Welcome, my friends to the Land of the Never-Ending Wow! Before you decide that I’ve lost my ever-loving mind, come with me to that place of pure joy, of newness at every corner turn and constant astonishment at God’s working in our midst. I’ve never preached from Revelation before, because I lacked the courage to move beyond the complicated and complex arguments surrounding the “true meaning behind this somewhat confusing and challenging set of prophecies”. As I grow older, I no longer find myself entangled in theological conquests to know all there is to know. I am content to know what I need to know at this moment and so, have approached this absolutely beautiful passage from the Revelation to John in that spirit and in God’s Spirit who reveals the truth of these words for our lives today.
The author of Revelation is John, an apostle. He writes down his visions and prophecies on the Isle of Patmos in the Agean Sea. He sends his prophecies in letters to the early churches in what was then Asia Minor. These churches are hardy, healthy churches, but they are facing persecution. John’s prophesies are intended to convey that the victory has already been won, that Satan, as they described the forces of evil in John’s world, has already been vanquished. John’s images defy our imagination, even with all the special effects available to film makers in the 21st century, we would have a hard time capturing these visions. One Bible commentator writes: “John writes of what he sees and hears in his vision. Sometimes he hears one thing but turns to see something altogether different. Sometimes he sees multiple images of the same event as if he views it from different perspectives. ..John’s apocalyptic images challenge the imagination. …Many of the images come from the Hebrew prophetic literature of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.” This commentary goes on to suggest that the ancient world, steeped in those prophetic teachings of the early prophets probably had much less trouble than we do grasping the significance of these strange sights and pronouncements. I would agree.
And, so, today we come to John’s culminating vision—this vision that proclaims that all is new. John sees a new heaven and a new earth for the old heaven and earth have passed away. Including both heaven AND earth, John’s prophecy calls us to see that EVERYTHING is different, and not just in some heavenly afterlife, but right here on the earth. The voice that John has been hearing for some 20+ chapters now shouts: Look, God’s home is now among God’s people! God will live with them and they will be God’s people!” This is as ‘earthy’ as it gets. God is making a home with us, living in our midst, making all things new. And that, my friends, is why I chose to bring this passage from the several I had available. This newness that God is making is here in our midst, in our lives, in our communities. And we, must simply look up and claim the newness that God has already promised.
In researching this sermon I came across the work of a Celtic priest, John O’Donohue. Some of you may already know of his work, but I read one poem and was hooked. Not that he wrote about Revelation, as far as I know, he didn’t. But he wrote beautifully of experiencing God’s newness. Listen:
I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding
For just a moment, put yourselves in this poem. Like a river, we travel through life, with all its twists and turns—like a river through the forests, never knowing what is just around the bend, but daring to go forward anyway and fueled by the surprise that greets us just around a corner. I can see myself, first in a deep, dense forest, then breaking free into a sunny, brightly lit meadow, before heading into a wooded canyon. There are places where my riverbank is steep, cutting through harsh and untamed places in my life. And there are places where my riverbanks are broad and wide allowing for peaceful travel past already resolved spaces and paths. Fr. John O’Donohue died in 2008, in one online blog devoted to Celtic spirituality; one person posted this about him: “John was that rare being who lived what he wrote and went wildly and dangerously fresh into each day.” And so I thought, what a wonderful tribute—and how I would love for my friends to say that about me when I am no longer here—to go “wildly and dangerously fresh into each day.”
I want to share one more poem of this Celtic priest and poet before returning to God’s working among us and within us in this passage from Revelation. This poem is called For a New Beginning:
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
And so we return to this new heaven and new earth that God has made for us. Let me repeat that—that God has made for us. God calls us to “Look!” for all things are being made new by this same God who now lives among us. The old, absent landlord God of the Old Testament is replaced with the God who lives on the same block as we do. And this God, who came first to earth as Jesus of Nazareth, comes again in the Holy Spirit and indwells in the Wow! which informs every second of every day. I turn the corner in my mind and see the beauty God pours into my life with new eyes. And the Wow! is there waiting for me to notice. Here is a simple story about such a discovery by Martha McCallum who at 86 described this experience:
“One morning I was sitting at my kitchen table, staring into space. It was one of those windy days when the sun keeps coming out and going in. All of a sudden, a sunbeam crossed my kitchen table and lit up my crystal saltshaker. There were all kinds of colors and sparkles. It was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen. But you know, that very same saltshaker had been on that kitchen table for over fifty years. Surely there must have been other mornings when the sun crossed the table like that, but I was just too busy getting things done. I wondered what else I’d missed. I realized this was it, this was grace.”
This, then, is the new heaven and new earth that God calls us to see. And God says, “Look!” And God goes on to say, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega— To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.” God, living among us, making a home among us, being with us, says, just as Jesus said to the woman at the well, if you are thirsty for meaning, for hope, for peace—turn to the living springs of the water of life. God calls us to believe in the ever-changing, ever more beautiful gracings of the gifts of the new creation. We walk into that new world because see with new eyes—eyes made new by same God who says, “I am all you need—the beginning and the end.”
You may wonder where I came up with the title for this sermon—I was thinking about the meaning of the word “new”. And from that I got to N E W= Never-ending wow!. Sorta helps me remember what God is talking about—a world so new that every time I open myself up to experience the beauty of God’s working in our midst, it is “Wow!” And if I am always open, the wow! is, indeed, never ending. Wow, wow, and amen!
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