Dwelling Series: Hope Revelation 21:1-6a
When I was a kid, a few times each summer my family would make the trek from Brazil, Indiana to Askins, Kentucky to visit my Mammaw and Pappaw Hedden, my mom’s parents. For a little kid it was both an exciting ride and a grueling ride. Four hours that trip took with me and my two older brothers in close quarters trying to be on our best behavior, trying being the important word there. There were good moments on the trip, usually at the beginning when the excitement of going to Mammaw and Pappaws’s was fresh and new. There were rough moments, usually in the middle of the trip, when my brothers and I did everything we could to push each other’s buttons. Did I mention we did not A/C in the car when I was a little kid? The highlight of the trip was when we approached Owensboro, which meant we were getting close, and could see from a distance ‘the big blue bridge” that spanned the Ohio River, which was a wonder to me as a kid. “There’s the blue bridge! There’s the blue bridge!” we would shout and celebrate.
If you have been a parent with small children travelling on a long trip, you have undoubtedly heard the question, “Are we there yet?” Or some variation, “How much farther?” Sometimes that question gets asked when you are barely out of the driveway. The best you can hope for is that your child or children will fall into a deep sleep and wake up only when you pull into the driveway at your destination.
I like to think of the Book of Revelation as the revelation of the road trip that we are all on. We’re all packed into this vehicle called earth, in a journey called life, and the Book of Revelation reveals to us what the trip is all about and how this trip called life fits into a bigger cosmic story that is playing out in an eternal space that is both beyond yet inextricably tied into our experience of life.
The Book of Revelation provides the big picture that Job was so much desiring to see in his journey of suffering that we examined last month. The Book of Revelation reveals not only what is to come, but what was and what is. This book is a snapshot of eternity. This book is not about the end times as much as it is a revelation of eternity, which is now and always. It reveals to us the cosmic activity that is taking place just beyond our senses. And this heavenly activity is as real and relevant to us as our daily schedules, our meetings, our daily tasks here on earth
This is made clear in the first chapter of Revelation in verse 8, when Jesus says to John the Revelator, “I am the Alpha and the Omega…who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” So we are getting a glimpse in the Book of Revelation of not only the future, but of what God has been up to and what he is up to even now. And what is finally revealed to us is that God has a plan for us that is unfolding in the heavenly places that he desires to be enacted in our lives. That is why we pray that it be on earth as it is in heaven.
Consequently, our work as saints during the few short years we have on earth is, as Jesus taught, not to lay up treasures or to fall asleep until pull into Heaven’s driveway. Remember how often in the Gospels Jesus tells his disciples to remain awake and watchful. No, we are to join in the work here on earth that is taking place in Heaven even now. What is taking place in heaven? In heaven, God is making something new! Again, this is why we pray, that it would be on earth as it is in heaven. We are always needing something new to get us out the messes we have created, or to grow us to the next level on the road to sanctification, or holiness. Ultimately, what will be made new is this: A new heaven and a new earth, and there will be no veil between them. The clouds will be rolled back as a stone, and what is in heaven will be on earth.
We tend to think dualistically about heaven and earth. We have in our minds that we are way down here on earth, and God and divine things are way out there in heaven, as if heaven could be visited by the Star Trek Enterprise. We joke about the man upstairs. We sing of the sweet by and by up in the sky. We have it in our minds that these two experiences – that of heaven and earth – are worlds apart. Of course, these are just metaphors for what seems to many people a great divide between heaven and earth. When, in reality, they are not so far apart. So I want to equip us with a few thoughts today about reality as it is described and demonstrated to us in the Scriptures. And I hope these thoughts give you a hope to continue your work as a saint among the saints, those living on earth and those living in heaven.
- First, Heaven and earth are not so far away. They are really continuations of the same reality. Heaven is not way out there in outer space. The Bible describes the distance between heaven and earth as a thin veil or a thin layer of clouds that, when pulled back, reveal the magnificent, nearer-than-we-thought reality of heaven. When Stephen is being martyred, he looks up, the clouds pull back and there is heaven. At the moment when Christ dies on the cross, the veil is torn between heaven and earth. These are sacred images to remind us that heaven is not so far away. Sometimes the clouds pull back and we get a glimpse of heaven. Some of you have shared an enlightening moment where heaven was revealed, and you realize now that heaven is not so far away.
- And for this reason, the saints who have passed are not so far away. The Saints are in that reality, that sacred space, just beyond what we physically sense. They are not way out there, far away. They are in a space that is near, just beyond our physical sense. For this reason, Christians in some Christian traditions, such as the Eastern Orthodox, pray to the saints. One such Christian says this:
Hebrews chapter 11 discusses a great number of saints of the Old Testament and then at the beginning of chapter 12 explains that we are surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses…In other words, the Church is fully alive. Those who lived before us on earth are still alive in Paradise [in a space just beyond our physical senses] and they are now pursuing communion and prayer with Christ on our behalf.
The saints are just beyond the thin veil, worshipping at the altar of God just as we are. When we partake of Holy Communion, our loved ones and the saints of old kneel at the altar with us.
- We can be assured then that our Lord is not so far away. The Triune God – the God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is everywhere present. The great insight of Christianity is that God dwells in both heaven and earth. He dwells among us in the person Jesus. The veil has been torn, you see. God is with us. Emmanuel means “God with us.” In this sanctuary this morning, in your car, on your walk, during your meal, in your workplace cubicle, God is with you. So take comfort, stand up, press on, bear the load, continue the work of the saints of New Chapel.
Heaven, the saints of old and our Lord are not far away. Draw near unto God, and he will draw near unto you.
All of this is to communicate to you a hope. God is in the hope. Among the un-religious folks in the world, hope is just a wish. Those are interchangeable words in the secular world. I wish I could go to Disney World. I hope I win the lottery. But biblical hope is something different, something more rich and profound. Biblical hope is the confident expectation that God has done and is doing what he has promised, namely, creating something new. “I am making a new thing,” the Lord says to John. That’s in the present tense. Right now, God is making a new thing in your life.
Think of this thin space between heaven and earth as a fencerow, tangled with briars and weeds. God is clearing the fencerow. It’s tough work. There is a tangled mess in that fencerow that is called your life, my life, the world. One of our goals as believers, as people of faith, as saints, is to work along that fencerow with the Lord, to clear that fencerow, that fencerow that ever so tentatively separates the experience of heaven from the experience of earth.
N.T. Wright says, the kingdom of God is the intersection of heaven and earth. When you align yourself along that fencerow, in the space where heaven and earth intersect, as messy and as hard as the work can be, the kingdom of God appears in your midst. That’s why we stay close to Jesus. That’s why we hold his hand, because he stands between Heaven and earth. He bridges the divide that we cannot cross any other way.
The saints of old in the church, including those strong Christian men and women of New Chapel over years understood this. For this reason, they committed their lives – their time, money and energy – to sharing Christ throughout this community, to building, expanding and maintaining this beautiful, functional structure that we use every week. It is why they committed to worship here when the doors were open and engaged in missions and evangelism. When we worship, when we share the good news, when we commit our time and money to mission works, both local and distant, whatever we do for the Lord, we put into action our prayer that it be on earth as it is in heaven.
What are you doing to build on the legacy of the saints who have gone before? What are you doing to clear out the fencerow? What are you doing to bring heaven and earth a little closer? The Lord is making something new? Are you working with him, or have you fallen asleep, just waiting to awake only when you pull in heaven’s drive?
Email this post