August 30th, 2020 - Revelation 21 Sermon at Grace-Benson and Grace-Vail. Pastor Rose. The bride city vision from Revelation 21 is peaceful and serene. It’d be easy to forget that it comes at the end of a visionary journey which God took John on; and most of those visions were not peaceful and serene; but shocking, horrifying, violent, and destructive. God showed John glimpses of what Satan and his forces, what sinful people and groups of people are capable of doing to one another. Terrifying things have happened, and will continue to happen until Jesus comes again. Yet John was also shown Jesus’ ability to overcome all the evil, and to share his victory with all who are joined to him through faith. Near the end of his visionary journey, he got a glimpse of a wedding scene; and a perfect place to live. The vision you heard about in Revelation 21 is in many ways a summary of all Jesus desires to be yours in the future. All the difficult, terrifying, scary moments that you go through, that you hear about; all in some way can play a role in delivering you to a moment described in this bride-city vision. Let’s 3 questions about this bride-city vision. Why do we need a vision like this? How do we receive a vision like this? What do we get because of a vision like this? Why we need it. How we get it. What we get. First, why do we need a vision like this? The search for a bride, and the search for a home. These two desires are such a natural part of human experience. We all want a relationship as deep as meaningful and hope-filled as the relationship between a bride and her groom on a wedding day. In most, though not all of us, a strong desire to find the suitable helper takes up a lot of mental and emotional energy, produces a mixture of hopefulness and anxiety, and for many of us, our wedding days still are one of the most meaningful days of our lives, and have brought both heart-filling and heart-hurting ever since, like almost nothing else. Why is this? Vision tells us that God shares this kind of desire. “I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” The Lamb, God himself, has a desire for a bride. That means that our natural desire for a bride, for a partner, for a deep relationship of closeness and intimacy actually is something God has. We have it because he had it first. The Lamb has a bride. That’s where the instinctual search for a bride comes from. We are image bearers of God. Along with the search for a bride, the search for a home is a natural draw to us. We want a living space where everything has its place, where our important relationship can blossom. As social beings, we desire the conveniences of having other people and business and culture around us. We were designed to live in groups and to have regular social interaction with other people, and with God himself. Yet, we all recognize that certain parts of cities are undesirable, too much crime, too many neighbors who cause problems, too much traffic and inconvenience. There is this paradox when it comes to cities; they keep growing because of the opportunities they afford, but they continue to face challenge after challenge and problem after problem. We all want a place to live where the best of the city exists without all the worst. This vision shows us a perfect city. “The Holy city, Jerusalem.” This city is designated for unity with God, service to him, special use according to his desires of usage. To be used only as God directs and desires. This city is called Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem? That’s the place where David once established his throne, when the earthly nation of Israel came as close to as any in our fallen world to a place where people dwelled with God. In Jerusalem Solomon built the beautiful and extravagant temple in which God’s presence visible dwelt, and in which people came to interact with God in the mode that he allowed at the time. Jerusalem was the city where people and God interacted, and where a community of people sought God. Though the Old Testament Jerusalem didn’t stay perfect, this vision presents a beautiful, eternal city.
Notice that the bride-city is uninhabited. There are no people in the city when John sees it. Can you imagine a city planner saying, “We’re going to build a city, and no one will live in it until it is completely finished,”? That would never work. There wouldn’t be the budget to make that happen. In our world, cities are built by people, many of whom live there. They get built in stages, and along with each stage of building, new occupants have to move in so that more money, a greater economy can be built up before the rest of the city gets developed. Revenue needs to be built up and used to support the ongoing building of a city. God does city building in a completely different way. God builds the city first, and allows it to be inhabited later. It’s a lot like the first 5 days of creation. Only after he put everything in place did he bring in people to occupy his world. For the bride city, God is waiting to give this city to people who are ready to live there without ruining it. He is waiting til you get remade into a kind of person who can enjoy it. He’s waiting for the physical resurrection of you and everyone else who trusts in him. Then the city will be populated. Then the bride will be joined to her husband. Then this city will come down out of the heavens, out of the very atmosphere itself. Made by God, provided by him, freely given to those who are a part of the Christian community who collectively make up the inhabitants of the bride-city of the Lamb. The building budget for this city does not require a human based economy or currency. This building is built on the purchase power of the blood of the lamb of God. This gets into the second point. How do we receive a vision like this. Notice that the angel that led John to see this vision is called, “one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues.” I’ll give a quick summary of the seven bowls of wrath - human sores; seas and rivers turn to blood, burning heat, followed by darkness, a locust army. God is showing that when people and groups of people say for long enough, “we don’t need you God, we don’t want you God;” he reserves the right to allow them to see what life is like without him. The worst slices of human history are only small previews of the eternal pain, loneliness, and violence which will be endured by many who have no desire to live in God’s bride-city. All these things are allowed by God because he is the giver of all that is good, and in his absence, there is nothing good, only nightmarish dangers. The truth is, we all deserve to live in a place of horror because we often choose to build our own cities rather than seeking the city of God. We have earned cities of destruction and relationships of ruin. We often prefer life to be apart from God, lived on our terms, not his. And yet the angel who showed John the horrible plagues was also able to show him a vision of startling beauty and goodness. How can that be? We could only receive the beautiful bride-city vision if someone else were willing to face the nightmare of life apart from God in our place. And Jesus was willing to be treated like a rejected bride. Jesus was willing to go the city of Jerusalem so its inhabitants could lead him to death by crucifixion. John’s visionary journey is only is possible because Jesus not only envisioned but actually experienced the opposite. The beautiful bride-city can be yours only because Jesus endured the terrible cross. Not only did he die and rise to establish this bride-city, but Jesus also freely gives you a place in his city. Notice how John received this vision. John was “carried away in spirit to a great and high mountain, and shown the vision.” God still commands his angels, and they play a role in informing us about what God wants us to see. How does God get you in positions to see what he wants you to see? What high mountains does he take you to? What low valleys? What words does he communicate to you?
Very much of what you know about God is built on the foundation of the prophets of the OT, like Isaiah, and on the words of the NT apostles, like John or Matthew. Humble means, not necessarily extravagant visions to you personally; but the transmission of life altering words and truths given you no less than someone like John. You get to experience his vision because God has placed it before you so that you could be certain of this future bride-city. Finally: What we have to look forward to in the full realization of this vision? This vision is a lot like the end of an HGTV show. Think of how in many home renovation shows, it starts with a place that needs fixing up, the people do the work, overcome challenges, and in the last 4 minutes they give you a tour of the renovation. This bride city vision is the tour. After the hard work of Jesus renovating human souls, let’s enjoy the preview of the bride city. The first feature of this city is the glory of God. We were always meant to see God as he is, and enjoy him as he is, and be with him. His glory is a visible radiance, a shining illumination, similar to precious stone, like crystal clear jaspar. The visible glory reflects God’s supreme worth, his weightiness compared to anything else, his supreme importance above all else. The visible glory will be a reason for us to say, “If I have him, I have everything I need.” The next feature to anticipate is the high wall and open gates. This city has high walls, which mean it is impenetrably protected. Yet the 12 gates makes it very accessible, easy to go in and out. There’s free travel, it’s not restrictive. It’s very interactive, with mingling, inter-relating going on. There is direction in the life to come, north, south, east, west. The angels at are the gates. God’s will is being done at the gates, no foul play or taking advantage or shady dealings are happening. We’re told the bride-city has 12 gates with 12 foundations; which are the 12 apostles and 12 tribes of Israel. The words of the OT and NT is the way in. All who should be there, from both the OT time era and the NT time era will be there. The next feature to notice is the pearly gates, and streets of gold. We were made to enjoy beauty, to enjoy beautiful places, and well made pleasing to the eye works of architecture and landscape. The joy of traveling to beautiful places, this will be an unparalleled version of that kind of enjoyment of beauty. Think of a city where each gate is made out of a single, massive pearl. Where the streets are pure gold, like transparent glass. Absolutely stunningly beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, attractive and pleasant. It’s appearance brings delight. We were made for beautiful places and things. Again, all the best of city life, the beauty and achievement, without any of the crime or crowding or corruption. The bride-city has no temple. No longer a need of one place where you can specially experience God’s presence and one place where you can worship him in a special way. Why? The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. He is present everywhere in this new city in a way that he is not right now. God is present everywhere, but in a humble way, invisible, not overtly obvious. In the universe to come, his presence everywhere will be more impactful, more obvious, more a direct experience of the people who are there. Now we have to seek God, there, he will be found to a larger extent than he is now. We will know in a new way the presence of God who is called the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb. God is in a class all his own, the ultimate authority, the one being who can do absolutely anything he desires, who has absolutely no limits to his power. Jesus is God willing to become sacrifice-able. God who is absolutely apart from humans, made human. God, who is sinless, made able to carry the consequences of human sin. Even now, Jesus is the place where the human and the divine can meet and interact and inter-relate.
In this city, nations and kings bringing their glory in. There will be complete unity and harmony of diversity. Actually accomplished. Actually realized. How? Through the willingness of Jesus to shed blood like a lamb for all kinds of diverse sinners. His ability to unify people of very different backgrounds and customs and lifestyles under the gift of life which he offers. The continuation of human culture and diversity in the life to come. All the best parts of human cultures and civilizations will endure, with all of the nightmarish atrocities a thing of the past. The best of cities remains, with the worst of cities removed and gotten rid of. Powerful people from this world’s history will be there, not all of them, but some. Yet they will be completely fine with all glory being given to God and not needing to be taken for themselves. Finally, the bride-city has no sun. No lamp. No night. The eternal city of God does not need a sun to give it light, apparently it doesn’t need a sun to give it heat or energy either. What the sun does in this world, is done by the glory of God, and by the Lamb in the eternal kingdom of God. God is able to cause light to exists without a sun. We need to accept that by faith. Most of us don’t know enough about light to know how that would be possible. But we do know, if the sun were to stop shining, it would be catastrophic. Plant life would deteriorate rapidly. We’d be in trouble, scrambling to find ways to make up for the lack of a sun. Not a problem at all with God. He made light on day 1, even though the sun moon and stars weren’t made until day 4, so apparently it is no problem or challenge at all for God to make light without a sun. It will be no problem for God to have light happening and heat without a sun in the coming universe. And the reason why is startling, because his glory will be the light, and the Lamb its lamp. The glory of God will light it, and its lamp will be the lamb. We will see by the light of his presence. We will see things we never saw before. We will be illumined like we have never been before. We will have an eternal source of visibility and radiance and energy and life. That is what God is. 1 John says; God is light, in him there is no darkness at all. He is light. That’s his identity. When we get more of him, we get more of light. There is no night in that place. Apparently there will be time and will be days, but there will not be anymore night. Night is a time when people have to be especially worried about gate defense, about the wrong people getting in and doing what ought not to be done. There will be no more cover of night to do what ought not to be done. Imagine a universe where it’s always light, never clouds to darken the sky, no sun setting to darkness. Imagine a universe where there’s always the right amount of heat, never too much, never too little. What would it take to have such a place? You’d need something more life-giving than the sun, more heat and energy producing than the sun. Where can you find such a thing? Jesus. God-man. He is the light come into our world, so that this future world would be previewed for us. So that we would get a taste of his glory, see a preview of his victory, and want more. So that we would enjoy the effect of his light, and want more, and expect more, and look forward to more. And so that this looking forward would produce a certainty, a confidence, that what is desired will come to pass. As we look forward to this bride city, we’re already changed in the way we interact in this world; the way we view things like the sun, like the light, like the day and night, like the growth of plants and animals and human life, like the interactions that people have with each other, like a desire to connect people to God so this bride city vision could be theirs as well. So as you live your days under the sun, already now look more to the light of Jesus who came into the world, expect him to come again like you expect the sun to rise each day. Look forward to Jesus shining as your sun in the beautiful bride city in which you live with him. Amen.