Revelation to John: A New Creation, Indeed

Pastor Leta Arndt Behrens

Sermon Scripture: 

REVELATION 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

¹²“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. ¹³I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
¹⁴Blessed 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.
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.”
¹⁷The 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.
²⁰The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
²¹The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

JOHN 17:20-26

[Jesus prayed:] ²⁰“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
²⁵“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Revelation to John: To Whom Do You Belong?

Pastor Michael Stadtmueller

Sermon Scripture:

REVELATION 21:10, 22-22:5

¹⁰And in the spirit [one of the angels] carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.
²²I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. ²³And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. ²⁵Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. ²⁶People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. ²⁷But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
^22:1Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ²through 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. ³Nothing 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; ⁴they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵And 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.

JOHN 14:23-29

²³Jesus answered [Judas (not Iscariot),] “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.
²⁵“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. ²⁶But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. ²⁷Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. ²⁸You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. ²⁹And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.”

Revelation to John: Threat and Promise in Revelation

Pastor Leta Arndt Behrens

Sermon Scripture:

REVELATION 21:1-6

¹I 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. ²And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
⁴he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”
⁵And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ⁶Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”

JOHN 13:31-35

³¹When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³²If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. ³³Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Sermon Text:

Last week you heard from Revelation 7 and now this week we are already to chapter 21! This was not so much our choosing but how the lectionary writers fill us in on what the focus of Revelation and the gospel of John mean together today. But,  It does feel a bit like cheating….

Maybe skipping to this chapter is not so much cheating as it is checking in…  Have you ever done that? Skipped ahead to the end of the book and read the end or watched the last show of a season  just to make sure that it would be ok and then you could handle the rest of the story? I remember those Choose your own adventure books as a kid. How I would have to read all the choices and then decide based on which one brought me to the best end. It wasn’t so much choose your own adventure as choose the most comfortable outcome in order to avoid all feelings of distress, confusion, or a sense of mystery and surprise.

If the book of Revelation was a choose your own adventure, this chapter is the one that begins to bring it all together. It’s not the very end and it certainly doesn’t come all together in the most comfortable or non mysterious way, but it is coming together in a way that shows us what all the other chapters have been culminating towards and what the coming promise of an end will be.

Notice that word promise. I chose it on purpose. It is a promise, not a prediction. Thanks to the co-opting of scripture by fictional books such as left behind or groups who claim to know the end times exact timeline we have  in our heads that Revelation and other prophetic writing in scripture are all about prediction. Well they are not. Prophecy and apocalyptic writing are not about predicting the future. They are about looking at the present and revealing what a trajectory might hold or an image of truth that needs to be shared. Prophecy is not about the end, it’s about the middle. It’s about what the people are living through now, the choices they have to make, the tough indictments and love they need to hear and always, always the promise that there is hope, there is mystery, there is more than we can see. Prophecy is vision, which is seeing what God is trying to show us.

John, the letter writer, the pastor like person who loved and cared for his people, his congregations, also wanted them to remember who they are and whose they are. In this letter he opens up the imagination. He tells a story in a way that can be remembered. He looks towards a future and pushes his people towards it. He does this to speak truth to power and to speak truth into their reality. The churches and people of the Revelation letters are struggling to know when Jesus will come back because they are struggling to know how to navigate their daily life.  They are struggling to to deal with the political authorities that are in direct conflict with their own faith and truth. They are struggling to know what parts of their traditions of religion to hold to and what parts to let go. They are struggling with their role in their world and with how and when to use their voices. And so, as people do, they struggle and they get stuck. They are stuck in their rules. Stuck in their apathy. Stuck in keeping their heads down and their hearts guarded and their feet on solid ground. And what John knows in the depths of his soul, is that God’s vision for us, for creation, for eternity is so much more than that. It’s about more than getting through, it’s about living and in this love comes the love that is promised by God. and God can see it. God can see people living together in a diverse holy city, God can see creation and humanity in harmony, God can see tears wiped away forever and refreshing water and love that encompasses all things. A new creation that brings God to us in comfort, in peace, in grace.

That is why John writes this letter- because he wants them to take another step forward, he wants them to get up, he wants them to use their voices, he wants them to  remember the promise of God that brings them mystery and hope in the first place. And I think if John was writing this letter to us as a congregation and individuals today, he would want us to hear the same things and be motivated to embrace the vision of new creation in our midst. Where are our hearts guarded and being called to open? Where are our feet frozen and being asked to move? Where are our voices silent and being asked to open loudly or more often or in a new way? In what parts of our lives do we need to remember the promise of God to be with us in the hard stuff and to bring us through to wholeness of a transformation and new creation. The new heaven and the new earth are not places that rise up from the destruction of the old, they are places that are transformed through the grace and mercy of God coming to us.

This is our chance to check in and remember that we know the end just as we know the beginning. God’s promise and vision for us is here and now. We can use our voices as a church, as a community, as individuals. To speak the truth about revelation, that it is not a story of prediction but a story of hope and remembrance. To speak the truth to power, to stand up for the marginalized, the victims, the ones in our world who should not be pushed down but lifted up to stand. We are in the middle of God’s story and the vision for God’s people is in the command that Jesus gives before he goes to the cross; to love one another. In the middle of sticky political situations to stand up for the love of one another. In the middle of family quarrels and tough decisions and life choices that take us one path or another, to love one another. Sometimes this love is cookies and casseroles and hugs and sometimes this love is knowing when to write a senator or learning more about protecting our planet or taking a chance to say no to something if it’s not right, even if it is legal and sign the petition or go to the ones who are victims of injustice and hear their story.

This kind of love will not leave us stuck in apathy or fear. This kind of love is from God and it is the promised to be in you and among you. This kind of love is God and this kind of love from the beginning, middle and end,  brings us into the fullness of the vision and promise of God.

Revelation to John: God’s Power Unleashed

Pastor Michael Stadtmueller

Sermon Scripture: John 10:22-30

²²At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. ²⁴So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” ²⁵Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; ²⁶but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. ²⁷My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. ³⁰The Father and I are one.”

Revelation to John: Casting Down Their Crowns

Robin Ferree

Sermon Scripture: JOHN 12:1-8

¹After [he appeared to his followers in Jerusalem,] Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. ²Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. ³Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
⁴Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. ⁵Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” ⁶He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. ⁷That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. ⁸But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
⁹When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. ¹⁰Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” ¹¹So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. ¹²Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. ¹³Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
¹⁵When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” ¹⁷He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” ¹⁹(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Revelation to John: Who is Christ? Who are We?

Pastor Michael Stadtmueller

Sermon Scripture: REVELATION 1:9-2:7

⁹I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. ¹⁰I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet ¹¹saying, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”
¹²Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, ¹³and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. ¹⁴His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, ¹⁵his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. ¹⁶In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.
¹⁷When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, ¹⁸and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. ¹⁹Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this. ²⁰As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

¹To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands:
²I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. ³I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. ⁴But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. ⁵Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. ⁶Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. ⁷Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.