A sermon on Revelation 21: 1-6 by Nathan Nettleton
A video recording of the whole liturgy, including this sermon, is available here.

One of the complaints people sometimes make about Christian worship is that it is utopian and out of touch with the real world; that it is fantasy land stuff, a pretence that somehow the world is different from what we know it to be from our everyday experience. 

In the real world, things are a mess. People get ripped off and abused. Workers in many parts of the world slave for wages they can’t even feed their families on. Families seeking refuge from violence and oppression are locked up like criminals by so-called enlightened nations like ours. Major “civilised” nations bomb the hospitals of their neighbours, and cut off the flow of food and medicines, and the rest of the world turn its face away. Children are mistreated and abused in childcare centres. Ordinary people despair of being able to make a difference and try to build their own little fortified suburban oases to protect themselves from the horror of it all. And suicide rates continue to climb. That’s the real world. It’s a total shit-show.

But in worship, we paint a very different picture; a picture of a world where God is in control and holds the whole creation in loving hands. We pray and sing as though we were gathered around the throne of heaven and every creature was united in praise of one God. We wax lyrical about the reconciliation of heaven and earth, while outside our doors, the yawning chasm this side of reconciliation is a plague in the lives of most families, people groups, and nations. Where are the signs of reconciliation in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Congo, or even in the screaming household next door. So what are we doing here? Are we in active denial, or just naively oblivious utopians. The charge is not without basis and it deserves an answer.

Tonight’s reading from the Revelation to John is one of the all-time classic articulations of this allegedly out-of-touch utopian vision. John describes a vision of heaven and earth revamped and reconstructed. The contrast between the two is gone. A new holy city comes down from heaven to replace the old decayed one. The arrival of this city is depicted like a bride coming down the aisle. This is the marriage of heaven and earth. Heaven and earth become one flesh. No longer are they two, but one. The spiritual and material worlds are no longer separated and at war with one another – the reconciliation is complete. 

There will be no more death or pain or grief and every tear will be wiped away. And Christ speaks out about this vision saying, “It is done! I am the whole story, from the beginning to the end.” Or in other words, there is nothing in the story of the world that is not contained within the frame of Christ’s mission.

Set that vision alongside the struggles most ordinary people will continue to face when they wake up tomorrow morning. The end of death and pain and grief would certainly be a welcome development to Eliz and Ian today, but it feels a long way off being any kind of reality. The same could probably be said for Sylvia and Glennys, both in hospital.

You can understand why some people say we’ve got our head in the clouds. Perhaps even more so given that it is generally said that the best place to hear and makes sense of the book of Revelation is in worship. It is written from, of, and for the worshipping community. So are we just kidding ourselves? Is tonight’s gathering just a bit of escapist fantasy that ignores the realities of life? Or is there something going on that those criticising from outside are not comprehending?

One of the things that it is always important to remember when looking at the book of Revelation is that it was written from inside something akin to an offshore detention centre. It was written by and for people whose experience of suffering and persecution was right in your face, not that of the detached social observer. When they spoke of death and pain and grief and tears becoming obsolete, they knew exactly what death and pain and grief and tears they were talking about. They are not expressing a vague generalised vision of utopia, but a real passionate and even desperate hunger for liberation and a new life. 

With that in mind, it becomes apparent that it is not an escape from reality, but rather a full-throated protest against the present realities and an assertion that change is not only possible, but on the horizon. We are all familiar with the sort of whingeing protest that rails against the present circumstances but offers no vision of what ought to be. We’ve just watched a major political party self-destruct by criticising everything but offering no policies for how they’d improve things. The Revelation to John is almost the opposite of that; it trumpets the vision of what might be because the ugliness of what presently is is so in-your-face that it needs no further comment or description.

I remember a cartoon by Michael Leunig that was all about yearning, and it defined yearning as “a well tended hope which has ripened slowly into a sweet, sensuous prayer.” Our gatherings for worship might then be described as the communal nurturing of that hope and praying of that sweet, sensuous prayer. 

This is not the passive act of a people who are too timid or compliant to tackle the real problems. Rather it is the necessary life-blood of a people who know that if they are going to do battle with the beast, they need to be continuing to nourish the vision, or else they will eventually succumb to bitterness and despair. How many of those who marched in protest against “the system” in their youth are now, in mid-life, simply resigned to its dominance and protecting their slice of its cynical fruits?

In the last line of the reading, we heard the risen Jesus saying, “To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.” Even in that, you can hear that this vision is not about a denial of reality, but a yearning for a new reality. It is not pretending that there is no thirst now, but it is pointing to the ultimate thirst-quencher. 

When we gather here in worship, and proclaim these visions of a new heaven and a new earth, reconciled to one another; we are drinking from the spring to sustain us as we continue to do battle with the beast of empire who presently tears spirit from flesh. 

We gather to drink deeply from the spring so that in the midst of our various struggles we might not run dry and succumb to despair and disillusionment. We drink deeply so that we might find the strength to love others as Jesus has loved us, even in the face of hatred and hostility. We drink deeply so our hope might continue to hold firm and keep us vigilant. We drink deeply so that we might have the strength to keep on creating pockets of resistance; places and people and communities who are dancing to the new tune – the wedding music that heralds the marriage of heaven and earth. We lean into the vision for which we yearn, so that we might nurture the passion and courage to go on striving – in our working, our living, and our praying – to bring it into reality, starting with ourselves, but one day encompassing the whole earth. 

So let’s drink deeply. We’ll need it! Let’s drink deeply of the vision of the new creation as we continue to pray it into existence, so that might go out from here to live it into existence. I’ll get out of the way now, so that we might return to our worship and prayer and go on drinking it in.