New Beginnings - Rev 21: 1-7

When I was in high school I attended a church where a lot of attention was focused on the afterlife. The preacher often stretched out his arms as wide as they could go and say this is your life. Then he would draw his fingers tightly together and say this is your life on this earth. Everything else is your life in eternity.

But as often as the preacher waxed on about eternity, I had (and still have) more questions then answers. What will we do when we get to Heaven? Will we be reunited with love ones who went on before us? How will it be different from our life on earth? Will it be where the deepest desires of our hearts are fulfilled?

Many of us have questions about heaven and images of what we want Heaven to be like.  In today’s scripture passage we are told that the new Heaven and the new Earth exist together - that you do not have Heaven without Earth. Our eternal destiny in Heaven is living life with God, in the place where God is among mortals, dwelling with the people of God.

For the author of Revelations, this image of dwelling with God was all about new beginnings. A new heaven. A new earth. A new Jerusalem. Where all things are made new, including us. 

We are in need of this newness, and the entire story of the Bible is about making us, the Beloved of God, new again. When God first created human beings in the Divine image, they, and everything else created by God was pronounced to be good. Very good in fact. When the people of God strayed, prophets were sent to declare that God was doing a new thing. A radical thing. And when the people of God still missed the mark, still didn’t live into their image of being very good because of the sin present in their lives, God sent Jesus Christ to teach us how to live, to give his very life for us to be  made new, and offer us the renewed hope found in the resurrection.

Part of being human is longing to be made new. In the world outside of the church, people like the newness experienced with the start of a calendar year. The ability to resolve to do things a bit different. Inside of the church, we mark new life through the act of baptism - the symbolic act of entering into a new life, with a community of believers, cleansed from sin. 

The power of today’s scripture lesson is that it paints a picture for us of the ultimate newness, that is so different from what we currently experience. A place where death will be no more and crying and pain will no longer have power over us. A place where sin is finished, and God is the totality of our reality - the beginning and the end. A place of abundance and unending love. A place where we will see God, and be bound together in a renewed community.

Our questions about Heaven often come from a place of deep longing. Longing to know what awaits loved ones, like Roger, who have gone on before us. We want to know that his birthday into new life was for something greater then all of this. We want for him a place where his deepest hopes come true, and the promise of new beginnings if fulfilled, in the presence of God. And we want hope that we can join him in that place some day. We want comfort for him. And comfort for us. Now. 

Friends, God promises us that all things will be made new. God makes things new every day when we seek forgiveness for our sins, and receive it as an act of love from the Holy One. Roger lived into this reality of newness in this life. And now, even though his earthly body is gone, he continues to live into the promise of God making all things new. That is our Christian hope. 

While Roger has left this life to enter into the realm of no more tears, we live here, today, in a place where we mourn him. Where we remember what an impact his time on this earth has had on each of our lives. My hope and prayer is that as we mourn Roger in the days, weeks, and many months to come, that we will begin to let the Spirit speak to our hearts so we can find good news in the God of new beginnings. Amen.