Then I saw a new
heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth had passed
away, and the sea was no more. 2 I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride beautifully dressed
for her husband. 3 I heard a loud voice from the throne say, “ Look!
God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will
be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He
will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be
no mourning, crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. ”
5 Then the one seated on the throne said, “ Look! I’m making all
things new. ” He also said, “ Write this down, for these words are trustworthy
and true. ” 6 Then he said to me, “ All is done. I am the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end.
It
has been said that we sing our theology.
What we sing with our lips, we believe in our hearts, and what we
believe in our hearts, we show forth in our lives. We just finished singing:
“Yet we on earth have union with God
the Three in One,
and mystic sweet communion with those
whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy! Lord, give us grace that we
like them, the meek and lowly, on high
may dwell with thee.”
Friends,
we sing it because we believe it, and on this All Saints’ Sunday, our belief in
this promise from God is a source of deep hope, peace, and comfort. Today, we celebrate the lives of the saints,
those who have finished their course in faith, and now rest from their
labors. We celebrate their place in the
Church Triumphant, among that great cloud of witnesses too great for any of us
to number. In just a little bit, we will light these candles you see before you
as a way to remember and honor the saints who have gone on ahead of us, a
powerful proclamation that the light of those who die in the Lord burns on. Their light still shines like so many
twinkling stars in the heavens, a reminder that their witness still burns
bright, and our communion with them is still in tact.
On
a day like today, while we look back at their lives and remember what has been,
we also look forward to the promise of what will be. The promise is heaven: the kingdom of God,
the holy city, the dwelling place of God, the place of perpetual fellowship
with God and one another: described for us in the 21st Chapter of the book of
Revelation, beginning with the 1st verse:
“Then
I saw a new heaven and a new earth. I
saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. I heard a loud voice from the throne say,
‘Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind.
He will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their
God. He will wipe away every tear from
their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying, or pain
anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”
What
a beautiful vision. What a hope-filled
promise, especially knowing that our loved ones who have died in the Lord are
already there, fulfilling the chief end of humankind, to glorify God and enjoy
God forever. A day is coming when we
will join them and find our communion with them renewed. But that reunion is not so far off into the
future as we might think.
You
see, the highway to heaven doesn’t run in only one direction. It’s a two-way street. It’s not only
that we go to heaven; as we’ve seen in this vision from Revelation, heaven more
often comes to us.
It
has been said that wherever the presence of God is found, that is heaven. You’ve heard the saying, “Home is where the
heart is.” In the same way, heaven is
where God is; and we know that God is anywhere and everywhere. God - whose grace is boundless, whose mercy
is matchless, whose love is from everlasting to everlasting - draws near to us
all the time. “I heard a loud voice from
the throne say, ‘Look! God’s dwelling is
here with humankind.’” That’s what the
Scriptures tell us. Sometimes we go to
heaven, and often heaven comes to us.
Heaven is not so much just one place we commune with God, but every place God communes with us.
And
not only God, but also those who are already in the nearer presence of
God. Neither the saints we remember nor
the God who binds us together are distant, remote, or inaccessible. They are right here among us. Heaven isn’t far away; it is right here! The great cloud of witnesses, all the hosts
of heaven are right beside us, closer to us now, even than they’ve ever been
before, because heaven has come to us - God’s abiding presence is here with us.
God
prefers to be among the people. Always
has, always will. And it is the presence
of God in our lives that makes all the difference. The vision of heaven continues in verse 5:
“Then the one seated on the throne said, ‘Look, I’m making all things
new.’” This is a promise to us. God is making all things new. Here’s the key of the whole thing: those whom
we celebrate on this day as saints above were first saints on earth, and the
thing that made them saints in the first place was the reality that God was
making something new within their
hearts.
Saints experience the holy presence of God as
a transforming influence in their lives.
Saints are those who are being made new - those who are being
transformed more into the image of a loving God with each passing day. Such openness to the transforming grace of
God is the only prerequisite for sainthood.
What makes a saint is not some special virtue or accumulated holiness or
perfection. A saint isn’t someone who
has arrived, no, a saint is someone who knows that they are a work in progress,
but thanks be to God, God isn’t finished with them yet.
Friends,
it is this transformation, this being made new that God does within us, that
makes a saint. Today, on this All
Saints’ Sunday, God calls us again to be clay in the hands of the potter, to
enable God’s holy presence in our midst to continue to shape our lives and our
faith as his saints here on earth.
In
order to be shaped by that holy presence, we come often to the places where
that holy presence is promised and experienced.
We come to the places where grace is made real in our lives, and one of
the places where God has explicitly promised to come to us is in the meal of
Holy Communion. In Communion grace is
offered, the presence of the risen Christ is experienced, and we look forward
to the heavenly banquet that awaits us.
And sure enough, all the company of heaven joins us at the table. Their presence is as real as the bread in our
hands, so when you come to the table today, know that the saints above are
having communion with the saints on earth.
Maybe
you’re wondering if you’ll get into heaven when you die. Learn from the saints; let heaven get into
you while you live.
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