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Dr. George A. Purnell
May 2, 2010
“A Brave New World”
Revelation 21:1-6
One of my all time favorite movies is the 1997 version of Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. (Diane says I watch this movie so often because I am enamored with Kate Winslet.)
Since I have watched the movie several times, its scenes are familiar to me. When I read today’s text, there is a particular scene that comes to mind. It is near the end of the movie, when Titanic is sinking. As the ship’s bow is filling with water, the stern rises up out of the water. On deck, people were scrambling towards the stern or jumping overboard. As the stern rose into the air everything unsecured crashed down towards the water. Shortly afterwards, the stress on the hull caused Titanic to break apart. The bow went under. The stern righted itself, and the ship dove downward, disappearing beneath the surface and heading toward the bottom of the ocean.
This is a chaotic scene. People are panicked. They are confused and afraid. The ship only has enough emergency lifeboats to evacuate half the passengers aboard, and the rush to secure a place on one of these is crushing.
In the midst of this chaos, we see a man reading the opening words in our text: “Then I 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.”
Every time I hear these verses read, I get goose bumps. I want them read at my own funeral (and I want Hymn of Promise to be sung), because this prophetic vision lifts our sights above and beyond the chaos of the present day; to the day when God will reside with us, and all things will be made new...
“Then I 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.”
Why does the writer add the particular that the sea would not have a place in the new heaven and the new earth?
The sea was a common symbol for chaos and destruction in ancient cultures. Because dry land was surrounded by the sea, the world humans occupied could only be protected by the gods conquering the sea and securing dry land. Israel borrowed from the traditions of other cultures, particularly from her Babylonian captors. The Babylonian account of creation sees Marduk, their chief god, involved in a battle with the goddess of the sea, a dragon named Tiamat. Marduk finally kills the sea dragon, and then posts guards to ensure that the sea does not escape its boundaries again.
From its very opening, the Hebrew Bible reveals a worldview similar to that shared by neighboring cultures regarding the sea:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters…And God said, ‘Let the waters be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry land Earth and the waters…he called Seas. (Genesis 1:1-2, 9-10)
And from Genesis to this vision in the Revelation, the Bible depicts God conquering the sea, prevailing over the evil forces that reside in the sea, and setting the boundaries beyond which the sea cannot pass. (The only exception of God not setting boundaries, of course, was the Flood that only Noah and the inhabitants of the ark survived.)
A few passages can show the importance of this theme in the Bible:
“The first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more…” we read today. The man reading this as the Titanic is about to sink is offering a comforting word: Where the passengers are headed, there will be no more sea.
Revelation was written to encourage Christians who were being viciously persecuted by the Roman emperor Domitian at the end of the first century. Born in the agony of human suffering, this vision was vital to the hope of a new and restored creation. If this day was coming, then nothing in this life could begin to compare with what was ahead for believers. So…hold on…keep the faith…be of good courage…
“And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God...”
To understand the implications of a ‘new Jerusalem’ for a first century Christian, we must recall the importance of the city of Jerusalem for first century Jews and Christians. Jerusalem was Israel’s capital and the resting place for the ark. It was the city where Solomon built his Temple. It was the place where God was uniquely present.
At the time of the writing of Revelation, near the end of the first century, Jerusalem lay in ruins, destroyed in the early 70’s AD.
“And 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; he will wipe away 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.’”
The combined hope of a new Jerusalem and the coming of God to live here with us in a new order was a vision that inspired and encouraged persecuted Christians in the first century to continue to believe and witness. They were being given a glance at life beyond tribulation, even beyond history, to the city of God where they would realize their destiny.
One commentator I consulted when preparing today’s sermon wrote:
“In the Bible, there are two visions of the perfect society. You might call them Alpha and Omega. The Alpha vision is the Garden of Eden, described in the first book, the Book of Genesis. The Omega version is the New Jerusalem, the holy city, described in the last book, the Book of Revelation.”
He goes on to observe that the first perfect society was freshly created. Sin has not been introduced yet. There is no hatred or greed, no poverty or murder. It was totally innocent.
The new Jerusalem is a perfect society too, but it is not freshly created and born of innocence. Rather, it is a society that appears on the forgiven side of human experience. It is a society that has known the oppression of the many by the few…it has known slavery…it has known hatred and violence…it has known wars…it has known droughts and famines…it has known corruption and starvation of the soul…
“And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new’”…God does not say here, at the end of the first creation,that God is making all new things, which would imply the creation of something totally different. Instead, God says that God is making all things new, which implies a renewal of what already is.
Will this happen? Will the day arrive when infants no longer starve as their mothers watch? Will the day arrive when adolescents no longer die in street gang violence or be snatched from the streets in their homelands and transported to a new country and trafficked as sex slaves? Will the day arrive when young adults no longer die in wars not of their own making, and elderly adults die impoverished and alone and forgotten?
“Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ Then 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.”
God says – Yes! As we pray so frequently without giving the words much thought – the Kingdom of God will come, and God’s will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven – this day will come when God comes down to dwell here with us in a brave new world. Amen.
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