“Coming home”
Written By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Revelation 21:1-8 (Forward, p. 18) CEV p. 1312
Years ago, I gave a Christmas meditation at some festive and holiday occasion on the theme of that old holiday favourite, ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ and talked about memories of long, perilous, sometimes harrowing and risky trips from Edmonton or elsewhere, just to be with the family over the holiday. Of course, ‘home’ means, or should mean, far more than just a physical location—or the presence of one’s family. It should also denote a sense of peace and belonging, and a sense of warmth and tranquility, a feeling of being known and loved and valued and accepted for who you are. But, alas, that is not always present.
What St. John the Seer describes here in today’s passage is something different than the sense of ‘home’ that we often experience here on earth. There are several very evocative images that he uses:
a) The New Jerusalem: in spite of the often glowing and idyllic imagery used to describe Zion in the Psalms, Jerusalem was not always a place ‘at peace with itself.’ Indeed, as the sometimes inaccurate television documentary, “Jerusalem: City of Faith & Fury”, describes so well, it has often been the place of great conflict and turmoil. (And so it remains, to this very day.)
So the image of a different kind of Jerusalem, a ‘new Jerusalem’
where peace and justice reign is extremely compelling. It mirrors the kind of world that all of us yearn for and seek to be part of.
b) The royal wedding: I have never been able to adequately get a hold of just how splendid, how glorious, such an affair was in Biblical times, but I can certainly guess. I have often viewed the weddings of the British royal family, so I cannot imagine that the Biblical ones, or the one envisioned here, were any less glorious or splendid. And to
think, that we, you and I, are part of it! We are that gorgeous bride,
and our bridegroom, Jesus Christ, is up front eagerly awaiting our
arrival.
c) Our new home: God now makes His home with us, reversing the separation and partition that goes all the way back to the Fall. We have not been restored to Him and He to us, and we now enjoy that intimacy that once was lost. God is ‘at home’ with us and we with Him, for we, you and I, are His beloved people, family.
d) A new dynamic: where Christ is, and where Christ reigns, the curse of the Fall is broken in yet another way. There is no more sickness or death, no more suffering or pain, nor more tears or sorrow. Everything is made new, everything restored to its original intent and state. These are His gifts for those willing to ‘come home’ to be with Him, to come to Him as those that are thirsty for such things and desiring to live His kind of life. This ‘coming home’ will be a home unlike anything that any of us have ever known before. Amen.
Forward notes: “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” (verse 1).
“A friend of mine once told me that Revelation was the first book of the Bible that she read. To this day, she has never really understood its meaning or why it is included in the Bible. I was in that camp too for a long time.
“Revelation was also the first book I read in its entirety. My reason: When I was a youngster, my favorite rock band was the Beatles. I collected all of their music and read whatever articles and books that were published about them. One of the articles compared the four Beatles to the four riders of the apocalypse, which sparked my curiosity. I ended up reading all of Revelation. It was scary stuff.
“Through the years, I have learned more about the book and read the various scholarly interpretations. Yet even with years of study, I still ponder what Revelation is trying to tell us about the fight between good and evil. I know that this book of scripture still has much to teach me, and my learning continues.”
Moving Forward: “Have you ever struggled to understand a passage or book of scripture? What tools helped you in that learning process?”
Some concluding thoughts: When it comes to much of modern scholarship, or even scholarship from the past, concerning the Book of Revelation, I treat almost all of it with a certain amount of hesitancy and skepticism. The book addressed an audience and a context that is entirely unlike our own. We do not face the systemic oppression and persecution that its audience knew constantly, on a daily basis. Perhaps this is why the marginalized and impoverished base communities of Latin America are sometimes more in touch with its message than we are. But not only that: the book uses images & symbols, shared understandings, perspectives & experiences, that are not our own, and which are, in many instances, quite foreign to us. For instance, what does a white stone or a new name, mean to any of us? So perhaps what is most important—and this goes for all Scripture, not just this one—is that we need to get behind their eyes, into their thoughts and experiences, and begin to see and experience reality as they did. And, if it means that we can get a handle on their images & symbols & experiences, all the better. Even so, there is one overall message from the Book of Revelation that we can ‘get’, regardless of not being able to fathom or understand the minutiae. It is summed up by what an old farmer who was being derided by a skeptic who ridiculed him for reading that strange book. “I have read it to the end,” said the farmer, “and though I do not understand everything about it, I do know two things without question, ‘God wins and so do we.’” Maybe that is what we most need to take away from it
