Easter 6 - Revelation 21

Christians are a population of the joyful! There is joy set before us in what we are to receive in eternity. There is joy that is ours now.
Today is Mother's Day. On this day that we honor our mothers we can affirm that moms are a population of the joyful. Just look at our Gospel lesson from last week; there was a reminder of the joy in bearing children. Moms-to-be are filled with joy when they learn that the new “bundle of joy” is soon to be born. New moms, that is to say, a mom who has just birthed her child is filled with joy because of the child resting in her arms. And then, moms as they grow in years and experience are filled with joy as they watch their children grow and mature even into adulthood. Because of God's good gift of children, and because moms love their children so much, moms are people of joy.
If God gives joy in motherhood, then he especially gives joy to Christians, to His people of faith. Christians are a people, a population of the joyful. Christians have joy now, today, because of the new life of faith that we have received in Jesus. We are baptized people of God. We have been resurrected and raised from the death of sin into a new life that cannot perish spoil or fade. The scriptures tells us that we will live forever. We will never die! How can we not be filled with joy?
But the joy of faith, the joy that is ours today, it is only a shadow, a small down payment of the joy that will be ours in eternity when our bodies are raised on the last day and when we see Jesus with our own eyes, face to face, to walk hand in hand. The joy that we have now will seem small and insignificant when compared to the joy that will come at the return of Christ in Glory. Our Easter hope is that this fullness of joy is our promised inheritance, it will be ours. The days of small joy are limited. The days of overflowing joy are soon to come and they will be amazing!
Last week in our sermon we mentioned that the church lives in a world where our joy often seems diminished by the trials and the troubles of this world. While we know that we have received the promise of a perfect joy we at times wonder where that joy has gone, if it is truly ours today, and if it is, what's happened to it? There are many things that bring suffering and sadness to us even in spite of the joy that is ours in Jesus; sickness and death, at times there is persecution and the hatred of the world, sadness and grief, these things seem to get in the way of our joy.
Our good and loving God and our savior Jesus knows that we face these challenges to our joy, he knows that these things would try to rob us even of our faith and make us doubt whether they really are true. And so, for our encouragement he has given to us this letter in the Scriptures, the Book of Revelation. Revelation is the message of the Risen and Ascended Christ, our Savior and Brother who sits enthroned in heaven and who oversees us in our tribulation. He knows that we are suffering and he wants us to be encouraged in our faith and he wants us to hold out for the hope and the joy that he has promised to give. Revelation is God's promise that the Lamb of God who died for this sins of the world is that same Almighty God and Lord who has been given all authority in heaven and earth. And he has reserved for us this vision that we see in our text.
It is like a mother who tells her son about the present she bought him for his birthday. It's bought and paid for. It belongs to him and no one else. The gift is just simply waiting until his birthday arrives and he will have it to use and enjoy. Heaven is ours, bought and paid for, its just waiting for the date to arrive before we can fully enjoy it. Our text is like mom pulling the present out of its hiding place and showing it off to her son so he can see it and enjoy it before his birthday arrives.
The joy of the Christian life is heaven. Our text is a description of heaven.
An angel carries John in the Spirit to a great and high mountain where he can look down on the image Christ has prepared. “Come,” says the angel, “I will show you the Bride, the wife of the lamb.” John looks and he sees a city. The new Jerusalem.
This is puzzling. From the words of the angel, John is going to see a woman. The wife of the lamb. And then, when John describes what he sees, it is not a woman or indeed a person, instead it is a city. A city with 12 gates, and 12 foundations. A city who has great and high walls but that never shuts her gates. A city formed from precious jewels, yet as clear as crystal. A city whose streets are paved with gold, yet are transparent like glass. These images don't seem to mesh, they seem to contradict each other. They don't seem like they can all be true. A bride, but a city. Colored like jewels yet clear. Gold yet transparent.
This apparent contradiction gets us to the very nature of the book of Revelation. It relies heavily on symbols. It uses images that John's audience would have understood and appreciated, but that 2000 years later seem confusing and obscure. But, when we take the time to decipher Johns picture we see a profound message of beauty and hope as we await from our Savior and Lord the eternal joy that he has promised us as the heirs of faith.
Again, John sees the Bride, the wife of the lamb. What John sees is the church. The people of God, both Old Testament and New, (as indicated by the apostles and the patriarchs). All of God's people are there, every last one. No one is left out, no one is forgotten, no one has missed the train or got off before their stop. Everyone is present and accounted for. That message alone is encouraging – sometimes the challenges of the Christian life and faith can be overwhelming. We wonder if we are going to make it. There are times we feel like we are about to loose it, like the whole thing is going to fall apart, like the wheels are going to come off. This vision of the new Jerusalem offers to us the promise that Jesus will not let us slip away. We are a part of the vision. We are a part of the promise. It is ours!
John sees a city. And the city is large. Our text skips over the verses where the angel measures the dimensions of the city. John would have us to understand that every single person is present and accounted for. No one is left out, and the population is vast. Even though it seems like we are the only ones holding out and faithfully holding on to the Word of God, we are not alone. We will have plenty of company in heaven. And what is striking about the dimensions given to John is the fact that the measure out to be a perfect cube – the depth the width and the height are the same. This tells us of God's perfection. He wants every detail measured out just so. But more than that and better than that, these dimensions are reminiscent of the holy of holies in the temple – the place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept and the place that was the location of the holy presence of God. It too was a perfect cube.
The Holy of Holies in the Old Testament temple was a place that no one was allowed to enter. Only once a year and even then there was a risk. Sinful people in the presence of a holy God run the risk of death. We are kept from God's presence because of our sin. But here in heaven that has all changed! The Holy of Holies isn't a single room, where no one is allowed to go. It's a whole city large enough to accommodate every one. The entire population of heaven lives in God's Holy presence!
And that city is beautiful. Its walls are constructed from precious metals and stones – gold and amethyst and pearl and jasper. Rather than being literal construction materials for a literal city these are indications of how God values each of us. Precious and valuable and beautiful, and at the same time pure, clear like crystal and transparent. The sin that clouds and tarnishes is gone. All that remains is our God given beauty!
The city has walls and gates. Walled cities are powerful cities – strong and mighty. The bigger and the higher the walls, the stronger the defense. And the gates, those gates are designed to let the people in. Gates are shut when there are people who need to be kept out. Enemies, people who will destroy or corrupt your city. The gates of heaven are never shut. They are open all the time. God has no enemies in heaven. His people have no need to fear. God's enemies have been defeated and done away with. There are none.
The nations of the earth bring their glory. All of our glory and splendor and majesty is only a tribute paid to the true King and the true glory of The Lamb who sits on the throne.
And living in the center of the city is the Lamb who is at once the city's king and the city's light.
All of this is as much as if to say that the Garden of Eden has been restored. The perfect world that God first made, that he created, that was perfect and that was lost has been put back together. God's people are present and accounted for. God's people are perfect and without sin. God's people live in safety and security. God people are safe and set free from every single enemy and hardship. There is no suffering. There is no death. There is no hardship. There is no sickness or disease. There is joy. There is only joy.
There are times that people want to say that the hardships we experience in this life help us to appreciate the good things all the more. I don't think this is true. Because it would mean that the good wasn't really all that good, that is if you need to be reminded that it's good. In heaven the good is good. The great is great. The joy is joy. And there is nothing that takes away from it.
And the whole thing hangs together around Jesus. Jesus who loves, who lived, who died, who ascended, who reigns who will return. All of these things are his gift that he has built and that he will give. This vision of beauty is Jesus' gift to John to be passed on to you as a reminder and a promise to encourage you in your faith. This is the hope and promise of the Christian faith!
Amen.

Easter 5 - John 16:12-22

Do you ever get the sense that there is something not quite right with the world? Oh, it's a good world. We wouldn't want to say that it wasn't. It is beautiful. It is filled with good things, with wonderful things. Things that bring us pleasure and joy and happiness and excitement. We witness the splendor of the night sky, the vivid colors of a summer sunset, the intricate details of the flakes of snow after a winter storm, the joys of love and family and new birth and new life, we see all of these things and we know that the world is good. There is a residue of its original perfection that remains.
But there is something wrong. While there is unmistakable goodness and beauty and joy in this world, there is something wrong. Something that is not quite right, something that is always at least a little bit off. It is hard to put your finger on it, but you just know that something doesn't fit, something isn't the way its supposed to be. And that something at times ruins everything. Every joy that we experience and feel is always qualified, there is always the knowledge that it won't last, that it will come to an end, there is always that understanding that for every sunset there is a storm. For every birth there is death. For every joy there is grief. And we don't quite know how to handle it. We don't always know what to make of it. This world is good. We love this world and we enjoy this world, but this world just isn't right.
As God's chosen people whom he has called to faith, we understand this problem, this wrench in the works, the fly in the ointment that spoils the beauty and tarnishes the joy. We know that it is sin. Sin is the additive that poisons the concoction. Sin is the rust in the underbelly. Sin is the destroyer the death inducer that ruins this good world that God has made. But the problem that we have, the trouble that we face is that we have become so used to sin and the effects of sin that we don't know how to distinguish the good creation from the bad. We don't know how to pick out what belongs from what doesn't. The problem is that we know how to die. We don't quite understand how to live.
Jesus said to his disciples “I have come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.” Jesus has come so that we might live. We are so used to dying. We are so used to living with death and compensating for death that we don' know how to live. We are so used to our sin-induced grief that we don't know how to have joy.
What Jesus would have us to know, what Jesus would have us to understand is that Jesus is our life. and Jesus is our joy.
“You will have sorrow now”, says Jesus, “but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice. And no one will take your joy from you.”
Unending joy. Everlasting joy. Joy that cannot be taken away. Joy that won't ever diminish or tarnish or fade. It sounds like the stuff of dreams. It sounds like the substance of fairy tales. It sound too good to be true. But that is exactly the hope, no the promise, the guaranteed, signed sealed and delivered gift given to us by the crucified, risen and ascended Lord. Jesus, the God/man who sits on the throne of Heaven itself and who sends to us his Spirit and His Word, says to you that Joy is yours forever.
As we come upon the words of Jesus in our text, he was preparing his disciples for the events that were soon to come. The disciples placed all their eggs in Jesus' basket, but that “basket” was Jesus as he was, as they already had him and that was all they wanted from him. They wanted what they had to continue - walking and talking, teaching and healing. They hoped it would never end.
You know what that's like – you take a trip with your family, go to beach house, go to cabin in the woods, walk, hike, fish, site see, and you wish that moment could last forever. If only things could stay the way they are. We wax nostalgic for the present. If only those moments could last forever.
That was what the disciple were doing. But Jesus had more to give. While the present was good, the future was promised to be better. Jesus had in mind to give them more, to be with them more, to draw them closer, to be with them more fully. To do that he had to die. He had to suffer at the hands of rioters and magistrates and soldiers and executioners. He had to be punished and killed and buried. And this would cause them grief – pain, sorrow, gut-wrenching, earth shattering grief.
Have you ever felt that grief? Grief like the world was never going to be the same​? Grief that twisted your insides around. Grief that hunted and haunted you from the day you first felt it. This world is filled with that grief.
Jesus knows that grief. He feels it. He lives through it with you. He knows how it is. HE knows what it is like. And he has the ability to end it. To squelch it. He can take your grief away. Imagine that. Joy in Jesus that will last forever while the pain and the grief perish, spoil and fade! Jesus can take your grief and turn it to joy.
"You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful but your sorrow will be turned into joy.”
He compares it to giving birth. A woman pregnant with life has no end of hope and joy and expectation. The pregnancy fills her with it. She plans and dreams and anticipates all that this little life will be and will bring to her and her family. But before that child can be born, before that child can nuzzle up to her and fill her with love and joy she must have the sorrow and pain of birth. She will cry. She will grieve. She will feel pain and suffering. But her sorrow and her grief will give way to joy. The moment of suffering will be replaced by a lifetime of joy.
And so it goes with Jesus. Jesus is pregnant with life, new and eternal life. Jesus carried in his body the life that gives us life. But in order for that life to be given he had to die. He had to suffer. He had to be beaten and abused and crucified and his death would bring a moment of grief.
And so it was for the disciples. They would witness the death of their teacher and their friend. They would weep as they saw him arrested. They would grieve as they saw him die. They would feel sorrow and pain and fear and anxiety. Because Jesus would be taken from them.
But their momentary sorrow would be turned into joy as they saw him raised from death. He would be returned to life and all their hope and joy would be given again, only this time in a greater proportion. And their joy would only grow and increase as they came to understand what this resurrection would mean. This life, this return to life would mean life for them. And not just for them, but for us. For you and me. This life would mean that we would have life. This life would mean that we would live forever.
And so it is for us. This world is filled with sorrow and grief. Even our joy is tainted with sadness. Despite our best efforts our joy in this life can be diminished. Grief can linger for years beneath the surface of our best efforts at an outward joy. That grief only has its healing in Jesus. That grief only goes away in Jesus.
Jesus gives life. IN the midst of death Jesus gives life. It all starts at baptism, a promise given and a seal delivered. This child is mine, says Jesus, never to be taken from me. The death of sin is tied to death of Jesus on the cross and the new life of faith is tied to the resurrection of Jesus. The once dead sinner is a new creation. A new life. A new birth. A birth from above by the Holy Spirit. The life of the baptized is wrapped up in heaven where it can never perish spoil or fade.
And so the Christian lives through this life of suffering, this veil of tears with an eye to the next life. I suffer now. But this suffering will end. I grieve now, but this grief will end. I will live today with the memory of yesterday. But the memory of yesterday is eclipsed by the hope of tomorrow. A string of countless tomorrows that will extend on and on and on into a forever of joy.
That joy is ours in Jesus. That joy is guaranteed in Jesus. Jesus earned it. Jesus died to achieve it. Jesus has sealed you for it, reserved you for it so that it can't disappear. That is his love for you.
But even in the interim. As you wait and as you cope and as you struggle and as you grieve, he gives you joy. He gives you joy in the good gifts of this life. He gives new birth and new life to expectant mothers and fathers. He gives blessings of home and possessions. He feeds us with good food. He gives us friends and loved one who fill our hearts full with happiness. He paints this world full with beautiful colors and harmonious sounds and music and laughter. And even when these things fade and tarnish because they are incomplete he sustains us and he strengthens us and he fills us as he feeds us with heavenly food, as He feeds us even with his own body and blood. He forgives our sin and gives us a foretaste of the Heavenly feast.
We live in a broken world that is so often stricken with grief and lends us to sorrow. But we have been saved from that grief and through that grief and we are brought to joy – an unending joy that is kept in Heaven just for you. You are sealed, your name is written in Heaven. Your joy will be complete. Your joy is in Jesus.
Amen.