Note from Pastor Mike: I want to encourage our church family to look deeper into what God speaks to us through the Message.
Here at First United Methodist Church of Saint Cloud we believe that God speaks to us through the Message. One way for all of us to hear from God more clearly is to read the Scripture verses and the Message again during the week.
I would really like to hear your comments and how God is challenging you through the worship service and the Message. It would be great to hear your discussion ideas. Please feel free to send me your discussion points.
Your friend on the journey,
Pastor Mike
Contact Pastor Mike at:
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First UMC St. Cloud 1000 Ohio Avenue Saint Cloud, FL 34769
(NRSV)Revelation 21.1-6–1Then 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. 2And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is amongmortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be withthem;
4 he will wipe every tear from theireyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain willbe no more,
for the first things have passedaway.’
5And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ 6Then 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 water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.’
Introduction:Surprise!
1.Christians use the word “hope” a whole lot. Heck, I use the word numerous times in many of our messages here on Sunday mornings. Yet, there is a good chance that we would be hard pressed to articulate a vision of “hope” to someone who is not a Christian and to the larger non-believing world that is gripping, compelling, forceful. Our “hope,” Christian “hope,” in many instances, is no longer a surprise that possess the power to transform the lives of individuals and communities.
2.N.T. Wright writes, “If we are not careful, we will offer merely a “hope” that is no longer a surprise, no longer able to transform lives and communities in the present, no longer generated by the resurrection of Jesus himself and looking forward to the promised new heaven and new earth.”
The “Big Idea” – The hope of heaven is the sovereign rule of God coming “on earth as it is in heaven.”
A.Depends on What’s Next
How we live this life depends on how we understand what is next.
1.Our text from the Scriptures this morning comes from the book of Revelation. Most probably, Revelation is written during the later part of the Roman Emperor Domitian’s reign (pay attention to that word) in the mid 90’s of the first century.
a.Like Nero and Gaius Caligula before him, Emperor Domitian is one of the few emperors to personally demand to be worshiped as a god. All the churches mentioned in beginning of Revelation would have been subjected to social and political pressure to proclaim, “The Emperor is lord.” (Also pay attention to that word, “lord.”)
2.So, Revelation speaks to Christians who are being persecuted for claiming that God’s Reign (that is what the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven indicates) is come and that Jesus is Lord (which means the Emperor is not.) Early parts of Revelation also speak to Christians who have allowed themselves to be seduced into following the values of their culture as opposed to Jesus.
3.So, to these churches and to these Christians who struggle to remain faithful to Jesus either through persecution for being a Christian and/or (because they can go hand in hand) struggles to live like a Christian, John is given a glimpse of the future to share:
(NRSV) Revelation 21.1-6– 1Then 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. 2And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is amongmortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be withthem;
4 he will wipe every tear from theireyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain willbe no more,
for the first things have passedaway.’
4.These Christians are reminded that this life is not all there is; there is life after death and something more after this age comes to an end. This forms the basis for their Christian hope.
a.This hope matters, because what these early Christians as well as you and I think about death and the life beyond exercises a fundamental (deep seated) and crucial (significant) influence on how we understand everything else in life.
B.Surprisingly Hopeful
The Christian message about death inssurprisingly hopeful.
1.Now, this is apocalyptic writing, which simply means it speaks of the end of this life and this age. Our culture is fascinated with the end timesand with death. From ghosts to zombies; from near death experiences to messages from beyond the grave.In all these views, death is seen as ranging from passing into a hidden world where we are still “in touch” with the living in various ways to a terrify condition where our bodies are animated by some virus causing us to be the “walking dead.
2.Christians and the church have something to say to our culture and to the world about death that is surprisingly hopeful. The problem is that we are not always so sure what that “hope” we speak about really entails and how it is even “hope” in the first place.
3.For many Christians, we speak about death as a friend taking our loved one to a better place. Or, in a similar view, we speak of death as simply removing one’s bodily presence leaving one’s soul to continue on with us as if the person were still really here; just not visible. Then, the belief sung about in many of our hymns is that our souls “fly away” leaving our miserable bodies and this evil earth behind.
a.The first is a flat out refusal to tell the truth about the real and savage break, the horrible denial of the goodness of human life, that every death involves. If this notion is true, then there is no need of hope to begin with.
b.The later, if our souls leave behind a mortal body, means that death still rules because death has not been defeated but death has only been redefined.
4.Death is the enemy, brought on by evil and sin; the enemy none the less. God’s intention, according to the Bible, is not to permit death to have its way with us or with the creation.
(NRSV) 1 Corinthians15.50-55 – 50What I am saying, brothers and sisters,is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up invictory.’
55 ‘Where, Odeath, is your victory?
Where, Odeath, is your sting?’
5.
C.New Jerusalem
The Bible sees this earth and heaven joined together by a new Jerusalem.
1.Jesus’ first disciples ask him, “Jesus, how are we to pray?” Part of his answer, one of the most powerful and revolutionary phrase in the Bible, is that we pray, “For God’s will to be done, for God’s Kingdom to come, on earth as it is in heaven.”Jesus directs to a future, not where we all leave our bodies and this world behind, but, where God’s reign (God ruling, God’s Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven) come to this world; God’s reign becomes visible in this good creation.
2.Remember John’s vision of the end of our time in,(NRSV) Revelation 21.1-2– 1Then 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. 2And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Here, we do not find our ransomed souls floating up to heaven but we find the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth.
a.This is important to understanding this vision. The real city of Jerusalem, to the people of Israel, is where God meets and leads God’s people. Now, real or symbolic, the New Jerusalem, God with God’s people, unites heaven and earth.
3.Heaven, in the Bible, is notsome future state disconnected with this world but it is God’s dimension, if you like. So, we are now told, (NRSV) Revelation 21.3–3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is amongmortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be withthem;
4.God comes to live among God’s people and brings final and complete justice. The great threat to life, that is death, is not just redefined or made kinder, death is defeated, destroyed; death is no more.
5.This hope, the Christian hope, of the defeat of sin and evil and finally death, the hope of bodily resurrection (recall the Apostle’s Creed, “We believe in the….resurrection of the body”) is made possible and generated in the life and death and the RESURRECTION of Jesus the Christ.
D.Not in Vein
What we do in this life is not in vein but significantly connects to the next life.
1.On that first Easter Sunday morning, our prayer “For God’s will to be done, for God’s Kingdom to come, on earth as it is in heaven.” Is fully answered and that answer will be fully seen or realized when Jesus returns, when the New Jerusalem united (really, when Jesus united God’s new heaven and new earth together in God’s new creation.
a.Again with metaphors from the Jewish faith, Jesus says in (NRSV) Matthew 12.6 – 6I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. For the Jewish faith at this time in history, the Temple in the City of Jerusalem is the actual meeting place between God and God’s people. Then in(NRSV) Matthew 26.61 – 61and said, ‘This fellow said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.”Jesus says that now he is the Temple, the place where God’s people meet, and now really see God.
2.All this, gives more not less value to this her-and-now life and to this world. There is a great continuity and well as discontinuity between this earth and heaven. The result is that what we do here, how we treat others, how we spend our money, how we treat the environment and how we help others see and know Jesus IN THIS PRESENT LIFE matters enormously in the new heaven and new earth to come.
a.Recall our verse from Corinthians about our resurrection. That is followed by (NRSV) 1 Corinthians15.58 – 58Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
3.If we are leaving this earth then Christians can sit comfortably with no quarrels with the powers and people and corporations and governments who overpower others for their own agendas; often with the weapon of death. Yet, resurrection, Jesus’ resurrection and our own, brings with it a strong view of god’s justice and God the good creator.
4.So, how do we live in the power of resurrection in between the Resurrection of Jesus and the final, visible new heaven and new earth when Jesus rerurns to make all things new? I am moved by the life of catholic Bishop Romero who ministered in El Salvador during the violent 1970’s and 80’s.
(The following from: Tom Gibb in The Guardian, Wednesday 22 March 2000)
In the bright morning sunlight of March 24 1980, in san Salvador, a car stopped outside the Church of the Divine Providence in San Salvador, the capitol of El Salvador. A lone gunman stepped out, unhurried. Resting his rifle on the car door, he aimed carefully down the long aisle to where El Salvador's archbishop, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, was saying mass. A single shot rang out. Romero staggered and fell. The blood pumped from his heart, soaking the little white disks of scattered host.
(The following from: Oscar Romero: Bishop of the Poor, in USCatholic, By Renny Golden)
Romero begged for international intervention. He was alone. The people were alone. In 1980 the war claimed the lives of 3,000 per month, with cadavers clogging the streams, and tortured bodies thrown in garbage dumps and the streets of the capitol weekly. With one exception, all the Salvadoran bishops turned their backs on him (going so far as to send a secret document to Rome reporting him, accusing him of being "politicized" and of seeking popularity.)
Romero was a surprise in history. The poor never expected him to take their side and the elites of church and state felt betrayed. He was a compromise candidate elected to head the bishop's episcopacy by conservative fellow bishops. He was predictable, an orthodox, pious bookworm who was known to criticize the progressive liberation theology clergy so aligned with the impoverished farmers seeking land reform. But an event would take place within three weeks of his election that would transform the ascetic and timid Romero.
The new archbishop's first priest, Rutilio Grande, was ambushed and killed along with two parishioners. Grande was a target because he defended the peasant's rights to organize farm cooperatives. He said that the dogs of the big landowners ate better food than the campesino children whose fathers worked their fields.
The night Romero drove out of the capitol to Paisnal to view Grande's body and the old man and seven year old who were killed with him, marked his change. In a packed country church Romero encountered the silent endurance of peasants who were facing rising terror. Their eyes asked the question only he could answer: Will you stand with us as Rutilio did? Romero's "yes" was in deeds. The peasants had asked for a good shepherd and that night they received one.
In 1980, in the midst of a (U.S. funded) war the UN Truth Commission called genocidal, the soon-to-be-assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero promised history that life, not death, would have the last word. "I do not believe in death without resurrection," he said. "If they kill me, I will be resurrected in the Salvadoran people.”
5.Like Jesus, Father Romero acted in ways that revealed what God’s new heaven and new earth will be like. In this way, God began to answer our prayer “For God’s will to be done, for God’s Kingdom to come, on earth as it is in heaven.”
6.The hope of the New Jerusalem, the Temple right in our midst, God come to God’s people, God’s new heaven and new earth, God’s finally realized new creation, the final answer to our prayer, prayer “For God’s will to be done, for God’s Kingdom to come, on earth as it is in heaven” includesthe fulfillment of God’s words that, (NRSV)Revelation 21.4–
4 he will wipe every tear from theireyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain willbe no more,
for the first things have passedaway.’
7.Our text from Revelation points to the hope of the future yet that hope is revealed in our here-and-now by Jesus the Christ and by the body of Christ, the church – you and me. As Christians we know that(NRSV) 2 Corinthians 5.17-18 – 17So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. God in Jesus exclaims, (NRSV) Revelation 21.5– 5And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’
“Action Point” – The hope of heaven is seen when Christians live out the future resurrection lives by standing up for justice, fighting against oppression, resisting racism, feeding the hungry, loving the outcasts and praying for their enemies in the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
N. T. Wright, “All Dressed Up and No Place to God” and “Puzzled About Paradise” in Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008).