every tear form their eyes.  Death shall be no more; mourning and crying and pain shall be no more.”  Can there be any greater hope and assurance for us than this?

            It is important to point out that God’s vision of newness is not a vision for some far away place in the far away future.  No, God’s promise to make all things news is for the here and now, for you and me, for our fallen, sinful world.  The in-breaking of this vision has come to us when Jesus was raised from the dead.  The resurrection is the fulfillment of God’s promise to save and redeem us and all of creation.  It is a future hope, yes, but it is a present reality as well.  The power of the resurrection has an impact upon us right now as it creates and gives new life.  At United Lutheran Church, “We hope in the power of the resurrection,” for it by the resurrection that we become an Easter people, filled with new possibilities that gives hope for our entire world.  As Edna Hong said in her book The Downward Assent, “We become more like Christ, and are Christ’s to others.”  It is a description of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  The “New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,” is realized, then, through our faith and in our lives lived as disciples of Jesus Christ and to his glory.  Through our witness and service to others, God has the opportunity to recreate this fallen world and restore it as it was intended to be.

            One person who was caught up in God’s vision of newness was Martin Luther King, Jr.  In one of his last sermons before he was assassinated, King conveyed this sense of New Jerusalem as both a future and present reality, a wondrous vision for justice in which we can participate even now.  He wrote:  “Thank God for John, who centuries ago out on a lonely, obscure island called Patmos caught vision of a new Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, who heard a voice saying, ‘Behold, I make all things new – former things are passed away.  God grant that we will be participants in this newness…If we will but do it, we will bring about a new day of justice and brotherhood and peace.  And that day the morning stars will sing together.’”

            God gives this vision of newness so that we may all be caught up in it and receive Jesus’ resurrection power and be made new.  It is Jesus who is able to recreate and transform your life.  It is Jesus, through his Holy Spirit, who is always with you.  It is Jesus who makes it possible for you to follow and obey his new commandment “to love one another.” Jesus has shown us what it means to love as he gave his very life for us and the sake of the world on the cross.  He lived his life to its fullest, giving himself completely.  He lived his life in love.    Our love for one another comes as a response to our experience of Jesus’ limitless and unending love for us.  Our love draws others into God’s vision of newness so that they too might experience God’s love in Jesus and live.  “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  Today, God gives to us a vision for the world that the world so desperately needs.  God says, “See, I am making all things new.”  Amen.