Advent Service
Pastor Kendall Meyer
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
As I mentioned earlier in the service, we are in the midst of our final segment with “Emmanuel God With Us” sermon series. And the focus here is God is with us forever. And the text that engages us comes from Revelation 21, and there are some concepts here I would like to highlight. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. I saw the Holy City , the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven and I heard a loud voice saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men and He will live with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.'”
My dear friends in Christ, what is this all about, this whole idea of a new heaven and a new earth? What does this have to do with our daily lives, with some of the struggles we are dealing with today? I'm sure many of you have asked that same question. What's the big deal about the new heaven and the new earth? What does that mean for me today and the things I am dealing with?
Maybe you're dealing with just recently divorced parents and you're trying to figure out who are you going to spend Christmas with and you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Or maybe it's hard for you to get into that Christmas spirit because you know, on December 31, that's the last day of your job and you're wondering, “How am I going to get health insurance for my children.” Or maybe there's that relationship that has been a thorn in your side for so many years and you really want to be able to mend the fences, but it's too hard. There's so much hurt and there's so much resentment. You just feel like you don't have the strength. Or maybe you're just run down by the ho-hum of daily life. One day seems so much like the other. Your job is constantly the same thing over and over. School might feel that way, too, the same thing over and over. And when you look at the year 2006, it seems just like 2005 all over again. And here we're hearing about this new heaven and a new earth. What does that have to do with me? Let's get our heads out of the future and start worrying about what's going on today in our daily lives.
Well, Revelation 21 is certainly about the new heaven and the new earth. There's no argument there. But the focus is not so much to try to satisfy that curiosity of what's going to happen in the afterlife or to satisfy your desire of wondering what the last day is going to be like. Of course, it talks about the last day. It talks about what's going to happen, but that's not the focus. The focus is twofold. First, earth as we know it will be destroyed. You remember Adam and Eve? You remember what happened in the Garden of Eden. Remember? They took a bite out of the fruit. They did what God had told them not to do. And that sin then permeated throughout the world. And we suffer from the effects of sin in our daily lives, relationships that have broken like I mentioned earlier, even physical challenges. For instance, for me, my hearing difficulty, it's a side effect of sin and I deal with it every day. And we are also told the world is groaning, groaning for that last day, so the encouragement here is we're not to put hope in the world we know because God has another place in mind for us. God will provide a new heaven and a new earth. And this whole idea is to encourage us, for us to see that light at the end of the tunnel.
For instance, many of you know my stepmom recently received a new kidney and many of you know, before she received a new kidney, she had to have her other two kidneys taken out and then it took awhile for her to recover, almost two months. And during that period of time, she had to use dialysis. And dialysis was very tough on my stepmom. She was getting sick, feeling weak, having no appetite. It was very difficult for her. But she told me, “I was able to get through it because I knew, at the end of the two months, I was going to get a new kidney. And so I was able to get through those couple months of dialysis even though I felt yucky every day. I couldn't even eat. I was losing weight. I still had that hope of getting the new kidney and that's what got me through those two months.”
Another instance, a marathon runner. A marathon runner doesn't focus on each step he takes in the marathon. No, he focuses on the finish line. And when he focuses on the finish line, then the hurt he goes through in running that marathon doesn't seem so bad.
So the idea here is we need to look at the new heaven and the new earth in the same way. That's encouragement for us. That is the light at the end of the tunnel. It's meant to give us that encouragement that we can face our difficulties, that we can get through what we are struggling with, that we're dealing with in our lives because we have that light at the end of the tunnel. We know about the new heaven and the new earth. And that's what Paul talks about in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, “Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord's own words, we tell you that we who are still alive who are left till the coming of the Lord will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a loud command with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage each other with these words.”
The idea of the new heaven and the new earth is to encourage us, to give us that light at the end of the tunnel. Because the troubles we are going through are tough, but we can see past it and we know we can get through it. We will be a part of the new heaven and the new earth. Yes, we are citizens of that holy city.
“Now this makes sense to me, what you're talking about here, Pastor, about my struggles and the hope I have, but how do I know I can belong to this holy city?”
You know, that's a good question about the whole idea of being a citizen of God's city, of this city. You know, we might be wondering, “Are we really citizens of this new holy city?” Well, when you talk about baptism, it talks about putting a mark on your forehead. In Revelation 7, John mentions this mark that the 144,000 have been sealed with the mark of God. And that's what happens when we have baptism. We receive the mark of God. When we hear God's word and we receive that gift of faith, we are marked. We are set aside. And that's why, in baptism, the liturgy says, “Receive the sign of the cross on the forehead and on the breast marking you as one redeemed by Christ.” So we are citizens of that holy city now. That's what the writer of Hebrews 12:22 talks about, that believers belong to God's holy city already in this life.
“But what does that do for us Christians, our everyday life Christians here? What does that do for me?”
Yeah, what does that have to do with Christmas? What is all this stuff about new heaven and new earth and stuff about the city of God ? What does that have to do with Christmas? Well, you know, our series talking about “Emmanuel God With Us” talking about God wanting to be with us and we're in the period of Advent where we are preparing ourselves for the coming of Jesus, preparing for Christmas, but not only that. We have expectations, expectations of Jesus coming again. But along with this expectation and this preparation, we have hope. Why hope? Why do we have hope? Because Jesus came once. We're celebrating that this weekend. He came and He came to be with us and He came to go to the cross for us. And that tells us He kept His promise, because God promised He would send a Savior. Because life is tough for us. We have trouble not sinning. The things we want to do we do not do, and we end up doing the things we don't want to do. That's why in 1 John 2, it says, “If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ the righteous one.” And it all started with a babe in the manger.
“But, Pastor, will God really be with us forever? I mean, forever's a long time.”
Yeah. Will God really be with us forever? Hum, I'm sure we've wondered that, too. This whole idea of God being with us forever. What does that have to do with me today? The answer, in a word, is yes. Because other translations, when you read the translations, they use “God pitches His tent with us forever.” Not just that He will live with us forever, but He uses that sense of “God pitches His tent with us.” And we see it in the Old Testament, don't we? We see God's special way that He was with the Israelites. Remember when the Israelites were taken out of Egypt and they were going toward the Promise Land ? How did God show He was with them? He had the pillar of fire by night and He had a pillar of cloud by day. He was showing that He was with them.
The Tabernacle, the temple in Jerusalem , was another way God was able to show He was with the people. And then we have John 1:14 where it says, “The word became flesh and dwelled among us.” The sense is Tabernacle pitched His tent with us. And so now we have that promise in Revelations 21 that He will pitch that tent with us forever, that He will be among us forever.
Oh sure, the whole idea of the new heaven and earth and the whole idea of being citizens of the city of God and this whole idea of God dwelling with us forever, sure, that stuff is in the future but it is through these promises that we know here today, where we are in our lives, God desires to be with us, that God encourages us to abide in His word, to hold onto His word because He is there when there is difficulty, when things are tough. And there will be a time where the dwelling of God is with men and He will live with them. They will be His people and God Himself will be with them and He will wipe away the tears from your eyes. That's a beautiful light at the end of the tunnel. That's a beautiful day to look forward to. Amen.
Copyright 2005 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church |
