The text this morning is from John’s Revelation, the twenty-first chapter:
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, 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, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! And there is great joy in that resurrection, for we share in it, together with Him. The resurrection of Jesus is, for us, a promise of our own resurrection. It is a down payment on what is to come for us and for all creation and that is a glorious thing.
When I was a kid, I thought about heaven and just hated the idea. I really did. The thought of dying and then going to worship in heaven, sitting around and singing and praying as some kind of ephemeral spirit was killing me. I didn’t like, I didn’t want it. It sounded horrible. I am a physical being, and I know physical things. God made me physical; I cannot understand just the spiritual. I am, absolutely, spiritual in my being as well; I am soul and body. But I’m not one without the other. And because of that, I need the physical. So, when my pastors taught me that Christians go to heaven when they die, I took that very literally. And because they only ever spoke about our souls, that’s all they ever taught me.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I truly realized what the Scriptures teach about heaven. Let’s start here: death, because of our sin, does something to us, which God never intended. God made us soul and body together, but, when death comes, these two are ripped apart from each other, the body to be laid in the grave and the soul taken to heaven. Both are cared for by and guarded over by God, but that’s not the way it’s to be. It’s horrible. It’s a perversion of God’s creation that we’ve brought upon ourselves by our sin. But that’s not the way it’s to be.
And God, being ordered and just and mercy and desiring to set all things right, promises us that’s not the way it’s going to be. He’s not going to just leave us suffering in our sin, in what we’ve done to our bodies because of sin, what we’ve done to the creation because of our sin. The Scriptures teach us that God will wipe away every tear from our eyes; He will erase all the consequences of sin, He will take away sin, death, and the devil, and we shall be secure. We will not mourn or cry or have pain, because the former things have passed away and we shall enter into life eternal with Him. And that’s good. We look forward to that.
But, He doesn’t wipe tears away from our spirits wandering in heaven. Spirits don’t have tears; tears are physical, spirits aren’t. So, He must wipe these away then from something physical, and that’s your body, raised from the dead, glorified in the glorified and resurrected body of Jesus Christ. There, in Jesus’ resurrection, is the promise of our resurrection. There is the promise that, no matter what we go through in this life, when we are laid in the grave, when the Holy Spirit watches over and guards until the Lord returns, Jesus will come and bring us back together and make our bodies incorruptible, whole, complete. He will make us new. He will make us like Him. And He is trustworthy and true and will do it. There we will live forever with Him, with no looking toward the future, for we will have eternity.
But He makes all things new, not just our bodies. And when I realized this as an adult, it gave me more comfort than I had ever experienced before. Before, I had basically been told that heaven was like a spiritual cloudfest. You’d hold hands, sing Kumbaya. You’d be in, like, a spiritual state of ecstasy, where it was like everyone was high and just looking at God like Woah. But that’s not what we’re promised. We’re not just spiritual, we’re physical, too. And because of the physical resurrection of this body, God will provide a physical place for it to live and dwell. A new earth, with the holy city, New Jerusalem, as its center. And boy, that’s comforting.
A physical life I understand. A touchable, tasteable, hearable life, I understand. I may not be able to grasp eternity, but that’s because I had a moment of creation. There was a time when I was not, and, poof, all of the sudden, I was. I have no existed from eternity past; I can’t understand eternity future. So, an eternity spent in an existence that made no sense to me scared me greatly. When I found that I will spend eternity living in this world, remade, incorruptible and sinless, then I finally found peace.
I don’t know what forever feels like, but if my Lord promises me joy, then I know it will be there. I don’t know what I’ll be doing, but when He promises me life, I know it will be there. I don’t know who I’ll be with, but when He promises me no tears, I know they won’t be there. And how do you know His promises are true? Because the same Lord who promises all of this also promised that when He was killed, He would raise Himself after three days, and He did. He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
And that’s the truth. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, never to die again. And we will be, too, some day. Life is difficult and hard, and sometimes to just make it one more day seems to take more effort and energy than you have. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be in a sinless world, but we don’t live there yet. Sometimes, we just have to slog through until we reach sundown, sleep, wake up, and do it all again. But our Lord doesn’t just leave us with words. He doesn’t He’s not that way. When life is becoming difficult, come to the Church. Here, you will hear the words of forgiveness, just as your heard the words of promise from today’s text. And just as that promise of today will come to its completion in the day of our Lord’s return, so, too, does the forgiveness of Christ come to you today. And just as the promise will be completed physically, so, too, is the forgiveness of sins and strengthening of life unto that life everlasting coming to you physically today.
Our Lord is a physical Lord, and He knows we are physical people, so He has given us physical means of receiving His forgiveness. He has given us the very manifestation of the Gospel in physical, touchable, tasteable, hearable ways. He has given us the words, which we hear in our ears and see with our eyes and read with our brains, but He has also given us water which we feel on our bodies in Baptism and bread and wine which are Christ’s body and blood which we taste and feel in our mouths and bellies.
Do you want to know if you’re forgiven? Do you want to know if you’ll find the strength to carry on? Do you want to be surrounded by brothers and sisters who love you? Do you want to help others? Do you want to be comforted with the assurance that our Lord will make all things new? Do you want the promise of the resurrection from the dead, that the sickness, that the grief, that the pain, that all you’ve gone through will be redeemed? Taste and see that the Lord is good. Come to the altar and be the conqueror of which our Lord speaks. Come to the altar, remember your Baptism, hear His words through the mouth of His pastor, and know that He is your God, and you are His Son, His daughter. Take comfort that you will be made new, just as the heavens and the earth, and you have a place for eternity. This will happen, for He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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