SETTING THE CONTEXT
During the last nine weeks we have been reflecting on the great salvation story contained in the Bible. I bet you didn’t think we could cover the whole story in nine weeks, did you? But here we are at the end. Let us put this great story together one more time. Like all good stories this story has a beginning, a middle, a climax and an end. This story begins not with a “what” but with a “who.” In the beginning was God and God created all light and darkness, the heavenly lights and all that inhabits the earth. And God created all this good. God’s intention for this good creation was original Blessing.  God formed a people and made a committed promise or covenant with the people; they were blessed to be a blessing. God’s desire for original blessing was thwarted by the misguided even evil choices that people make and the people of God found themselves enslaved and in absolute misery. They cried out to God for help and God was faithful to the covenant and redeemed or rescued them in the great story of the Exodus. God then led them through the wilderness to the Promised Land. After a period of prosperity, the kings of the people of God led them away from God; they betrayed the covenant and worshiped other gods. This betrayal went on for not one generations but generation upon generation. Finally they bore the full brunt of their faithlessness. They were exiled from the Promised Land and the center of their worship life was destroyed. This time of spiritual blackout was called the Babylonian Exile. After about 50 years, God again redeemed or rescued the people and they returned to their land, rebuilt their nation and returned to the covenant with God. All this time God was trying to point the people to God’s intention for them using the Law or Torah and then the prophets, but they still misunderstood. So in the fullness of time God sent the Word Made Flesh, Jesus to lead the people by example and to save them. Many of the people though still didn’t get it and they rejected Jesus and his message of radical love. They publicly humiliated him and then they crucified him like a common criminal. But God did not allow their rejection to have the last word. God raised Jesus from the dead, showing us the divine power and intention to overcome evil, to overcome death with life. This message of God’s power and saving grace had to get out and so the church emerged as witnesses carrying the message and the story out to all who would listen. Today our story reaches through time, beyond our time, beyond the church’s time to the end.

READ Revelation 21:1-6, 22-25; 22:20-21

THE SERMON

I enjoy swimming and I have come to use my time while I swim not just as an exercise time but as a time of prayer. God has taught me and continues to teach me through the interplay of shadow and light at the bottom of the pool. I am always asking God to help me feel God’s closeness, to help me to feel God’s presence more fully and to hear God’s voice more clearly. What God showed me is that just as the light and shadow are intermixed at the bottom of the pool; God is intermixed in the world. If I want to feel God’s presence I need to look into the ordinary parts of my life not just at the “mountaintops.” While I’m swimming there is an occasional spot of dazzling light that is just beautiful. It is light undimmed by the shadow. And it reminds me of times when the Kingdom of heaven breaks through and we catch just a glimpse of God’s glory. Those times are much fewer and far between than the ordinary times of God’s presence. C.S. Lewis described our world as the Shadowlands and I believe that is an accurate description. We are still in a time when our choices to reject God and the sin of the world, intermingle with the light of God’s presence. The Light is dimmed to varying degrees, but the shadows cannot overcome it. The end of our Unfolding Drama tells us that at the End, meaning at the end of time as we know it, there will be no shadow. All that is contrary to God’s intention will be gone and we will experience the dazzling presence of God in all its fullness. The Shadowlands will be no more and all that will be left is the Light.

The author of Revelation was sharing this message of hope to a people consumed in shadow. Scholars believe that the Book of Revelation was written during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian when the Christian church was under intense persecution. Domitian required people to practice Emperor-worship and he demanded that they call him “our lord and god.” The Christians would not do this, so they were severely persecuted. The Book of Revelation was written in code because one could be put to death for having Christian literature and the book was clearly against the Roman Emperor. The book was written to encourage Christians during this horrible and discouraging time, to tell people tempted to give up the faith to hold on. I think the message of Revelation could be summed up in the one liner, “God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage, keep the faith!” Through the divinely inspired visions of the Ultimate End, the people were given the necessary help and hope to carry on through their present adversities.^[i] It was a light shining in the midst of the gloom.

The passage we read today comes after many trials and after the final judgment. It paints a picture of what awaits us at the end. At the end is a beginning; at the end is a new heaven and a new earth. It is interesting to me that the story does not end back at the Garden of Eden that would have a nice symmetry. But the end does not abolish history all that came after the beginning; it redeems history. A new heaven and a new earth come into being where God’s will is fully realized. Jerusalem is made new becoming as it was intended, fulfilling the prophetic callings that echo from the past:  to be the light of the nations, a place for the divine-human encounter, a place of justice, peace and security.^[ii] The End does not destroy history, it transforms it. The End does not destroy the human community; God redeems it and makes it new. There is no Temple in this New Jerusalem for God’s presence is no longer shrouded in mystery, but “God dwells among the mortals.” We will have intimate communion with God, he will wipe every tear from our eyes. Isn’t that a lovely image of intimacy with God? The saving work of “at-one-ment” or atonement that Jesus did will be fully accomplished. As Bernard Anderson said, “Thus the Bible begins with a vision of Paradise Lost and concludes with a vision of Paradise Regained.”^[iii] This happens by God’s initiative and power.

It is so sad to me that many have used the Book of Revelation as a weapon to frighten people into faith. In fact the way Revelation has been used by many turned me away from the book. I didn’t want to read it or have anything to do with it for a long time. The images that John uses are powerful and terrifying images, but he was writing to a people living through a terrifying time. He was saying, “I know what you are up against, but let me tell you God will win!”

We continue to live in the Shadowlands. This Wednesday we heard the moving story of Stephen Nasser who survived Holocaust death camps at the age of 13. We heard that of his 21 family members, he is the only one who survived. There are thousands of people in Darfur, Sudan today facing similar terror and murder. We can see nightly the gloom of humanity’s capacity to destroy what God has created. I don’t believe the End is supposed to be a terrifying horror story, there are enough horror stories right here and now. I think the End is supposed to reassure us in the midst of the horror and brokenness that the wholeness of God will come at some point in history. Because of Christ, we have a foretaste of this transformation. Through Christ, the Light of God breaks into the shadows of this world and we can experience moments of the Kingdom of God in this time and this space. We know, oh so well, that even as we stand with one foot firmly planted in the brokenness of this world, the other foot is bathed in the light of the kingdom of God. Revelation tells us to have hope because as in the beginning there was God so in the End there will be God. “God’s kingdom will come on earth as it has in heaven” and so in confidence and hope, we join our voices with the last words of the Bible saying, “Come Lord Jesus!”

Many people try to predict when the end will come and that is a futile effort. Jesus himself said, “No one knows when the end will come, even I don’t know the date and time.” (Matthew 24:36) But he tells us to live as if the End will come immediately. Go out and share the message and live the message of God. Go out and let God’s light shine through you. When I am swimming sometimes I notice how the movement of my hand sends ripples of light across the floor. When we follow Jesus and allow God’s light to shine through us, it impacts the world. It sends ripples out beyond what we see. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, “The Bible is not a book to be read but a drama in which to participate.” ^[iv] We are called to be faithful with our part of the Unfolding Drama. As Rachel challenged us last week, may we share this great salvation story with our children and grandchildren for as Robyn shared God continues to act and reach out to generation upon generation. There are still way too many people who need to hear and participate in this Unfolding Drama of the God who creates, redeems and sustains from the beginning to the end. Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on April 30, 2006.