A sermon by David Roquemore
The Camp Hill Presbyterian Church
May 2, 2010
Revelation 21: 1-6
If you had to imagine a new heaven and new earth, what would it be like? Remember that old camp song?
If all the raindrops
Were lemondrops and gumdrops
Oh, what a rain that would be!
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Maybe rivers of chocolate over near Hershey? And of course, no pain, no suffering, no disease, no violence. Enough for everyone.
We all have our ideas of what paradise might be like.
Here today John has a vision of a new heaven and new earth. We will see more details next week, but for now, imagine, a new heaven, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem. Since we left him he has seen many more scenes of destruction, and of worship in heaven. He has seen cosmic battles between good and evil. Now begins his last vision, of the promised future.
For a people with nomadic roots, Israel has always been interested in cities. The city is the place where the temple is. The city is where God is worshiped. You may recall Jesus and the woman at the well, when she raised the arguments about where – in which city – God was to be worshiped. God’s home on earth is in Jerusalem.
The ancients thought of the countryside much as we sometimes do. If you remember the New Yorker magazine cover that had the view of the world from Manhattan, where there 8th Ave, 9th Ave, The Hudson, then Jersey, then nothing, well, that is not far from the way the ancients thought as well. The Roman word ‘pagan” orginally referred to country bumpkins who had no knowledge or sophistication when it came to culture and worshiping the gods. You might recall the place in the gospel when Jesus and his disciples are dismissed as “Galileans” — what good can come from there? The city is the place of knowledge and culture and sophistication.
Think of one of the primal tales in Genesis: the tower of Babel. These human beings decide to build a city with a tower that reaches heaven. Far from being the place where God is sought, the city becomes a monument to human achievement without God, and so it is judged.
And so it still is: the city is often a place where we find all kinds of sin and corruption exemplified. When I was a college senior, several of us came to New York for few days; my mother was convinced that we would all die. New York City was full of switchblade-wielding thugs. Well, maybe it was, but we survived.
In some ways cities concentrate human misery, and the concentration of misery amplifies it, I think, and all kinds of bad things result. So the contemporary city, whether we mean New York, or Harrisburg, or this paradise we call “the West Shore,” has its troubles.
What would the city become if this scripture came true? If God lived in the midst of the city, in the midst of the people?
The home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them (v3)
God will live among the people, among us. The urban problems so familiar will be no more. That is the promise of the future, a promise which is made alive today.
How does God live among us? Remember the name Jesus was given, Emmanuel, God with us? Jesus was God incarnate, God living among us, as one of us. We couldn’t stand it, so we had him killed. But he rose again, and still lives among us. He ascended to the Father, but sent the Spirit who dwells in us. The more we understand that the Spirit is a person, one of the Trinity of persons in God, the more we see that God dwells among us, right now.
And so the promise is that God will quite literally, visibly, be among us in a new creation, but God is among us even now. God is with us in our every moment, knows our every thought, word, and deed, and constantly draws us to himself, away from selfishness and evil.
In those days, God will wipe away every tear. Death will be no more. Pain and sorrow will depart. For these days, we wipe one another’s tears. We proclaim the hope that death is not the end of life, and we bear one another’s pain and sorrow and suffering. God acts in us and through us to bring comfort and strength and truth to one another.
Today we ordain and install leaders who guide us in our life together. So many times that service becomes task-oriented, and loses sight of the big picture. At other times, that service follows the patterns of business and culture, and forgets whom it is we serve. At its best, leadership in the church keeps this vision of God with us firmly in view. We serve Christ Jesus, who came to live among us, sharing our sufferings and joys. God comes and intends to make all things new, beginning even now, beginning with us.
And so to the officers, this word. When you are swimming in the details, or in the midst of debate and disagreement over what is the best way forward, remember this vision: we serve God in his city, which is coming, but which is already among us by his Spirit. In the long run, God will make all things new, for God is the beginning and the end.
And to the rest of us, this word. When we are struggling in sorrow or suffering, when sin seems to reign over us, when we cannot find peace, when there is no joy, when it seems that God is nowhere to be found in the modern city, there is hope. There is hope, for he says, To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.. The water of life – water gives us life, we are born in it, baptized in it. John Chrysostom taught that when Jesus mentions water of life, he means the Holy Spirit of God. God will send his Spirit, who gives us life, who will strengthen us in our weakness, see us through our suffering, comfort us when we are alone, and bring joy in the morning. That we can count on; that word is trustworthy and true.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
