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SOMETHING SPECIAL

SUNDAY'S SERMON

CAN YOU SEE WHAT HE SAW

Revelation 21:1-6a

November 1, 2009

Have you had any visions lately?  I am using two of Webster's definitions: "unusual discernment or foresight" and "direct mystical awareness of the supernatural usually in visible form."

A few years ago every time we got together as a United Methodist church we were “visioning.”  We spent so much time doing that there was little time left over to get the work done that we decided to do in the meeting.  That may fit two other definitions of Webster: "a manifestation to the senses of something immaterial" or "a lovely or charming sight."

There is sound reason for us to have a vision, to project into the future, of what we can become.  The people of God become stagnant and ineffective when there is no laying hold to new ideas, new programs, and new people.  When we become satisfied with who we are, what we are and what we do, we have lost our vision.  "Without a vision the people perish."  However, there is a need to see a vision beyond our future.  There is a time to look into eternity.  There is a time to bring the "supernatural into visible form."  When we get a glimpse of what is to come in the hereafter, it will make a difference in how we act and react in the here and now.

The writer of the Book of Revelations had seen the trials and tribulations of the people of God in the present world.  He had given them assurance that God would be with them through it all.  He had given them "what for" for their lack of trustworthiness with the Gospel.  At last, he is giving them the ultimate reason for perseverance in the faith.

The church, the body of Christ, is in the midst of great persecution.  In the United States only half of us claim any religious affiliation of any kind.  What that means to me is that we are under the greatest persecution of all – we are being ignored.

Perhaps we need to see something beyond what our eyes can see.

There are four things I want to high light from John’s vision.

Can you see what he saw?

The first thing he saw was a New Creation.

There are Old Testament writers who talked about a new heaven and a new earth.  (Isaiah 55:17 & 66:22)  The writers between the Old & New Testaments were especially vivid in their predictions of the new heaven and earth.  However, it seems they were prophesying about a transformation of what is already.  John seems to be having an apocalyptic vision of a new creation.  This coincided with a view that one day this earth will be consumed with fire.  In the after life there will be something totally new.

I lean toward a new creation rather than a transformation.  As I look around at what we have done to this earth, I don't know if even God can transform it into something worthwhile.

We have used and abused what God made us stewards of.  We have lost our understanding of what God meant when we were given the charge in Genesis.

I was given a translation of Chief Seattle's response to the proposal of President Franklin Pierce in 1854 to buy 2 million acres of land from the Native Americans.  Some of the excerpts:

"The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath...the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath.  The white man does not seem to notice the air that he breathes.  Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench."

"This we know: all things are connected, like the blood that unites one family.  Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.  Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

He concludes:

"...if we sell our land, love it as we've loved it.  Care for it as we've cared for it.  Hold in your mind the memory of the lands as it is when you take it.  And preserve it for your children, and love it... as God loves us all.  One thing we know.  Our God is the same God.  The earth is precious to Him.  Even the white man cannot be exempt from the common destiny.  We may be brothers after all.

We shall see..."  (Adventure West, July/August 1996 p 6)

We have mucked it up so badly, I think it will be better if God will just start over.

The creative activity of God is yet active and will bring about a new dimension of existence.  It is notable that the sea will be no more.  The ancient people despised the sea.  It was a barrier to transportation.  Beyond what could be seen, it presented a dark and foreboding unknown.  In the new heaven and new earth there will be no barriers that we know now.

I received a note from a person who was responding to a letter from me.  Printed on the front of the card were the words, "In my Father's House are many mansions.  I hope yours is next to mine."

I am just trying to get there.  I want to experience the vision of John in its fullness.

The second thing I will point out is that it is a Holy City.

From the time David made it the capital and Solomon built the first temple, Jerusalem became the place where the Jews believed God resided.  It is yet the place where every devout Jew would like to live. At the very least they want to visit at least once in a lifetime.  From the time the Babylonians conquered it in about 685 BC the Jews have longed for a restoration of the city to the glory of the days of Solomon.  They have longed for it to be in their control.  They are yet fighting, maiming and killing others who also claim right to the land.

John's vision transcends the common desire for restoration.  How can we possibly expect a restoration of any government, as we know it?  The Democrats and Republicans have divided us so much that most people who are of age to vote either do not register or vote.  His vision of the new seat of government is so pure he can only compare it to the purity of a bride coming to her husband.

The third thing is that it is the Dwelling Place of God.

The writer uses a word that was commonly used to denote the tent or tabernacle they carried around in the wilderness to be the place where God was.  This usage takes it from being a transitory tent to a permanent home among human kind.  Because of the limitations we place on ourselves, we experience God periodically.  John is saying that we will be eternally aware of God's presence.

There are two words they used that are different in meaning but are similar in sound -- skene and shekinah.  One word meant "tabernacle" and the other meant the "glory of God."  Because of their similarity of sound, one could not hear one word without thinking of the other.  So when one said "the tabernacle of God" it was automatic to think "Glory of God."

With God's presence permanently among people, the people then will experience a righteousness not known since the Fall away from God.  It will be then that humanity will recover the "original righteousness" that was a part of the existence before the yielding to temptation – as told in the story of Adam and Eve and the snake in the grass.  Death is the most profound kind of grief.  That state of existence is described by the absence of any sign of sorrow.  We will be in perfect fellowship with God.

The fourth thing to point out is that God Speaks.

Up until now in the Book of Revelations, the order to write has come from a messenger of God.  Now God speaks.  God claims the title Alpha and Omega.  The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet became the meaning of beginning and end.  However, when we think of beginning and end we are thinking in terms of time.  Alpha is more likely to mean the SOURCE all that is.  That is consistent with my understanding that before there was anything, God was.  Out of nothing God began to create.  Omega is more likely to mean the GOAL of all things rather than just the end.  By saying that, we are not just looking for it to all go up in a ball of fire.  We have the vision that all that God created is moving toward its destiny in God.

Can you see the vision John saw?  If you can you know that we are heading toward that time when we shall be a part of that new creation.

Frederick Buechner, an author of some considerable note, writes that saints are "men and women who are made not out of plaster and platitude and moral perfection but out of human flesh.  I mean saints who have their rough edges and their blind spots like everyone else, but whose lives are transparent to something so extraordinary that every so often it stops us dead in our tracks."  ("The Clown In the Belfry", pp 142-144 as quoted in Dynamic, p 26.)  We have named the people whose lives have been a means for us to see the extraordinary God.  They are a great cloud of witnesses urging us on, calling for us, showing us the way.

If you can get the vision of what is to come in the eternal, you will have a clearer vision of what is to be in the present existence.

RESOURCES:  The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 12,  Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, Revelation, Vol. 2, revised;  Dynamic Preaching, Vol. 9, No. 11;  My Sermon "When The Saints"  11-01-92

Fellowship United Methodist Church, Johnny S. Liles, 11-02-97 and 11-01-09

LECTIONARY READINGS FOR NOVEMBER

This page was updated November 1, 2009