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20 October 2019 Isaiah 66:10-16, 22-23; Revelation 21:1-4 A new heaven and a new earth First Mennonite Church For the next month or so, I will be preaching from the book of Revelation. We should be grateful for how this book has attracted and inspired various people who have shaped and influenced western culture and church history. In art, I think of the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel or The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb in the Ghent Altarpiece. In music, oratorios such as Handel’s Messiah come to mind and popular hymns such as Matthew Bridges’, Crown him with many crowns, and the language and imagery from many other hymns: Holy, holy holy…casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea. Yet, I doubt any other book in the Bible—other than Daniel—has been more misread, misunderstood, misrepresented, misdiagnosed, miscalculated, misapplied, misappropriated, and misinterpreted. That’s a lot of misses! Why? The book of Revelation is full of graphic signs and mysterious symbols and numbers. Too many try to decode it as if it were a Dan Brown novel. But misguided Christians from trying. I think of the misguided Church of the Brethren minister, William C. Thurman, who predicted, in his book in 1864 that the millennium, Christ's reign of 1000 years, would arrive on September 27, 1868. He was wrong. I think of Klaus Epp, a misguided Russian Mennonite pastor who, in 1880, led a group of his followers into central Asia to escape the Antichrist and to wait for the Lord. He set the date for the Lord's return at 8 March 1889. When March 8, 1889 came and nothing happened, Epp adjusted his calculations—claiming the original date was based on a leaning clock—and corrected the year to 1891. That year passed and Epp, ever more eccentric, declared himself to be Christ's son. He later died a broken man, and his Claas Epp

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broken congregation dwindled until it disappeared. . https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Apocalypticism and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claas_Epp_Jr

When I was a teenager, there was a popular book called the Late Great Planet Earth in which the author, Hal Lindsey, explained in great detail how all the graphic signs and mysterious symbols of the book of Revelation perfectly fit into the world of the 1970s. He talked a lot about the antichrist a word that isn't even used in the book of Revelation. He also talked about the rapture, again a word that isn't even used in the book of Revelation but is a word that is only used once in 1 Thessalonians 4. In the Cold War era of the 1970s, Lindsey believed there were all kinds of evil references to the Soviet Union throughout the book of

Revelation. I find it interesting that he couldn't find any reference to where his home country, the United States, fit in, because one of the messages of Revelation is a critique of the Empire. He even went so far as to predict the rapture in 1988. He was wrong. Then in the 1990s the Left Behind series picked up where Hal Lindsey left off. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins delved into the mysteries of Revelation in novel form. Though they made millions, their fundamental assumption about how to read and understand the book of Revelation had no more basis in reality than the Late Great Planet Earth. The Left Behind series is also wrong. Church history, friends, is simply littered with misguided, misinformed people trying to outguess God, trying to use the bible as a calculator, using the book as a complicated algebra problem needing to be solved, and thus misleading and creating fear among the faithful. The way I will approach the book of Revelation in this sermon series is to begin at the end, at the climax of the book: A new heaven and a new earth. The author paints this wonderful picture of the end. It’s a painting that inspires. A painting that compels us to look beyond today to tomorrow, a painting that invites us to imagine and dream about what God is doing, about what will be.

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The book of Revelation was written to early Christians who faced intense pressure to accommodate to the power and wealth of Rome. The writer encouraged his listeners to keep their allegiance to Jesus, because, despite the fears and pressures of the Empire to accommodate one’s faith and shift allegiances, the goal of creation and history had already been set by God. That goal was the restoration and renewal of all things. In other words, the goal of creation and history was a new heaven and a new earth. The message of Revelation is very relevant for Christians today as we are also faced with the pressure of accommodating to the power and wealth of the Empire. Our empire isn’t ancient Rome, but it’s our capitalist system, which is rooted greed. We participate in this system without giving it too much thought. We skip over Jesus’ warning in Luke: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed…” (Luke 12:15). We tend to overlook Paul’s instruction in Colossians: Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). The question of allegiance is very relevant for us. Maintaining our allegiance to Jesus is also relevant for us as we live our lives within social and political structures. Revelation is a political book. It wasn’t written for the individualistic oriented to the other world who is concerned only with getting his or her own soul to heaven. Revelation was written to people in Christian communities who had come to terms with hard political and social decisions. A clash of loyalties occupies the book, which has among its primary images “throne,” kingdom, power; it concludes with the vision of a new heaven and a new earth, or a redeemed city, not a picture of isolated individuals on solitary clouds. The clash of loyalties is so relevant for us too. Even though we here in Canada are not nearly as politically polarized as are folks are south of the border, there is still a spill-over into our society. It’s shocking to see people threatening political leaders, how political debate is being reduced to name-calling and threats. I’m telling you this because Christians aren’t immune to the “spirit” moving in our society. In fact, Christians are more apt to identify with their political party than they are with their fellow brothers and sisters in the faith. More than a week ago, I talked with the pastor at Mount Royal Mennonite. He told me he is teaching a class on Revelation. He mentioned that in his research on Revelation, he found out about a practice in some US congregations to hold a communion service on election day. The first one was held in 2008 at a Mennonite church in Waynesboro, Virginia. By 2012, nine hundred congregations from most

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Christian denominations from all 50 states were participating. The co-founder, Mark Schloneger, said:

“The practice of communion is an inherently political act. It is both a pledge of allegiance to Jesus and a declaration of independence from all other powers making claims on our bodies, minds, and souls” (from Mennonite World Review, October 17, 2016).”

MRMC is holding an election day communion service tomorrow morning at 7am as a way of acknowledging who our Lord is. In addition to being a political book, Revelation is also a symbolic picture book. In her commentary on the book of Revelation, Beasley-Murray says: John's visions of the end are those of an impressionist artist rather than the pictures of a photographer. What is an impressionist painting? Some of you might recognize this slide: this is a starry night by Vincent van Gogh.

I really like that description of the book of Revelation as an Impressionist painting. I don’t know how many of you looked at the bulletin cover and thought it looked weird. Actually, what I tried to do was to take a photograph of the earth and moon—like this one—and turn it into an impressionist painting using my computer software. I’m not overly pleased with the result. It

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could have been more impressionistic. Artists understand paintings not so much with their minds as with their imaginations. Moreover, when interpreting a picture, the artist is more likely to search for many meanings instead of just one. Archibald MacLeish said: anything can make us look only art makes us see. John regards the conflict that rages between the values of the Roman religion and culture and those of the Christian faith to be a clash of transcendent realities: God verse Satan. And this clash can only be adequately expressed using picture images filled with symbols, signs, and numbers Unfortunately, as I said earlier, too many Christians treat Revelation like a giant algebra problem than as a series of paintings. The procedure has been to find the value of X whether that value is the person who is the beast, the group of Nations that compose the ten horns of the beast, or the meaning of 666. The artist is more likely to find many meanings in a great painting. Rather than trying to figure out how these signs, symbols, and numbers fit into current events, we should ask, how do these images and designs work? How do they affect us and change our lives? In the first 20 chapters of Revelation, we've seen a lot of drama: the announcement of a lion of Judah, the appearance of a slain but living in conquering lamb, and through a meandering route, we have witnessed the last battle, the binding of Satan, a thousand year reign of Christ with his followers, the last judgment and the defeat of Satan, and so what's left? Well, it's the renewal of heaven on earth, and that's where we find ourselves this morning—life as it was meant to be. A new heaven and a new earth.

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. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’

What is this new heaven and new earth? The prophets had to think hard, use their imagination, and find the language to paint a picture of what the earth would look

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like when God finally acts to make things right? How do you imagine that? [23] In Isaiah 2, he says, “In the days to come the mountain of the Lord's House shall be established as the highest mountains...” It goes on to describe how the nations will stream to this mountain, to the house of the Lord, to learn God's ways. The result will be a world of justice and peace, where swords will be turned into ploughshares and the spears into pruning hooks, for “nation shall not lift up swords against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” In Isaiah 11, a renewed and restored earth will be a peaceable kingdom where

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 6:9)

What is this New Jerusalem? The exact phrase, New Jerusalem, appears in the Bible only in Revelation, but the concept clearly comes from the Hebrew prophets’ expectation of the restoration of Jerusalem. The prophets had to think hard, use their imagination, and find the language to paint a picture of what Jerusalem would look like when God finally acts to make things right? And they portrayed that as Jerusalem being restored and renewed. This vision of a restored Jerusalem or a New Jerusalem, if you will, is particularly striking in Isaiah 65.

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem,

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and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.

This sounds an awful lot like Revelation 21:1-4, does it not? And Revelation is repeating the biblical hope that we have in God creating life anew, God renewing things, God making things right. Now this vision of a New Jerusalem was really a broadly shared hope. References in extra-canonical books like Tobit and Testament of Dan also included references to a renewed Jerusalem. What I’m trying to say is that in many different writings of scripture and in other Jewish writings that didn't make scripture, we have a common vision of an earth, a city, even the bride of God, being rebuilt, renewed, or restored in a glorious fashion as an image of a renewed life as God meant it to be. Now what does this mean for us? Popular media evangelists and purveyors of popular eschatological literature more often advocate the frightening necessity of a nuclear war as part of God’s plan for the end-time. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I also don’t think that we should expect to literally see a city come down out of the sky in the future. What we should expect is the renewal of all God’s creation, renewal of God’s peoples at the centre of it all—beautiful, renewed, redeemed, restored. Eugene Boring, in his commentary on Revelation says that human language goes only so far in its ability to capture everything John saw in his visions. Words have limits. Human speech isn’t limitless. So, my question that I leave you with this morning is what kind of language is adequate to express what the consummation of our history will look like? How do we say in today's language what it is that God is doing now, that God is creating, and wanting to create? The goal of history has already been set: it’s of a new heaven and a new earth.