River Road Church Baptist

November 2, 2003

Dr. Cecil E. Sherman

“I Make All Things New”

Revelation 21:1-6a

Today is All Saints Sunday. Ever since the 4 th century the Christian church has commemorated this day. It’s a day where we remember the faithful departed from our midst and it’s a day that looks forward to another time and place when we will be joined to them. Actually, there is a sense in which today, we look forward more than backward. For there is always around this place a theology of tomorrow, of heaven, of eternity, and immortality. I recall when this didn’t mean a whole lot to me. I was in my thirties. My grandfather had grown old and sick. I was working in Dallas, he was in the hospital in Fort Worth, and in the course of my work I passed through Fort Worth and went to Harris Hospital and saw my old grandfather in his last illness. He was together. He looked at me and he said, “Cecil, you’ve been to school. I didn’t get to go to school very much. I think the next stop for me is heaven. Would you tell me all you know about heaven?” Truthfully, I was not ready for my grandfather’s question. I was not ready to give an answer, for then I was not of an age when I could imagine that this would ever apply. I focused very much on the present, the now of what can we do in our Christian life. Not thinking very much at all about immortality. I gave him a half-thought answer. I’m glad it’s not recorded.

But the lesson today takes us into a text that in a strange way gets me in touch with my grandfather’s question: “tell me about heaven?” Now of course in preaching on this subject I’m going to venture into shadows. That’s because now we see through a glass darkly. But we do have some answers deep in the Christian faith, very deep in the Christian faith, not at the edge. Right at the center is an idea about life. In fact, Jesus described taking on his ways as eternal life. And again and again he talked about a later time. One time to steady his disciples he said, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also.” So it’s all around. Easter is on this subject. It is deep in the New Testament, layered in.

Our text is from John’s vision on Patmos, though in this world he had a vision of another and here’s what he saw. In the brief text from Revelation 21, John saw a time and place when God would come near. We live a good bit of our lives at some distance from God and when God does come near, we count it an epiphany, an unusual time, a blessedness. This text describes when God makes his home with us, is near to us all the while.

I remember reading Martin Marty’s “A Cry of Absence.” A little book he put together after the death of his first wife. It’s sort of a commentary of Psalm 22. He said, “Though I was a minister, I was not prepared for the silence, the absence,” so he called the book “A Cry of Absence.” Where’s God? I’m hurting, where’s God? John says there will come a time when nobody will ask that question. Do you have any questions for God? Well if you don’t, you’ve not lived very long. Of course you’ve got questions for God; all of us have questions. Why? Job’s not the only question in the Bible. The Bible is full of questions, because life is full of questions. That’s why the Bible is full of questions. It’s an amazing thing that we miss some ideas that are bad but we don’t see them. Jesus tells a story about a god-figure who gives people talents and goes away and you’re going to be measured on what you did in the absence of God. And then God reappears and says, “What did you do with the time, with the talents?” But you had to do it in the absence. There will come a time when we’re in his presence and this idea is all through the Bible – the Tabernacle is about is God near? The temple – where’s God? The argument about is God worshipped here or there? Where is God? The text says there will come a time when God comes near.

The second idea in the text – sorrow and pain will be gone. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Mourning, crying and pain will be no more.” Aging, no matter how decently you’ve done life can bring some sad, sad times. Sickness, some diseases are cruel, ever so cruel. Often I take meal on the evening with my wife on the second floor of the healthcare unit at West Minster Canterbury. Most of the people there are Alzheimer’s. There’s a physician there who has Parkinson’s. I’ve watched him for several months. That’s a mean disease. For seven months, I’ve been watching those people with Alzheimer’s. They don’t stay the same. You see them a couple of times, it may look that way to you, but they’re changing. That’s a hard disease. That’s not the only one. Lots of things are hard.

There will come a time when that sort of thing won’t happen anymore, is what the text says. You say, well that’s children’s talk. No, that’s church talk. We see it by faith, believing that the things that are promised will come to pass. Sad things won’t be here anymore and finally, he even says death won’t be here anymore. He says it’s temporary. John said, “It will be no more.” Paul said, “When this perishable body puts on imperishability, this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled, death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death is your victory. Where, O death is your sting. The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The one time that Paul says the last enemy to be conquered is death, it’s hard to believe. Lots of things in the Bible are hard to believe. It’s there; it says this stuff will end. Morticians will be out of work. Cemeteries won’t dot the landscape. Death will be no more. Well, that’s what the text says in short form. But I didn’t want to leave this subject because I’ll not be back to it for a while. What does the larger text say, not just a snippet from Revelation?

Quickly, three ideas…heaven is reunion . Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you. If I go I’ll come again and we’ll be together again.” The country song about ‘Will the circle be unbroken?’ has a Bible base. Not very good music, but there’s some theology in there. It says we’re going to get together again. It’s a reunion. That ought to speak to some of you whose parents are on the other side. To a widow, a widower, some of you have lost children. This ought to say something to you. There’s a reunion, there’s a time when the sadness is over and the wonderful time of meeting again dear ones.

Second idea deep in the New Testament is the idea of restoration . Heaven is putting things broken, back together again. “I make all things new.” It’s a wonderful idea if you’re sick. That’s a wonderful idea if you’re trapped in a system that you can’t get out of. I make all things new. He describes a new Jerusalem. The old one’s broken. In fact, when he had this vision, Jerusalem was rubble, literally rubble. The Romans had destroyed it about 70 A.D., this is written 25-30 years later. The new Jerusalem; well if there is a Jerusalem it had to be a new one. But he’s talking about a city that’s beyond rebuilding. He’s talking about a city that St. Augustine would pick up on 300 years later and write a classic called, ‘The City of God.” I’m talking about another time and place when things will be restored. You see, Eden’s damage is pervasive. Theology writes with a broad brush. Eden’s damage will be undone.

The last idea…heaven is reward . Some people treat it as almost indecent to talk about rewards. But the New Testament does. In fact the New Testament has some stuff in it about rewards that is unpopular theology. Paul doesn’t talk about hell, but Jesus does. I’m wishy washy on hell. Sometimes I have questions about hell. How could a good God punish indefinitely? How could punishment be without redemptive purpose and an end? And is not the forgiveness of God all encompassing eventually? There are questions you’ve thought of, but haven’t you also thought that some things are so enormously wrong until someway they have to be settled out? If God is good, and that’s the eternal assumption, if God is good, then some people are generously due reward and what are you going to do with some people who by our lights, and we don’t see things as clearly as we ought, but by our lights, are so egregiously wrong? And then you see I think that a just God has to posit a hell to be just or is God at war at himself between mercy and judgment? Of course that ones going to dangle. But there is a beauty in people. There is a kindness that is broad.

How many of you once carried a baby and people you never saw were nice to you? Dot said, “When I had three six-month infants on my arm people let me go to the front of the line at the Delta counter.” Now friends, that means there is a God. That’s amazing! But I want to tell you, in Dot’s deterioration, people befriended me who didn’t know me at all. There is a kindness. There is a care. That’s going to be rewarded, not by me, but by one larger and by a reward that will speak for time and eternity.

Heaven is reward. That’s what we’re talking about on All Saints Day. All of these died in the faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and followers on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God and indeed he has prepared a city for them. If we are successors to the saints we have a place to that city and we will see them again. It takes some faith. That’s what church is about . . . helping you to believe.

CES; Lisa King, mt