A Vision of Hope
Easter V; May 6, 2007
Revelation 21:1-6
We usually read this text at funerals, when it is very appropriate. We need words of hope when we face death. For the sake of the one who has died, we are glad to hear that “mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” So often, the one who has died lived through long times of pain, difficult decline and even suffering before the end came. Death itself sometimes seems a relief, yet for their sake we are glad to hear of a new life where pain will be no more. And for us left to go on without them, we are glad to learn of a time when God “will wipe every tear from [our] eyes.” All through the Revelation of John the Lord God is a powerful figure, seated on a throne and commanding mighty armies; it’s a moment of tenderness to see God wiping tears from eyes.
I promise that some time I am going to teach on John’s Revelation, probably at our Sunday evening service after we finish the current series on social and theological positions of the Presbyterian Church. Revelation is a wonderful book, full of rich imagery and exciting symbolism; above all, it is a book of hope. People twist it into terrible knots to try to make it mean things it does not mean, using it to scare people, and so it has a bad reputation, but I find it a wonderful book of hope.
This text seems right for the season of Easter because we find hope in it as we face death. In my college class newsletter one of my schoolmates wrote, “Who are all those old people in the pictures in our class newsletter? Why does someone keep taking away the pictures of the kids I went to college with and replacing them with pictures of old people?” “See, I am making all things new,” says the voice from the throne. Sometimes we preempt that work by getting new things on our own: new knees, new hips, a new face, and other new parts. Someone said recently, “I have my own teeth; I know, because I paid for them myself.”
“I make all things new,” says the voice. The message of Christ raised from the dead that we say again and again during Easter – and the rest of the year too, when we are faithful – is hope for life for the dead. But that is not all. Young people, not particularly thinking about death, often need hope that they can matter, that they can make a difference, that their lives too can be made new. I loved the hopeful series that Robert Nelson did in the Omaha World-Herald of the man who had committed murder when young and under the demonic influence of his father and the way his life has been made new. He has learned better ways to respond to negative influences. For example, he does not jump to the conclusion that someone is trying to attack him, but uses the power of his mind to work through the truth. He is married and has a son, and works at a good job. His life has been made new. He is a vision of hope.
There is plenty of hope, and to spare, in the Gospel: hope in God’s purposes for us, hope in God’s care for us, hope that we can matter to someone, hope for meaningful work, hope for love, hope for life. As the song says:
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside![1]
But I find that my preoccupation lately has not been the need for hope for myself or for most of you. Rather, I worry about our nation and our world. Is it because I am in my 50s and growing cynical that I am more worried than I used to be? Or are things in fact more dangerous than they used to be?
When my generation were children and youth, we lived under the specter of atomic warfare. We remember fallout shelters, drills in school about what to do in case of nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, and the military doctrine appropriately called MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction. It was hammered into us that if either the United States or the Soviet Union launched a missile, it would herald the end of life on Earth.
Then the 1990s happened: the Iron Curtain fell, and we experienced the exhilaration of a world without that constant threat. We began to talk about a “peace dividend.” Now that we would no longer pour so many of our resources into weapons, there would be more money available to make life better for everyone. The national debt began to fall, and for the first time in decades the federal government was running a surplus. We anticipated a nation that would be free of national debt for the first time since the 1930s. The ratio of the federal debt to the Gross Domestic Product declined all through the 1990s, bottoming out at less than 58% in 2001; it is now approaching 70% (Steve McGourty, “United States National Debt (1938 to present),” at www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt). What happened to our peace dividend?
We suffered through the terrible attacks of September 11, 2001, and one of the results was that we gained remarkable international good-will. During my lifetime, peoples of other nations feared us; for the first time I could remember, instead they cared about us. Throughout the world, people said, “Today we are all Americans.” The unprovoked terror against our land generated sympathy for us around the globe. What happened to that good will?
While much of what we feared of international terrorism was declining, a new shadow arose. ETA was backing off from its attacks in Spain; the IRA and the Protestant paramilitaries were finding means other than violence in Northern Ireland. But the Second Intifada erupted in Palestine and al-Qaeda began its public campaign of terror.
In other words, as you have heard before, “the future isn’t what it used to be.” When you feel loved and connected, part of a family of faith that worships together and looks out for each other, you can have hope for yourself. But what about our world?
Once again, John’s vision gives hope, not just for ourselves but for our world. Two things in particular do that: something he sees and something he hears. First, he sees “a new heaven and a new earth.” “A new earth.” It is clear that the will of God is not to destroy the world, but to remake the world. It is not only heaven that is new, but earth: while we know that you and I cannot bring perfect peace, harmony and prosperity to earth, yet the vision of the new earth that God is making gives us hope for the work of God. John’s Revelation is not, I am convinced, a vision of the “end of the world;” it is a vision of the conflict between good and evil as seen from the point of view of Heaven. That means that the new earth that God is making is the way God sees things now, the work God is doing now. God is committed to making a new earth and we have hope in that commitment and we have a purpose in being part of that work.
Then, John hears a voice that says, “See, I am making all things new.” “I am making (not “will make”) all things (not just “some things”) new.” It may be difficult now and you and I – especially when we get past 50 – may be tempted to despair, but God is making all things new. Here’s a hopeful sign. It feels as though our society is growing increasingly violent: even when we do not have a terrible calamity such as the Virginia Tech shootings we have the usual daily news of murder and mayhem. And yet the rate of violent crime in the United States per 100,000 inhabitants has been declining since 1991 and in 2005 it was the lowest it has been since 1974 (www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm).
As a Calvinist, I have a strong sense of the reality of human sin and I do not believe in the paradise on earth of utopian optimism. But also as a Calvinist, I rely strongly on the promises of God in Scripture and in the vision of hope that John gives us in his Revelation. “See, I am making all things new,” is the promise. When I am tempted to despair for our world, I will hold fast to the promise; you hold fast, too.
We praise you, our God, for the vision of hope you have given through your servant John. Make us attentive to your promises and faithful in living them. In Jesus Christ, amen.
Robert A. Keefer
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Clarinda, Iowa
[1] Thomas Obediah Chisholm, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” (1923) third verse. Presbyterian Hymnal (1990) #276.