“Better Than Brand New”

Revelation 21:1-6

May 6, 2007

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

This morning I would like to throw up a word and see how it lands in your mind and in your heart. Here is the word: Home. All right, is it there? Has the word had time to sink in yet? Now let me ask you, where does that word send you? Maybe it sends you to the home you have now, the one you live in right now where all of your favorite things are. Things like recliners and big screen televisions and sun rooms and decks and bedrooms and kitchens.

Maybe you are like me. If the word home is thrown in the air, where it usually lands is not the home I now live in, but the home I grew up in, over in Tennessee. The house was on Laurie Circle. The home was made by my mom and dad and my sister and brother. My folks moved to Conway a few years ago now and sold the house of my growing up years to a high school friend of mine. But if we were able to walk around in the house of my growing up years, we would have to spend a little time in the den. We would need to go over and sit on the hearth and warm ourselves by the fire that burned there not only on ordinary nights, but also on Christmas mornings. Starting a fire was one of the first things we did on Christmas mornings. When it was good and roaring, my father would walk over to the living room doors, peek in, and say, year after year, “I believe Santa Claus has been here.”

If we’re walking around in the house, then we’d have to go back to my bedroom. In the early years, it was the room I shared with my sister, Emily. There were twin beds in that room and going to sleep was never easy. At bedtime one of my parents, usually my mother, would come in, read a bedtime story, tuck us in, and help us say our prayers. Later Emily moved first to the room next door and then eventually to a room upstairs. When she moved, I had the room all to myself.

Years later, when all three of their children moved out of the house, my parents added on to the structure. I have noticed that a lot of people do that. My folks received an inheritance and put in a sun room. Mom even suggested that they rent out the living room or sell it all together because they never went in that room any more. The sun room became a favorite room. It looked out at the flower garden that my dad had built.

When I was a senior in high school and my brother was tucked away in Dallas at seminary and my sister at Milsaps College in Mississippi, I would often wander into my parents bedroom. They always read before they turned out the lights and I knew that. So some nights, I would knock on their door, walk into their room, and climb in between the two of them. And for five minutes or so, we talked. I never felt closer to my folks than those nights.

Again, if you are walking through the house of my growing up years, stopping in the kitchen is a good idea. There was a table there where most of our meals were eaten. We all had our places at that table.

Beloved, there is just something special about home. There is no door like the one that opens to your home. Coffee tastes best when you drink it out of your favorite mug. There is no meal like the one that you eat at your table. And there is no embrace like the one from your family. Home. There is nothing like it.

Now, at its very best, you could say that the last book in our Bible, the Revelation to John, is a homecoming book. Our lesson for this morning is among the kinder and gentler images in this biblical book. This lesson offers a vision of perfect peace and plenty after the terrible judgment scenes in the twentieth chapter.

Having dispensed with sinners in an all consuming lake of fire, the author, who we think is John, describes the reward to the righteous. He describes it this way, “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…” John writes the words from exile, from the island of Patmos. He is the same John from the gospel bearing his name. He is the same John who first heard the voice of God in Jesus and followed him. John is older now. His body is weary. The journey has taken its toll. His friends are gone. Peter is dead and Paul has been martyred. All he really has now are his memories. While he sits with his thoughts on the island, he hears God’s voice once again.

Here is what I think happened. I think God came to John and pulled back a curtain. I think he said to him, “Take a peek. What do you see? What do you think?” Our lesson says, “See, the home of God is among mortals.” Did you catch that? The home of God is among mortals. God says to John, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” So John did that. He wrote it down. We read his words a moment ago.

The question to ask this morning is this, “What did John see?” Well, one of the first things he saw was that the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no more sea. That would have been good news for a guy stranded on an island. It also would have been good news for a people who were afraid of the sea. These people had no idea what was at the depth of the sea. They believed monsters lived there and that the sea was dangerous.

One of the great scenes in the latest version of the movie Titantic, is that there is a priest who is holding on to dear life and a group of people who are listening to his every word. He quotes this scripture, “…and there was no more sea.” He quotes it to people about to find themselves at the bottom of the sea.

So the first thing John notices is a new heaven and earth and a sea that is no longer troubling. Now how would he describe this new heaven and this new earth. Well, John uses an image of the most beautiful thing he knows. These are his words, “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven of God, prepared as a bride for her husband.” A bride was the most beautiful thing John knew, so he described the new world as a bride on her wedding day.

I will have to tell you that one of the great benefits of being a minister is standing in front of a congregation as the doors at the back of the Sanctuary open. The organ beckons us to stand and I see her before anyone else. There she is, a beautiful bride, standing hand in hand with her father. I will have to tell you that I have never seen an ugly bride. I have seen a groom or two who could use a little work, but I have never seen an ugly bride.

There is something about her that is hard to describe. She is dressed in white. She is beautiful. She makes her way down the aisle walking towards the biggest commitment of her life. There is expectation in her eyes. There is hope in her soul. Without having said a word yet, her actions say, “I will love you forever.”

That is the world John describes in our lesson. I have to ask. Is that the world you woke up to this morning or any morning in recent days? The world I have woken up to is a world full of problems. It is a world where people are shooting people at Virgina Tech, at NASA and now in Kansas City. If you are a baseball fan, a Cardinals one at that, then you know that there are parents who have just buried their promising 29 year old son, Josh Hancock. Now this passage is one of hope. It speaks of the way the world can be, not necessarily the way it is. So let’s look at some more images in this hope filled passage.

John tells us that it is God’s voice that tells him, “The home of God is among mortals. God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

I don’t mind telling you that in my lifetime, I have done my fair share of crying. Not that my adult tears aren’t important, but I especially remember the tears when I was a child. There were a lot of people who could wipe away my tears. My sister was always sympathetic to me when tears streamed down my cheek (unless she was the one who caused them). My mother helped me with my sadness. I will have to tell you that there was something powerful about the way my dad dealt with my tears. Not only could he wipe them away, he had a way of taking away the fear and the disappointment that accompanied them. In the last days, says this word, God will wipe away our tears and he will take away our pain.

God also promises to take away something else. Listen again to the words, “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” If one of the great benefits of being a minister is to stand and watch as the bride makes her way down the aisle, one of the hard things that I do is to stand in front of coffins and cemetery plots and ashes, as I help families deal with a death in their family. I have stood there often. I have stood on both sides. I have stood and wished that death being no more had already happened. I have hoped that there would be no separation with the one that I loved. It will happen, says God, but for me, death going away was not quick enough.

Let me give you one more image before we go. John says that God will make all things new. I like that. I think that it is hard to see things grow older, don’t you? Every once and a while, on our way to Nashville, Tennessee, we will stop in my hometown. We will drive by our old house on Laurie Circle and I will close my eyes and imagine the ten or so friends who played together every day. Not many of their families own the houses any longer. One of my friends is in a comatose state in a nursing home. Someone I went to high school and college with died unexpectedly leaving behind a husband and a young child.

When we are in Jackson, sometimes Susie and I will drive by the old Little League park where I hit my one home run. We will also drive by the college where we met. If it were possible, I would like to make things new again. But I cannot. The ones I love have grown older. Their hair is lighter and thinner. If I could I would roll back time and climb into my mother’s lap again and asked to be rocked to sleep. I cannot make things new again, but I know someone who can.

For some reason, he has decided to come and dwell with us, to live with us. Let me close with Eugene Peterson’s translation of one of the verses of our lesson. “I heard a voice thunder from the throne. Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood!” Now that is good news. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to the writings of Max Lucado for some help with some of the images and some of the words in this sermon. Thanks also to my parents who helped make their house my home. And thanks to God for my sister, Emily Ann).