The City: Where God Dwells with Us | Fr. Aaron Damiani - Rev 21:9-14, 22-27

A reading from the Revelation to John.

Then one of the seven angels who had held the seven bowls filled

with the seven last plagues, came and spoke with me.

Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.

He then carried me away in the Spirit to a great high mountain

and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of

heaven from God, arrayed with God's glory.

Her radiance was like a precious jewel, like a Jasper stone,

clear as crystal. The city had a massive high wall

with 12 gates. 12 angels were at the gates.

The names of the 12 tribes of Israel's sons were inscribed on

the gates. There were three gates on the E,

3 gates on the N, 3 gates on the South, and three gates on the

West. The city had 12 foundations and

the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb were on the

foundations. I did not see a temple in it

because the Lord, the God Almighty and the Lamb are its

temple. The city does not need the sun

or the moon to shine on it because of the glory of God

illuminates it. In its lamp is the Lamb.

The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the

earth will bring their glory into it.

Its gates will never close by day because it will never be

night there. They will bring the glory and

honor of the nations into it. Nothing unclean will ever enter

it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only

those written in the Lamb's Book of Life, the word of the Lord.

Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you that these

great promises, these great images from the Book of

Revelation come straight from your mind and heart.

And so now, Lord, we pray that you would align our mind, our

heart, our thoughts with yours. And we pray that as you fill us

with your vision, that you would help us walk out that vision. 1

loving step at a time. We pray this in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Well, please be seated. Great to see you.

All. This past August and September,

we've been in a sermon series called Sacred Spaces, and we're

looking at all of the spaces where heaven and earth

overlapped and people met God and were set apart in a special,

unique and powerful way for their calling in this earth.

And we've gone from Genesis and now we're we're ending in

Revelation. The last sacred space that we

find might surprise you. And it's and it's the city

that's the final sacred space where people encounter the

presence of God. It's a renewed city where God

makes all things new. If you're asked yourself this

question, do I have to escape the city to find God?

Henry was 28 years old, prestigious degree in hand, with

a bright career ahead of him. The world was Henry's oyster.

But as Henry looked more closely at that oyster and experienced

it, he found that that oyster was kind of filled with grime,

and it really turned him off. In 1830s New England, all Henry

saw as he looked around was factory pollution, shallow

ambition from the social climbers, widespread slavery

which was accepted by polite society.

Henry was so turned off he actually built himself a sacred

space which was a cabin in the woods by a body of water called

Walden Pond. And he found that nature and

solitude brought him the sense of of healing and peace.

And then he wrote these words, quoting here, What is the great

attraction in cities? It is universally admitted that

human beings invariably degenerate there.

It is a swamp too dismal and dreary even for me.

When I leave the towns behind, life becomes gradually more

tolerable, if not even glorious. Do we have to escape the city to

find glorious encounters with God?

Henry David Thoreau said. Yes, you do.

Was he right? You know, about 30 years ago, I

left a home which was surrounded by nature.

There was woods in our backyard. We had a pond and a lot of

grass. And when I came to Chicago, I

found the city like thrilling, overwhelming, intense.

Sometimes it turned me off, sometimes it was exciting, but

it wore me out. And I, I found I, I needed some

respites in nature. And actually, I still need

respites in nature, but something happened along the

way. I came to love this city.

I came to love Chicago. You know, not just the beautiful

parts, but also the the quirks and the flaws and the incomplete

parts of our city. And actually, I learned to meet

God here. And I still, I still meet God

here in this city. And over the years, I've

wrestled with this question, how do we encounter the God that we

love without abandoning the city that we love?

Can we find sacred space right here, right in the midst of

urban Chicago? Now the best place I think to

answer that question are the visions written down in the Book

of Revelation. The apostle John received this

revelation from the Spirit of God when when the world and his

life was in a time of great crisis.

You see, John was a pastor, but he was exiled from his home.

He was imprisoned for his faith on an island, remote island, and

he was actually separated from his church, which he was called

the pastor. And what happened is that in

this time of crisis, the living God gave John a vision of the

city to come. And that vision was heaven

coming down to earth, Not people on earth escaping to heaven, but

actually a very earthy conclusion to heaven, which was

the new city. It was a city filled with

beautiful light, filled with the presence of God, a city that was

cleansed and scrubbed clean of anything impure, of all abuse,

of all greed, of all lies, of all immorality.

Everything in the city of man that doesn't belong in the city

of God was scrubbed clean, but all the good parts were kept.

And by giving John this vision, God was giving him hope.

And he was giving him hope not just for his life, but for the

city we have. Because it is here, friends,

that God is building the city, that he loves the city to come.

And it's given hope to every generation from John's time to

our time. It's going to give us hope this

morning. So I'm going to explore this

together from Revelation 21. And I just want to say, like, if

you're here and you find that there's something in you that's

a little skeptical as you hear the vision, I want you to know

like that skepticism is OK. Like that's it's OK to wrestle

with some of these visions. They're not easy to digest all

at once. There's a lot of, like,

visionary fiber in them, you could say.

But give it time, friends. Let it soak in.

And you might find that the visions of this book align with

the deepest desires of your heart.

And if God gave you those desires, is it possible at all

that he sees fit to see them come true?

So cynics welcome. Skeptics welcome.

Let's look at this together. The first thing that we're going

to notice from Revelation 21 is that when the city of man leaves

us lonely, the city of God adorns us in love.

When the city of man leaves us lonely, the city of God adorns

us in love. Verse 9 of Revelation 21.

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with

the seven last plagues came and spoke with me.

Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.

I will show you the bride, the wife.

Let that sink in for a moment. The angel's about to introduce a

city, and he calls the city bride.

He calls the city wife. And not just any wife, the wife

of the Lamb. This is Jesus Christ, the

ultimate bridegroom, who out of every bride you could ever

choose in all of human history, chooses, chooses this bride to

be his forever. She is loved.

She is chosen. As we'll see, she is adorned.

In fact, this Lamb gave his life, He gave everything he had

to be married to this bride. And like a bride, she's been

prepared. She's been decked out on her

wedding day, not by a team of bridesmaids, but by the Almighty

God himself. Verse 10 describes then he, this

is the Angel carried me, that's John away in the spirit to a

great high mountain. And he showed me the great the

holy city, Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

This is the bride. It's a holy city.

John's up on the highest mountain you can imagine.

And here's this huge, gargantuan city and other parts of

Revelation. It's described as 1500 miles

wide and deep and high. And this is a massive, massive,

supernaturally large city and it's gorgeous and it's

beautiful. There's radiant light coming

from this city. Verse 11, It's a raid with God's

glory, Her radiance. Her radiance was like a precious

jewel, like a Jasper stone, clear as crystal.

What a beautiful city. There's the color of a precious

stone and yet it's it's translucent.

It's you can see through it comes with light.

Why are stained glass windows so beautiful?

It's because it's the combination of color and light

beautifully mixing together. Jasper is most likely that red

surrounding Old Saint Patrick. Jasper blazing with light.

The city is adorned in a way that only the living God could

adorn it. This is breaking our

imaginations, but we're using the stock of the city.

We have to find it to find the vision of what God has in store

for everyone who would enter this city.

When I went shopping for my wife's engagement ring years

ago, I learned about the four CS cut.

How well designed is the stone to reflect light?

Clarity. How perfectly can you see

through it? Are there blemishes or not

color? How purely white is the diamond

carrots? How big is the rock?

And that led, invariably to the fifth.

See, cash. How much do you love your

fiance? And so I emptied my wallet.

I brought the brightest ring I could.

I wanted Laura to know you're worth a huge sacrifice.

Do you know that that ring will one day turn to dust?

Do you know that all forms of human love will one day turn to

dust? Because it's fleeting, Because

it's imperfect, Because it won't last.

If we build our self worth on feeling loved by other human

beings, they will always disappoint us.

Sooner or later the love is going to run out, but God's love

for you and for Laura and for me and for all of us will clothe us

and adorn us forever in this new city.

In her book, Uninvited Living, Loved When You Feel Less Than

Left Out and Lonely, author Lisa Turkhurst says this God's love

isn't based on me. It's simply placed on me and

it's that place from which I should live.

Loved. God's love isn't based on me.

It's placed on me and it's from that place that I live as a

loved human being. I was praying for Emmanuel this

week and I was actually starting to pray specifically that our

community and church would be filled with this love that John

is describing right here. I was praying that our community

and everyone in it would be filled to the brim and overflow

with the love of God, the love of Christ who would give

everything for us to join Himself for us in a covenant.

And I was praying this specifically because I was aware

that many in our congregation simply do not feel loved, do not

feel seen, do not feel included, do not feel selected, do not

feel sacrificed for. So if I want you to, if that

describes you, you are not alone.

It's a terrible experience to feel left out and uninvited and

unseen, but it's a very common human default experience in the

City of Man. In some ways you could say the

City of Man is built on rejection.

That's how things get built sometimes, and it's not good.

The City of Man is filled with people, but it's often lonely

and it moves fast, doesn't it? It moves really fast.

It moves at 1.3 or 1.7 speed and it leaves people behind.

What if Emmanuel Anglican became that sacred space where God's

love gets placed on everyone who walks through these doors?

And then from that place we begin to live as God's beloved

and we start to see and delight in the people who are getting

left behind and feel lonely and unseen.

That was my prayer for us this week.

I will continue to pray for you and for us that we would be

marked by the love of God from the city to come, invading the

city of man right through, right here through us.

Now. Love is important, but if danger

is like lurking around the corner, it feels really fragile.

And that's why John is shown not just a radiant bride, but a

fortified, protected city. And this brings us to the second

observation of the text, which is that when the city of man

shakes us, the city of God will secure us.

When the city of man shakes us, the city of God will secure us.

Years ago I was on a gang related murder case jury for

Cook County and once all of the evidence was presented, the jury

was discussing it and we were getting really close to a series

of guilty verdicts. But there was 1 holdout.

And the one holdout was a young dad and he was raising his

family near the courthouse where the same gang operated.

And this young dad was afraid of retaliation on his family.

Now eventually he came around, but he did not come around with

his without without. I could see the anguish in his

body because he still wanted to protect his family.

And so at risk to himself, he he joined in everyone else and said

the defendant is guilty. Life in Chicago had left him

shaken, left him traumatized. You know, I have to say,

sometimes Chicago gets a bad rap.

But The thing is, like, Chicago is no different from anywhere

else in this world. It's filled with human beings,

and human beings are capable of both good and evil and

everything in between. But if you've been personally

impacted by the evil, whether in Chicago or anywhere else, you

know how vulnerable that can leave you feeling.

If you've ever been shaken friends by the city of Man or

anyone within it, let yourself take in this healing image of

the city of God. Verse 12.

The city had a massive high wall with 12 gates. 12 angels were at

the gates. The names of the 12 tribes of

Israel's sons were inscribed on the gates.

Tuck that little detail away in your brain.

But for now, let's just notice the security apparatus of the

city, the massive and high wall which serves as a defense

against every threat. However, you can't enter the

city. There are gates, 3 on each side,

12 in total. The gates are there to welcome

in the pilgrims that are coming from the four corners of the

earth. They surround the city's

perimeter and they never close, according to verse 25.

And they never close because it's never night.

Stationed at each gate is an Angel.

There are 12 angels. They are Watchmen keeping guard

over the city of God. If you come with evil

intentions, the angels will stop you and they will send you away.

You are not allowed in the city of man if you have evil false

foul intentions. Anyone who would defile this

ultimate sacred space. With any violence, with any

greed, with any sexual immorality, with any idolatry,

they are kept out. That being said, remember that

curious detail in verse 12? The names of the 12 tribes of

Israel's sons were inscribed on the gates.

Here's another mystery. Verse 14.

The city wall had 12 foundations, and the 12 names of

the 12 apostles of the Lamb were the foundations.

So if nothing unclean can enter this city, how in the world are

the 12 tribes of Israel's sons inscribed on the gates?

Do you remember, for those of you who who, like, I don't know,

grew up in Sunday school, that those 12 sons, 11 of them, beat

up Joseph and sold them into slavery?

These guys were scoundrels. Some committed terrible things,

terrible sexual acts, murder. Some of them were murderers.

They were liars. Some of them worshipped false

gods, and so did their sons. Now what about the apostles?

Their names are on the foundations of the city.

These guys were egotistical, they were cowardly, and they

abandoned the king of the city right before he was going on

trial. So let's ask the question, how

could this city ever be safe and anything but false and violent

if people with that kind of record have their names

emblazoned on the gates and foundations?

The answer is in verse 27. Who are the people who get into

this city? It's the people whose names are

written in the Lamb's book of life.

The Lamb has a book, and it's a book of life, and it's writing

all the names of the people who are allowed into this city.

The Lamb who was slain for the sins of the world and was raised

up standing before the right hand of God and unlocked all the

promises of God, has a book and He's writing the names of anyone

who will come to them with the sin and the violence that is

inside of them. See, what the Lamb does is that

he deals with the dangers out there by dealing with the

dangers in here, which is where they begin, right at the root.

He's taken their violent and Stony hearts, and He's replaced

them with hearts of grace and truth.

He hasn't just made them safe, He's made them saved.

They came to Him in repentance. They came to him for life.

And so he wrote them in the book.

And he can do the same thing for you, my friend.

All you have to do is ask. Lord, write me in the book.

Write me into your city. Write me into your story of

grace. Blot out my sins, save me from

myself, put my name down in that book of life.

And friends, that book and that city is the most secure place

for us to be even now. Saint Paul once wrote this, your

life is hidden with Christ in God.

He wrote that to people living through tough times, uncertain

times, and he said your life is hidden.

This word hidden means secured, protected, covered.

Isn't that a comfort, friends? Our names are written and our

lives are hidden in this city to come.

Now think with me about Emmanuel Anglican.

What if our place? What if, What if this church

became a place where people who had been shaken by the city came

in and felt safe, felt protected, felt covered?

You and I were ministering this protective covering of the city

to come, this sense in which our lives are hidden with Christ and

God. And what if from that place of

security, people, people had their names written by faith.

They, they were, they learned to trust in the safety of the King

of kings and their names were written in the book of life and

they went from safe to secured from, from, from safe to saved.

I believe this can happen. I believe this is God's heart.

And once we feel safe, friends, our, our hearts begin to ask

another question, which is this? Is there anything worth hoping

for? Because if we're honest, the

City of Man has a way of burning through our hopes.

And this leads us to our final observation from Revelation 21.

When the City of Man burns us out, the City of God blazes with

light. When the City of Man burns us

out, boy, the City of God blazes with light.

You ever been to a dangerous bonfire?

There's something compelling about those bonfires.

People are drawn to them. It's interesting, but it burns a

little too hot, a little too fast.

Too many things get thrown in that it can burn you, but also

it burns out, burns through the fuel too quickly.

It's not sustainable. Now the City of Man has a way of

like setting our hopes ablaze. Here we find amazing meaning and

a pursuit of justice and purpose and community and beauty and

education and power. And we burn and we burn and we

burn and our schedules are filled up, but we have so much

to do. But it's a little too hot and a

little too much and a little unstable before it's too late.

Our hopes and our dreams turn to ash.

Or like, I can't take this anymore.

I got to. I have to leave.

My hopes are gone, and so is my energy.

What I love about John's vision of the city of God is it does

not burn us out, but instead it blazes with light, it blazes

with glory, it blazes with meaning and purpose, and there's

no diminishing whatsoever. Now the light of the city, the

glory of the city, comes directly from the Lamb.

Verse 22. I did not see a temple in it.

I did not see a temple in it because the Lord, God the

Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

Now why? Why do people go to temples?

Why do people go to sacred spaces?

To meet with God, to find rest and to find purpose, to be

refreshed in His beauty and forgiveness and wholeness.

And now what the Lord God is doing is He's providing all of

those things, but there's nothing mediating it anymore.

There's no need for a mediator. It's directly from God and the

Lamb who is God. And they both blaze with light

and there's no filter. There's glory everywhere.

Verse 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on

it because the glory of God illumines it and it's lamp is

the Lamb. There's no need friends, there's

no need. Can you imagine a city without

needs, a need for light or anything else?

There's a sense of overflow and blessing and glory.

The nation's verse 24 will walk by its light and the kings of

the earth will bring their glory into it.

Its gates will never close by day because it will never be

night there. They will bring the glory and

the honor of the nation's into it.

You ever think about this question?

What do you do with your trophy case when there's no one else to

show it to? Anyone have a trophy case

growing up? Anyone have a like a metals

collection growing up? School transcripts that you were

really proud of? Boat collection?

I don't know. What did you collect?

What do you do with it? What do you do with the What do

you do with all the accolades? What do you do with all the

Instagram likes? What do you, what do you do with

all your, your growing and expansive network on LinkedIn?

What do you do with all the stuff we accumulate in this

life? You know, some of the saddest

people who burn out in our city are the people who got what they

came for, but they don't know what to do with it.

And so their hearts get turned to ash because they're like, The

thing is, you can do two things with all the stuff of your life.

You can bring all of it to the bonfire of history and watch it

burn, or you can bring it to the altar, the ultimate altar of the

ultimate sacred space of the ultimate city.

And it will blaze with glory in the light of the Son of Man.

That's really kind of what we can choose to do with our lives.

And the kings of the earth, the people at the peak of power,

what are they doing? They're taking the best of their

cultures and the best of their cities and the best of their

countries, and they're hauling it all before the King of kings.

And they're saying, this is for you and this is for the Father.

And it is our joy just to be in this light, to be in this glory.

We won't hoard this stuff. We won't let it rot.

We won't let moth break in and steal or whatever.

We are going to let this give glory to God.

Here's another question. What do we do with all of our

unanswered questions in this life?

What do we do with all of our scars?

What do we do with all of the things that didn't go well?

What do we do with all the years the locusts have eaten?

Have you ever thought about that?

It's one thing to bring your success to God, but there's kind

of two things that we can do with our suffering too.

We can turn in on it and let it define us and, and let it be our

ultimate story and, and let it in in some ways like turn to

bitterness and curdle. We can let it mean nothing or we

can we can do what the Lord God has promised throughout the Book

of Revelation to do, and that is to bring people who have

suffered injustice. They can bring that to the table

as well. In fact, there's a symbol in

Revelation of people who have been killed for their faith, and

they're actually taking shelter in God's house.

They're taking shelter and they're asking him for justice,

and he promises him that they will give it.

And the city of the king is going to include the

marginalized and the former slaves and people with suffering

and people with tears. And he's going to turn all that

tears into triumph. And he's going to build a

community of like the formerly weak and the formerly powerful

and everyone who's got any kind of trophy or anyone who's got

any kind of scar. And he's going to bring all of

it together, not into a quickly burning out bonfire, but to but

to a city that blazes with light forever, where all the questions

will be answered, where all the stories will come together in

the most satisfying way possible.

This is the city that we were made for, my friends, where all

is made right. If you knew that your future

would blaze with light, what hope would that give you in the

city of man? What hope would it give you even

if the things that secured you before begin to crumble before

your very eyes? Something happened in the year

410 AD that no one thought was possible, which is that the

Roman Empire got sacked by invaders and fell.

And people asked this, They had an existential crisis.

They said if Rome could fall, what hope do we have?

And also they look for someone to blame.

And they started blaming Christians.

So this is where a pastor named Agustin, now known as St.

Agustin, looked at the Book of Revelation and looked at the

Bible and he made this argument. There's a there's a city to

come, which is the city of God. And if you become citizens of

that city to come, it will make you the best citizens of the

city, city that we have right now.

It will let you do what Jeremiah has asked us to do, which is to

seek the welfare of the city where we have been placed.

This week I heard about a remarkable way someone decided

to do this. Olivier Messian was a French

composer and he was captured in World War 2, and he was actually

held in a prisoner of war camp in Germany.

And it was perhaps one of the bleakest action experiences that

anyone has had in the city of Man.

They were cold. They were, they were like on the

they were like starving. They were packed and overcrowded

in this, in this place. But Olivier had something that

he held onto, which was actually the vision of the Book of

Revelation. And he held onto that vision

with all of his heart. And with that hope, he composed

a piece. He he drew upon his musical

skills and giftings and training and he composed a piece called

Quartet for the End of Time. And he built it around

instruments that he could find in the prisoner of war camp.

An old piano which had keys that stuck together, and a cello with

only three strings left and an old clarinet and an outer tune

violin. And he gathered the musicians

and they practiced it. And in January of 1941, in the

freezing German cold, Olivier and his prisoner musicians got

their instruments ready, and the guards and their fellow inmates

huddled around them, also shivering, and there was a

hushed quiet. And they began to play one of

the most haunting, moving pieces of music ever written in the

20th century that captured both the bleakness of the city of Man

and the hope of the city of God. Messian later said.

This Never was I listened to with such attention and

understanding in the bleakest moment.

Friends of the 20th century, the sacred translucent beauty of the

city of God, shown with a radiance from another world.

Do we have to escape the city to find God?

Thoreau said yes, you do, but God says no, you don't.

He has prepared us a city to come, and he is building it

right here in the city. We have, in the name of the

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.