All Things New

“All Things New” FPC 11-1-09

Isaiah 25:6-9, Revelation 21:1-6a

          During almost twenty years of pastoral ministry, I’ve conducted a lot of weddings. As you can imagine, the weddings and the couples are similar yet distinctive at the same time. And I could write a book about the crazy things that have happened at these weddings, as well as at the rehearsals and receptions that accompanied them.

          A few years ago, at another church, a young couple asked me to perform their wedding. Neither the bride nor the groom was a member of our congregation. They were church members somewhere else, and for some reason that I can no longer remember, they wanted to be married in our sanctuary. We arranged for premarital counseling sessions. The couple arrived for our first session. The groom was tall, handsome, thin, very muscular, with a worker’s tan, and a short hair cut. As I recall, he wore blue jeans, a plaid working man’s shirt, work boots, and one earring. He gave me a very firm handshake. I thought, “Man, this is a tough dude.” The bride was also thin with short hair. She wore blue jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, work boots, a baseball cap, and two earrings. I suppose you could say she was a little bit Tomboyish.

          As I guessed, the groom and bride were both blue-collar folks. I think he worked in construction. I don’t recall what she did. They were pleasant people, and I enjoyed getting to know them during our sessions. Eventually, the day of the wedding rehearsal arrived, and the couple’s family and friends, more tough, blue-collar folks, gathered at the church for a run-through of the service. There was typical good-natured teasing and laughter, and we zipped through the rehearsal without a hitch. An easy-going bunch of folks.

          Finally, the day of the wedding arrived. The groom, groomsmen, and I were stationed across the front of the chancel watching the bridesmaids glide down the center aisle toward us, accompanied by the joyful strains of the pipe organ. Then, at last, the back doors of the sanctuary opened. The organist trumpeted the opening bars of “The Wedding March.” Dum, dum, da dum, dum, dum, dum. I signaled for the congregation to stand. Then there stood the bride her hand holding her father’s arm. This gal was stunning–beautiful white dress, make-up and hair just right, a dazzling smile. Amazing. She and her dad began a graceful procession toward us as The Wedding March filled the room and the congregation beamed as the wedding unfolded. Suddenly, I heard a noise and glanced to my left. The groom’s face crumpled and tears streamed from his eyes. As tough as he was, he was sobbing. It was beautiful. And to avoid crying myself, I suddenly got very interested in the Book of Common Worship I held in my hand. Now had someone substituted another woman for his bride? Of course not. The groom had simply never seen his bride this way before. You see, she was the same, but new.

          You Bible scholars out there remember that the Book of Revelation almost did not make it into the New Testament canon. The early church fathers struggled with the wild and violent imagery of this strange book. And when we read gross and mean-spirited misinterpretations by contemporary Christians, such as the authors of The Left Behind Series, we can see why the early church had reservations about the Book of Revelation. Revelation is not a crude blueprint and timetable for the End. Nor is it a threat delivered by a capricious and vengeful God. Instead, Revelation is a kind of Spirit-inspired poetic letter filled with vivid, multivalent images. This letter strengthened the first Christians who faced torture and death under the Roman Empire. This letter empowered the Confessing Christians who opposed the Nazis in Germany and South African Christians who stood against apartheid. And this letter gives hope to us as we live our seemingly mundane lives, in a seemingly chaotic world. Here is a word of perseverance for the extraordinary and the ordinary saints of the church.

          In chapter 21, near the end of the letter, the writer 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. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Notice what’s said and not said. Heaven and earth and Jerusalem are not destroyed; they’re made new. The sea, representing terrifying chaos to first century people, is gone. Time ends not with folks living in isolation from each other in self-satisfied loneliness but in a glorious community, a holy city. The holy city does not ascend, the product of humanity’s frantic worker bee effort. No. It descends from God, a gift from God. As one scholar says, “It does not say at all that in the course of our life everything is equivalent to everything else; but it warns that all that we do is relative, and never ends in an absolute. We must act for justice and peace and liberty, but it is relative. We will never create the absolutely just, peaceful, and fraternal society: to believe that is modern idolatry. But to do nothing because it is relative? Do we not eat every day? And nevertheless that is truly relative!” (Jacques Ellul, Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation, 217-218.)

          And what does the holy city from God look like? Well, like a bride adorned, (the Greek word is cosmêo) a dazzling bride adorned for her husband. So beautiful that tears flow. So shockingly intimate that only wedding imagery will suffice. This is a holy city that takes your breath away.

          Then the revelation continues. A loud voice from the throne shouts, “God’s home is with people. God is actually living with them; they’ll be God’s peoples. God, God’s very self is with humanity.” Do we hear what’s being repeated here? The point is hammered home by saying it over and over again with slight variations. And the point is: In the end, God is with us!

          God, God’s very self, will wipe every tear from our eyes. And death, mourning, crying, and pain will be obliterated. As Faith Hill sings, “There’s a better place. Where our Father waits. And every tear He’ll wipe away. The darkness will be gone. The weak shall be strong. Hold on to your faith. There will come a day.”

          And the voice from the throne says, “I’m making all things new.” All things new. All. God is Alpha and Omega, the One who made us and the One to whom we will return. All things new.

          Of course, in our day, some say this is all just “pie in the sky by and by.” Just a bunch of wishful thinking for weak-minded people who aren’t capable of dealing with harsh reality. Well, we shall see. We shall see.

          Others say, “The Christian faith is merely about ideals, living the Golden Rule.” Get rid of all this eschatological imagery, this end of time doctrine. Just give us something neat, simple, measurable, provable. Ever talked to somebody who works in quantum physics? Ask how much is provable, and how much is still unknown.

          The Bible is relentlessly eschatological. Over and over, the writers proclaim that we are God’s people, and this is God’s world and God’s time. And God will end time, as Revelation, as well as the prophet Isaiah promise, by wiping away all tears, and destroying death. Yes, we speak out for justice. We write letters to the editor. We provide for the poor, help for the mentally ill, space for the elderly, care for the child. We call for equal rights for all people, regardless of sex, race, class, or sexual orientation. But God’s promise makes us modest about our own achievements in mission, social justice, and peacemaking. And this promise also makes us persistent and brave, because we know, truly we know that all the good God does through our halting, faltering efforts matters. The good God is doing through the church matters. And no one can take that away. No one.

          Preaching professor Tom Long says, “Some years ago a funeral was held for Grace Thomas in the First Baptist Church of Decatur, Georgia . . . Grace was the daughter of a Birmingham, Alabama, streetcar conductor and his wife. When she married in the late 1930s, she moved to Atlanta and took a clerking job in one of the state government offices. . . she enrolled in a local law school that offered night classes. After years of part-time study, she finally completed law school . . . [Her family was] shocked when Grace announced that she had decided to enter the 1954 election race for governor of Georgia. There were nine candidates for governor that year, eight men and Grace, but there was really only one issue . . .Brown v. the Board of Education . . . “separate but equal” schools declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Grace was in favor of the court’s decision; the other candidates were opposed. Grace’s slogan was, “Say Grace at the Polls.” She came in “dead last”.  . .

          “Eight years later, in 1962, she ran for governor again.” Again, she spoke out for civil rights. “She received death threats, and her family traveled with her as she campaigned, in order to provide protection and moral support. She finished last again . . .”

          In 1962, she made a campaign stop in Louisville, Georgia. At the center of that little town was “an old slave market,” a place of tremendous suffering and evil. As Long writes, “Grace . . . stood on the very spot where slaves had been auctioned, a hostile crowd of storekeepers and farmers gathered to hear what she would say. ‘The old has passed away,’ she began, ‘and the new has come. This place,’ she said, gesturing to the market, ‘represents all about our past over which we must repent. A new day is here, a day when Georgians white and black can join hands to work together.’

          Somebody yelled, “Are you a communist?”

          “. . . ‘No,’ she said softly, ‘I am not.’

          “Well, then,’ continued the heckler, ‘where’d you get those damned ideas?’”

          “Grace thought for a minute, and then she pointed to the steeple of a nearby church. ‘I got them over there,’ she said, ‘in Sunday School.’” (Thomas G. Long, Preaching from Memory to Hope, 19-20.)

            See, I am making all things new. All things. Here comes the bride. Here she

comes. Amen.