Waters of New Life

October 25, 2015

Revelation 22:1-7, 14-17

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; 4 they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

6 And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true, for the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”

7 “See, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”

14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. 15 Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

16 “It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”

17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”

And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”

And let everyone who is thirsty come.

Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

Sermon: “Waters of New Life”

Confession time: I’m a pretty annoying person to watch a movie with, especially if that movie has any element of mystery to it.  You see, I will make it my personal mission to figure out the major plot questions before they are revealed.  I’ll make (sometimes wild) predictions about who did what and why, and I’m not at all shy about sharing those thoughts.  My sister, who much prefers to watch a movie in pure silence, is particularly vexed by this habit of mine.

You see, I want to know the end of the story, before it happens. 

We all do, don’t we? 

It’s why this book of the Bible, whose full title is actually “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” is so compelling.  We think we’re getting a sneak peek at the end of things, and it makes us feel more in control of the future, and not just that, but the present time, too.  We’re not, of course, in control of the future: Jesus Christ is, which is what this whole book is trying to tell us. 

This book isn’t a road map for the end times, allowing us to skip ahead in the story, though many read it that way.  In truth, when this vision was given to John on Patmos, most of his words were seen as political commentary on events of the day, with parallels between different fantastical characters and oppressors of his time.  It was not read, dissected, analyzed and studied by the early church.  The Revelation of Jesus Christ was enacted.  Put simply: it was a play!  The first Christians used this book as art, and it was to do exactly what art is supposed to do: shed light on reality, in a new and powerful and dramatic way.  That reality was, and is, very clear: Jesus, the Lamb, is the center of everything that was, and is, and everything that is to come.

This type of literature is different than wisdom literature in the Bible, historical narratives, epistles and Gospels.  This genre of writing is called “apocalyptic” and is in good company with the prophets.  The word “revelation” actually is “apocalypse.”  Sounds a bit scary, doesn’t it?

If this is a peek at the end of the story of all things, and that ending is “apocalypse,” it’s no wonder people get a little nervous about it, and make books and movies about it.  But, as pastor Darrell Johnson reminds us, “apocalypse” was an everyday word in Jesus’ time.  If you opened a cupboard to find something important to you, that word was apocalypse.  If you opened a door to welcome a neighbor into your home, that word was apocalypse.  If you pulled back a curtain to let in the morning light, that word was…you guessed it…apocalypse.  It means “breaking through from hiddenness” or more simply, revealing. 

So, this book isn’t meant to strike fear into all who hear it.  It isn’t meant to make us point to hurricanes and wars and disasters as “proof” of Jesus coming soon.  It’s meant to make us take a hard look at our reality now, and ask a very daring question, “Where is Jesus being revealed here and now?”  I’m not, by the way, saying that Jesus is hiding in your kitchen cupboard.

You see, even though I get a real kick out of figuring out the end of the story, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, this book, is telling me to let go of my need to speculate.

Because the ending isn’t up to me, or you.  It’s up to Jesus, the Lamb, the one who will be in the very center, in the heart of a city in a new heaven and earth we won’t understand until the right time. 

The ending will be much like the beginning, flowing with water.  As it all began with waters in Genesis, here we see that the most distinctive feature of this city will be the river running through it.  A river of the water of life, with trees being fed by that water, and people being fed by those trees, until the nations are healed.  When Christ is at the center of all things, this is what the world will look like.

And so the word spoken in that city will not be “fear.”  That word, spoken over and over again, began in Genesis when God first said, “Come, let us make humankind in our image…”  It is a word echoed in the prophets who called people to come back to faithfulness when they had forgotten God and their neighbor.  It is a word echoed by Jesus when he said, “Come, you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.”

The word, as you might guess, that word at the end of it all, will be, “Come.”  “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come.  Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”

The final word, at the end of all things, will be an invitation to receive the gift of the water of life.  The final word, then, is grace.

So, we don’t need to analyze and speculate about the end of the story, because we’re not the ones who utter that word.  The Word Made Flesh is.  Jesus Christ, the Lamb, will have the last word.  And if we’ve learned nothing else, I hope we’ve learned that we can, and should, trust him.

The end of the story isn’t up to us.  But how we see the revelation – the apocalypse, the revealing – of Jesus Christ here and now, breaking into our time, well, that is up to us. 

We have cupboards to open, to share what we have with those in need.  We have doors to open, to let it the stranger and refugee.  We have curtains to open, to let in the light, especially for those who find that an impossible task.  We have hearts to open, minds to open, to find our Lord where he already is. 

It is so tempting to skip ahead to the end of the story and pretend we have it all figured out better than God or anyone else.  But living in the present time, “bearing witness [to Jesus Christ] on good days and evil” as the Confession of 1967 puts it, requires much more of us.

It requires us to ask, if the end will be a river of life, where are drops of that holy water already raining down in our midst now?  As we’ve seen these past 7 weeks, we find hints of how that water comes through the one story of scripture.

We see that, when waters overwhelmed the earth in Noah’s time, God changed towards grace – choosing never, ever, to use water or any other disaster as punishment for sin again, something essential to remember when we are tempted to too quickly explain the reasons for hardship.

We see that, when refugees were thirsty and desperate, God quenched their thirst through someone willing to be a part of it all, Moses.  So God uses ordinary people to still create miracles today.

We see that, when a nation forgot the poor, and thus forgot their God, God called for justice and righteousness to flow like never-ending waters.  This is still God’s dream for our world.

We see that, when Jesus walked the earth, he began his ministry in the waters of the Jordan being baptized, that all who would follow him to those baptismal waters would hear that voice of belonging saying, “You are my child, my beloved, I am pleased with you.”

We see that, when Jesus’ disciples were tossed about in stormy waters and felt abandoned, Jesus came right in time, and was never beyond their reach.  So, no storm can make us beyond the caring grasp of God.

So you see, that river of life that will flow through the city of God, bright as crystal, is already being fed by many, many waters.  The waters of scripture, the waters of our lives: of tears of laughter and of sorrow, of parents bathing their children in the kitchen sink, of sweet tea on a porch, of washing our face after a long day and feeling refreshed. 

At the beginning of this series, I quoted one line from one of my favorite movies, A River Runs Through It, written by Presbyterian minister Norman McLean.  Today, at the ending of this series, I want to share the full passage, (which is, by the way, telling you the ending of the movie!  There I go again…).  Norman, now an old man, describes finding people he has loved and lost in the waters of a familiar river.  But I think he’s also revealing a new Jerusalem, a new heaven and earth, with Jesus at its very center.

(You can watch the video at the beginning of this post.)

“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.”

Thanks be to the God who never forgets the thirsty, to the Spirit who dances over waters still, and to the Son who invites us to come to the waters, until the end of time itself, amen.