In our current Easter seasons’ Sunday readings (Year C), the Book of Revelation appears six times. (It also appears at the Chrism Mass at the Cathedral on Holy Thursday.) Then Revelation will disappear for a couple of years till it comes around again in 2016. Since we seldom we get a chance to hear from Revelation, I have been reflecting, at least in part, on these readings for several weeks now.
I wonder how many of us pick up Revelation for private devotional reading? I rarely do. But I do remember a few men who read it regularly. They were inmates at San Quentin prison near San Francisco. I was surprised when I first discovered this. But it stands to reason that they would find comfort in this mysterious book of visions. We might find its hyperbolic language surreal, confusing and even outrageous. But those inmates I knew in East Block, maximum-security, found that Revelation suited them very well. Images we might describe as grotesque, or just plain weird, somehow spoke of hope and endurance to those men locked up in their cages 23 hours a day.
Revelation’ s vision of the end time helped the locked-down inmates focus on a future time of release. They hoped that would be in their own lifetime, but some weren’t getting out, so the visions of “a new heaven and a new earth” promised to them by John, brought them comfort and a hope of eventual release from their life of duress.
I don’t want to give you the impression that San Quentin was occupied by 5000 Bible readers. Far from it. As I said, “a few men” did have Bibles and found comfort in God’s Word, especially in Revelation. Which was also the case for the early Christians who first heard it. They were the few who clung to their faith as they struggled to hold together as a community surrounded by an often hostile world. Even the book’s author was under stress, as he says, “I, John, your brother, who share with you the distress, the kingdom and the endurance we have in Jesus, found myself on the island called Patmos because I proclaimed God’s word and gave testimony to Jesus”(1:9). So, the author is living in exile, suffering in a prison of sorts, because he “gave testimony to Jesus.”
We don’t have to be locked up or in exile to be readers of the Book of Revelation, to hear and be inspired by God’s Word — and to be challenged to courageously live the faith we profess in church each Sunday.
If we hadn’t noticed it previously, today’s selection makes clear that Revelation is meant to console those experiencing persecution for their faith. Flowing through Revelation is the assurance that, despite the apparent victories of evil in our world, God is sovereign and just and will overcome evil in the end and reward the just who have persevered and lived faithful lives. Revelation speaks to those who look to God for comfort; perhaps a comfort that only God can give. In some ways it is a prophetic book urging us to hear the Word of God and stay faithful to the covenant God has made with us in Christ.
Until Pentecost we will be hearing from Revelation. Today’s passage is towards the end of the book, one of the often-quoted visions, stirring hope and expectation in those who first heard it — and now again for us. This vision of the new Jerusalem is the seventh and final in a series about the last things. The previous passage (20:11-15) describes the end of the old creation: God is starting afresh with “a new heaven and a new earth.” We aren’t to look into outer space for this new world, it will happen here, close to us.
The message we hear proclaimed is the final triumph of God’s goodness. Imagine how the suffering Christians were buoyed up; comforted to hear that they would not be forgotten in their suffering. God had remembered them and was with them. Even more: God was dwelling within them. What power could ever separate them from God?
Because of the persecution of Domitian (81-96) Jews and Jewish Christians were fleeing from Asia. They would be scattered, vulnerable and confused. Christians, who expressed their faith in Jesus as Messiah, were no longer affiliated with their former Jewish brothers and sisters. They were becoming a separate community of believers — small and vulnerable. The apostles were dead and in the new world and harsh realities of their lives, Christians must have felt very much on their own.
What they did have, John was telling them, was a new Jerusalem. God our Creator, by the death and resurrection of Jesus, has recreated us. The old, tired and sinful has no more sway over us. Why was “the sea no more?” Because the sea represented chaos and the source of sin from which came the dragon to pursue humans. Thus, all that is evil and drags humans down, will be gone. For a long-suffering community, or an individual, today’s passage is not just lovely poetry, but speaks a conviction: God will ultimately triumph over evil. As John puts it, “Behold I make all things new.” He holds out the promise that pain will end, persecution will be no more and a new age will begin. There will be no more tears, “no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.” What has been lost because of sin is made new by the God who dwells in our midst.
The Temple in Jerusalem was the center of Jewish worship. The massive and beautiful Temple was the symbol of God’s permanent covenant with the people. The inner sanctuary, the holy of holies, was where God’s glory was found on earth. But did you notice that the Temple, so central in the old Jerusalem, is not mentioned in the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven? Later, John will say, “I saw no temple in the city, for its Temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” (21:22). Instead of the old locus of worship in the Temple, God will dwell in our midst. The prophets had promised this (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 37:27-28). God would be victorious over evil and be an abiding presence which no sin, affliction or power can take away.
Paul has told us that the new Jerusalem is the church (Galatians 4:26). God is not some impersonal power from on high, but dwells with us eternally. It is God’s intimate presence with us now that comforts us and wipes away our tears of loneliness or feelings of abandonment. Death no longer has sway over our lives for the risen Christ has robbed it of its power to intimidate us.
We can have trust in what John says to us because he is not speaking on his own, his words have the authority of God to back them up. He tells us that he heard this message from Christ himself (1:11) and by a voice from heaven (14:13). He claims his message is true because it has God as its source.