Revelation 21:1-8 – New and Improved
Finally, after a long description of God’s destruction of the forces of evil, we hear about what is in store for the people of God. The first word to latch onto in this description is “new.” The old heaven and earth are gone, and a new one comes. God makes everything new. So often, we think about Revelation as a description of the “end times.” The fancy term for this part of our theology is “eschatology,” which means literally the study of, well, the end. But the point to all of this isn’t how things will come to an end. We are looking forward to something new that is coming. Granted, the old stuff has to come to an end for the new to come. But our focus is on what is coming. C.S. Lewis did a nice job of capturing this in his novel “The Last Battle” at the end of his Chronicles of Narnia series. When the old Narnia is gone, Aslan’s followers enter into a new world are overwhelmed with delight of the wonders to explore in it.
When we hear about new that is coming, it’s great news. But so often, the old life weighs us down. We have obligations, duties, routines, expectations, things to worry about, matters to take care of, plans to follow through on. We have relationships that aren’t what we wish they could be. It all drags us down like weights on a runner. We can’t make progress because of all that entangles us and hinders us. Hebrews 12:1 urges us to throw it all off so that we can run the race with Jesus, but let’s face it. We can’t do it on our own. A fresh start sounds wonderful, but we don’t know how to make it happen, and we don’t have the ability to do it even if we did.
Yes, our passage speaks of a new heaven and a new earth. But it’s us that needs to be made new. Granted, there are a lot of problems in the world we have now, and the brokenness that we encounter in it prevents us from living fully in the new life. Romans 8:19-20 tells us that creation itself longs to be made new. But if God would plop us, as we are now, into a new and wonderful world, it wouldn’t take long for us to mess it up all over again. If we put ourselves into a new setting, the same old problems will be there because we bring them with us. Think of two examples. First, think about what happens when you go on vacation. It’s wonderful to get away from all the problems and hassles at home and enjoy new surroundings and relaxing or invigorating activities. But there’s a reason why most vacations are only a week or two long. After a while the newness and excitement wears off and the things from back home start to catch up with you. Family squabbles resurface. You find yourself doing some of the same things on vacation that you wanted to get away from: feeling obligations to do certain things, or fretting about situations back home that you wanted to escape. Vacation is great, but it’s only a short break. Second, consider someone in a troubled and broken marriage. She realizes that the problems she has with her husband are intractable, so she divorces him. After all, wasn’t he and the baggage of their marriage the source of her troubles? She develops a new relationship with someone else, only to find herself facing the same problems that she had in her first marriage. Why? Because she still has her own problems that she didn’t address, which infect the new relationship. It happens far more often than you may think! In fact, people who leave a failed relationship often seek a new partner who shares many of the same traits that the old partner had. The patterns of brokenness run that deep. The person herself must change in order to experience a healthy relationship.
The key for us, therefore, is for God to make us new. We need him to change us and transform us. And that’s the good news that we find in verse 5. God says (and by the way, this is the only thing in the entire book that God himself says) “I am making all things new.” He is not sitting around, waiting for the “end” to happen. He is at work, even now, to change us and re-create us. The good news is that we are not frozen in our old categories and situations. People truly can change! And as Ephesians 2:8 reminds us, this is not from ourselves, but is the gracious gift of God. This means several things for us. First, don’t lose hope and think that you or someone around you is doomed to deal with the situation you’re in now. There is always hope, as long as God is on his throne. We have an optimistic faith. Second, never give up on other people. There may be a curmudgeon in your life that makes you miserable, or a pain in the neck (or other parts of your body) that causes you endless aggravation or misery. It’s so easy for us to write off such people as hopeless. They’ll never change, we think. But that is never true! In the first few months of my pastoral ministry, God granted me the privilege of working with an old man who had spent his entire life being an intolerable neighbor and family member. But in the last three weeks of his life, he experienced a complete transformation and reconciled broken relationships. God can always make someone new. One of the most disturbing things that I heard about after the Columbine school shootings was an interview with a youth pastor from the town. He was talking about his interactions with Cassie Bernall, the young woman who said “yes” when the shooters asked her if she was a Christian. She had not always been a Christian. In fact, the youth pastor recalled how she attended some of his church’s events with friends. She was resistant to the gospel, and he considered her a “lost cause” and pretty much gave up on her. Fortunately, God didn’t, and she became involved in a different church where the gospel took root in her life. May the Lord spare us from the attitude of that youth pastor, that we would ever think that someone is a “lost cause.” There may be times that, for our own welfare, we must limit our interactions with some people. But God is always able to make someone new.
It happens because, in a word, “Immanuel.” God is with us. His presence is here with us people, and not simply up in some spiritual heavenly realm. Verse 3 proclaims the wonderful message: “The dwelling of God is with people, and he will live with them.” All the benefits of the new life come from this. Death, mourning, crying, and pain will all disappear as part of the old world, and God With Us wipes away our tears and embraces us as a husband tenderly and lovingly embraces his bride. At times, as we continue to live in the old broken world, God seems so distant from us. It’s hard to be devoted to him and to trust in his power to make things new when it’s so hard to be in touch with him. It’s a constant effort that we know as discipleship.
Jesus speaks to John in verse 6 and claims the same identity that we heard in Revelation 1:8. He is the Alpha and Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet): the beginning and the end. But to say that he is the beginning and the end is to say that he is everything in between. When he calls himself the Alpha and Omega, it’s exactly the same thing as someone saying that they know everything from A to Z. The vitamin pill that contains everything A to Zinc. The car company that has everything from the Altima to Z (the 370Z). And we’ll discuss further in Chapter 22 how he brings life-giving water (for now, refer to Isaiah 551 and John 4:10-14, 7:37-38).
He provides a promise for everyone who “overcomes.” It’s a reminder of the promises that ended each of the seven letters to the churches in Chapters 2 and 3. The Greek word used here is nike: the word for victory. In fact, the Greeks even had a god of victory, named Nike. And yes, in case you’re wondering, that’s where the shoe company gets its name. Wear our sneakers, and you’ll win. “Overcome” seems not to capture the active nature of being victorious or winning. When we become new, we conquer and vanquish the old ways of the world. And even more importantly, we prevail over the old and sinful parts of ourselves. Through the power of God that is present among us, we don’t need to sit in a corner and ache, waiting wistfully for things to change. We can rise up, be strong, and take courage.
Speaking of courage, notice the list of people who will not be included in glories of God’s new creation. This is one of several “vice lists” that we find in the New Testament, and for the most part it’s exactly what you’d expect. The sexually immoral, the murderers, the magicians, and so on. And yes, the liars, which should make us realize that dishonesty puts us in the same camp as adulterers and others who misuse the gift of sexuality. The real surprise, however, is the vice that tops the list: cowardice. Because it’s at the head of the list, we may assume that it is at least equal to the others, if not the worst of all. To be a coward is to fail to recognize and accept God’s presence and power. It is to give too much credit to the opposition: even after it has been totally annihilated! We overcome, or are victorious, when we watch for how God is making things new, and recognize how he is working through us. We win when we know that he is living with us and that he encompasses everything from A to Z.
When we hear about new that is coming, it’s great news. But so often, the old life weighs us down. We have obligations, duties, routines, expectations, things to worry about, matters to take care of, plans to follow through on. We have relationships that aren’t what we wish they could be. It all drags us down like weights on a runner. We can’t make progress because of all that entangles us and hinders us. Hebrews 12:1 urges us to throw it all off so that we can run the race with Jesus, but let’s face it. We can’t do it on our own. A fresh start sounds wonderful, but we don’t know how to make it happen, and we don’t have the ability to do it even if we did.
Yes, our passage speaks of a new heaven and a new earth. But it’s us that needs to be made new. Granted, there are a lot of problems in the world we have now, and the brokenness that we encounter in it prevents us from living fully in the new life. Romans 8:19-20 tells us that creation itself longs to be made new. But if God would plop us, as we are now, into a new and wonderful world, it wouldn’t take long for us to mess it up all over again. If we put ourselves into a new setting, the same old problems will be there because we bring them with us. Think of two examples. First, think about what happens when you go on vacation. It’s wonderful to get away from all the problems and hassles at home and enjoy new surroundings and relaxing or invigorating activities. But there’s a reason why most vacations are only a week or two long. After a while the newness and excitement wears off and the things from back home start to catch up with you. Family squabbles resurface. You find yourself doing some of the same things on vacation that you wanted to get away from: feeling obligations to do certain things, or fretting about situations back home that you wanted to escape. Vacation is great, but it’s only a short break. Second, consider someone in a troubled and broken marriage. She realizes that the problems she has with her husband are intractable, so she divorces him. After all, wasn’t he and the baggage of their marriage the source of her troubles? She develops a new relationship with someone else, only to find herself facing the same problems that she had in her first marriage. Why? Because she still has her own problems that she didn’t address, which infect the new relationship. It happens far more often than you may think! In fact, people who leave a failed relationship often seek a new partner who shares many of the same traits that the old partner had. The patterns of brokenness run that deep. The person herself must change in order to experience a healthy relationship.
The key for us, therefore, is for God to make us new. We need him to change us and transform us. And that’s the good news that we find in verse 5. God says (and by the way, this is the only thing in the entire book that God himself says) “I am making all things new.” He is not sitting around, waiting for the “end” to happen. He is at work, even now, to change us and re-create us. The good news is that we are not frozen in our old categories and situations. People truly can change! And as Ephesians 2:8 reminds us, this is not from ourselves, but is the gracious gift of God. This means several things for us. First, don’t lose hope and think that you or someone around you is doomed to deal with the situation you’re in now. There is always hope, as long as God is on his throne. We have an optimistic faith. Second, never give up on other people. There may be a curmudgeon in your life that makes you miserable, or a pain in the neck (or other parts of your body) that causes you endless aggravation or misery. It’s so easy for us to write off such people as hopeless. They’ll never change, we think. But that is never true! In the first few months of my pastoral ministry, God granted me the privilege of working with an old man who had spent his entire life being an intolerable neighbor and family member. But in the last three weeks of his life, he experienced a complete transformation and reconciled broken relationships. God can always make someone new. One of the most disturbing things that I heard about after the Columbine school shootings was an interview with a youth pastor from the town. He was talking about his interactions with Cassie Bernall, the young woman who said “yes” when the shooters asked her if she was a Christian. She had not always been a Christian. In fact, the youth pastor recalled how she attended some of his church’s events with friends. She was resistant to the gospel, and he considered her a “lost cause” and pretty much gave up on her. Fortunately, God didn’t, and she became involved in a different church where the gospel took root in her life. May the Lord spare us from the attitude of that youth pastor, that we would ever think that someone is a “lost cause.” There may be times that, for our own welfare, we must limit our interactions with some people. But God is always able to make someone new.
It happens because, in a word, “Immanuel.” God is with us. His presence is here with us people, and not simply up in some spiritual heavenly realm. Verse 3 proclaims the wonderful message: “The dwelling of God is with people, and he will live with them.” All the benefits of the new life come from this. Death, mourning, crying, and pain will all disappear as part of the old world, and God With Us wipes away our tears and embraces us as a husband tenderly and lovingly embraces his bride. At times, as we continue to live in the old broken world, God seems so distant from us. It’s hard to be devoted to him and to trust in his power to make things new when it’s so hard to be in touch with him. It’s a constant effort that we know as discipleship.
Jesus speaks to John in verse 6 and claims the same identity that we heard in Revelation 1:8. He is the Alpha and Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet): the beginning and the end. But to say that he is the beginning and the end is to say that he is everything in between. When he calls himself the Alpha and Omega, it’s exactly the same thing as someone saying that they know everything from A to Z. The vitamin pill that contains everything A to Zinc. The car company that has everything from the Altima to Z (the 370Z). And we’ll discuss further in Chapter 22 how he brings life-giving water (for now, refer to Isaiah 551 and John 4:10-14, 7:37-38).
He provides a promise for everyone who “overcomes.” It’s a reminder of the promises that ended each of the seven letters to the churches in Chapters 2 and 3. The Greek word used here is nike: the word for victory. In fact, the Greeks even had a god of victory, named Nike. And yes, in case you’re wondering, that’s where the shoe company gets its name. Wear our sneakers, and you’ll win. “Overcome” seems not to capture the active nature of being victorious or winning. When we become new, we conquer and vanquish the old ways of the world. And even more importantly, we prevail over the old and sinful parts of ourselves. Through the power of God that is present among us, we don’t need to sit in a corner and ache, waiting wistfully for things to change. We can rise up, be strong, and take courage.
Speaking of courage, notice the list of people who will not be included in glories of God’s new creation. This is one of several “vice lists” that we find in the New Testament, and for the most part it’s exactly what you’d expect. The sexually immoral, the murderers, the magicians, and so on. And yes, the liars, which should make us realize that dishonesty puts us in the same camp as adulterers and others who misuse the gift of sexuality. The real surprise, however, is the vice that tops the list: cowardice. Because it’s at the head of the list, we may assume that it is at least equal to the others, if not the worst of all. To be a coward is to fail to recognize and accept God’s presence and power. It is to give too much credit to the opposition: even after it has been totally annihilated! We overcome, or are victorious, when we watch for how God is making things new, and recognize how he is working through us. We win when we know that he is living with us and that he encompasses everything from A to Z.
posted by Rev. Peter de Vries, Old Union Presbyterian Church @ 12:38 PM
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