Ninth Sunday After Pentecost

Revelations 21, 1 through 4.

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.

Then I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them, they will be his peoples.

And God Himself will be with them and be their God.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more.

Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.

May we hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

So this morning we continue our summer sermon series looking at what the Bible says about a whole host of mostly hotly contested subjects.

Today mine is on heaven, which folks tend to be a pretty big fan of heaven.

So this is a little bit uh less hotly contested.

For example, next Sunday, Emily's gonna be preaching on what the Bible actually has to say about reproductive rights.

So uh a bit more hotly contested topic, I would say.

Um Last week we took a look at what the Bible uh actually has to say about hell, and so it seemed to make sense to take a look today at what the Bible actually has to say about heaven.

Um, it probably won't come as a surprise to you uh to learn that the word heaven gets used in lots of different ways throughout the Bible.

I mean, the Bible was was written by dozens of different authors over many, many centuries.

But to like summarize it most basically, the term heaven is used both in an astronomical sense for sky, as in like the sky above, or a cosmic space, like the sky above, but also in a theological realm uh as a sense for where the divine dwells.

So space, location, the heavens above, but also like theologically where the divine dwells, a divine realm.

Okay, if we try to understand the world the ways that the ancients did, and they didn't have access to the same kind of scientific understanding that that we have today, they they largely viewed the universe like a three-tiered kind of place.

So you have like the earth below, and then you have the firmament.

It kind of looks like a big like dome stadium, and that firmament it separates the waters.

There's like waters above and waters below.

And if you remember the story in in Genesis 1, which was never intended to be a scientific story, and one of the sermon topics we're gonna have toward the end of the summer is the relationship between faith and science and what the Bible has to say about that.

Um but the story, it's really a poem in Genesis 1, talks about God separating uh the waters.

There's there's there's this chaos, and and God brings order out of the chaos.

That's part of what God does in our life, bring brings order out of chaos.

And and so you have um the ancient cosmology where the heaven is above like the realm of God, and then you've got the earth, you've you got the sun and the moon and the stars that kind of like hang in the skies.

And the firmament also is like what keeps the rain and the floods from happening.

So, like in in the story about the flood with Noah, uh the the windows opened, kind of like the firmament opened, and the waters came through.

Uh and so you got the earth there, and then you have the underworld.

We talked some about the underworld uh last week.

Okay, if you look at ancient Mesopotamian culture, uh this is the region that was like highly influential on the earliest writers of the Bible.

So if you look at the map here, you can probably tell based on the red shaded area where we're at.

Uh, but that's kind of like what we might call the ancient Near East, the Middle East, uh locations in and around Israel, uh, Iran, uh, Iraq.

Um so you see where we're talking about.

Sometimes this is referred to as like the fertile crescent.

Okay.

Um in this cultural framework in the ancient Near East, a few supermortals might ascend to heaven.

But the humans entered the shadowy underworld.

Um this is similar to like the pharaohs in Egypt who were like associated with being divine.

Uh like the pharaohs, uh, some of their family members, some of the more notable uh folks, they might have a chance to ascend to the heavens, to be with the gods, but most of just the everyday people were assigned to the shadowy underworld.

As time went by, there was the book of the dead that was written, um, the Egyptian book of the dead, and it became one of the first books in which like human beings like kind of had a chance to maybe go to heaven.

Uh, but in the early days, the idea is that it's it's reserved for the gods or like maybe the super mortals, kind of like the pharaohs.

Okay, so the earliest parts of the Hebrew Bible, and the Hebrew Bible that's what the Christians call the Old Testament, so like, you know, OT, that's just an abbreviation for the Old Testament.

Okay, the Hebrew Bible was heavily influenced by Mesopotamian culture.

So the idea that the heavens are reserved for the gods and human beings go to the shadowy underworld, in the earliest days of the writings in the Hebrew Bible, that's kind of what people thought.

So, like in Psalm 115, uh, the heaven belongs to God and the earth is where the mortals reside.

Okay, 1 Samuel 28, it's like a fascinating little story.

I highly encourage you, you know, to read it.

Um, it reads almost like an epic tale out of out of a novel.

Uh, you have a king, and this king is like getting ready to go into battle, and this king is afraid that he is gonna lose.

Uh, and so he wants to go seek out the prophet Samuel for some advice.

Only problem is that the prophet Samuel had died.

And and so you weren't supposed to consult mediums or witches, like in fact, this king had banned them, you know, uh, but he went out to seek a medium because he wanted the medium to summon uh Samuel from the dead, so he could get Samuel's counsel.

Uh and so, like in a scene that looks super reminiscent to uh like the Odyssey when Odysseus goes to Hades and then the dead come up out of the ground and speak to Odysseus.

Uh Samuel in this biblical passage comes up out of the ground, like the underworld, uh, to speak to Saul.

Uh and so this is an example of a great prophet, uh, a hero in the biblical literature who doesn't go to heaven uh but is in the underworld.

So the ideas in the earliest biblical writings is that the heavens are reserved for God.

Um, okay, hold on, gotta get ahead of the notes.

Um there are some um places where the ancient writers are trying to make sense, though, of well, how can they experience God and how can they experience the presence of God if God just resides in the heavens?

And so you get some really beautiful figurative stories that try to give expression to those experiences.

So, like Jacob's ladder, there's a story where there's a ladder that you know you can go on to you know get to the heavens.

Uh, and then there's stories about burning bushes where you experience God's presence here and now.

And so, even early on in the biblical literature, even though there's an idea that the gods reside in the heavens and humans are down on earth, you still get some early notions that human beings can experience the presence of the divine even here and now.

So hold on to that as the sermon develops, uh, because that becomes a major theme within New Testament literature as well.

And those stories were designed to help people make sense of their experiences.

But as the Hebrew Bible develops, we see human beings wrestle with all kinds of things that we wrestle with today.

And folks across all cultures, all times and spaces have wrestled with the question of what happens when we die.

Right?

I mean, there aren't a whole lot of universals out there that folks from all religions or all cultures tend to wonder, and you even have folks that don't adhere to particular religious traditions wonder the same thing.

Like, what happens when we die?

There's a pretty agreed upon uniformity of opinion that we are mortal.

We are mortal.

And so it's only natural for people to wonder, what is next?

And in the Hebrew Bible, we see human beings wrestling with a lot of these questions that we wrestle with.

Um, people naturally wonder what happens when we die.

Um, and and the Bible kind of reflects those kinds of questions.

And so as the writing develops, and a reminder that in the Bible, we don't just get one opinion about one particular topic, we are invited to a conversation, a conversation that unfolds with people that are wrestling through a lot of the same questions that we have.

So in the book of Ecclesiastes, you have the writer starting to wonder well, who knows whether the human spirit goes upward?

Perhaps the human spirit does ascend to the heavens.

And then the book of Daniel, which is one of the very latest books that was written, that was included in the Hebrew Bible, you have the idea of resurrection emerge, heavily influenced by Persian culture.

But here's the idea that if you die, God will raise you up.

And this emerges in a time in which Daniel and the people who are composing this book that gets named after Daniel are experiencing all kinds of oppression.

And they have people in their midst, in their community, who are dying unfairly, unjustly.

Last night there was a vigil that Emily spoke at remembering those who have been killed by ICE officers.

And a lot of people are expressing anger and lament and grief.

Folks who were writing the book of Daniel were experiencing a lot of the same anger and lament and grief.

They saw beloveds die unfairly, unjustly.

And they called out to God, how could you allow this to happen?

And part of what Daniel talks about is the idea that that's not the end, that God will lift up those who are suffering, God will raise up those who are suffering.

Suffering does not have the last say.

This really emerges in the New Testament, but before we get there, we've got to go on a brief detour to Greco-Roman culture.

So you have influences also from the Greco-Roman world, uh, Greek philosophy, especially.

So, how many of you ever heard the idea that your soul, you know, will uh be purified and ascend to heaven after death?

The idea of your soul going to heaven after you die, being purified, ascending, that comes to us more from Greek philosophy.

I ran that together, more from Greek philosophy than it comes to us from the New Testament.

The New Testament talks more about resurrection.

Um, and the New Testament talks about heaven, but more within the context of resurrection.

I'm gonna differentiate some of that in a little bit in a little bit.

Um The views of heaven in the New Testament are influenced by what we see in the Old Testament as well as in Greco-Roman culture.

And in the New Testament, there is a strong affirmation of the afterlife.

So you may not see that in early biblical texts, but you see it in later biblical texts.

I one time had a professor, and we asked him, Do you believe in the afterlife?

And he said, Hell no, heaven, yes.

And he also talked about the way the book of Revelation was like Freebird, and how, like, in that guitar solo, it just keeps unfolding and building, and something more and more and more, you know, it gets better and better and better as it goes along.

He had a lot of great visual images that he would use from time to time.

But one of the things that that gets talked about a lot within the context of the New Testament is that strong affirmation of the afterlife.

So, according to John's gospel, Jesus talks about preparing a place uh for um his followers to be with him when he dies and even when they die.

Um Jesus says, Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not let them be afraid.

It's a verse we share a lot during funerals at Brentwood to give people comfort in times of loss, knowing that Christ is with us and Christ prepares a place for us to be with him, uh, even whenever our loved ones depart.

Um the very earliest writing in the New Testament is 1 Thessalonians.

And here St.

Paul talks about how if you die, because they were expecting like Christ to come back immediately, and Christ didn't come back immediately, and they had friends and family who were dying, and like, are they gonna miss out on being with Christ, you know, when Christ returns?

And Paul's like, no, no, if if they die, they will be raised up.

They will be raised up.

Uh, this is also the passage where you hear about the rapture, and there's um we we were we were gonna do a sermon in Solomon on what the Bible really says about the rapture, but you remember the Tornado Siren Sunday?

We had to kick one sermon from the series so we didn't get behind.

Um, and that's the one that that we punted.

Uh, and we did so because we'd covered that before in in sermons along the way.

So I'm just gonna very briefly talk about this here.

Uh there's a biblical scholar named N.

T.

Wright.

Uh, I'm gonna say more about him later on in the service, too.

Uh, and there's also um a Lutheran scholar named Barbara Rossing.

She has a wonderful book.

It's called The Rapture Exposed.

So if you're interested in learning more about like what the Bible actually says about the rapture, I highly encourage you to check out Barbara Rossing's book called The Rapture Exposed.

Um, but N.

T.

Wright also talks about this as well.

In 1 Thessalonians, there's that idea uh that um Christ is gonna return and human beings will be caught up in the air to be with Christ.

And and the term for being caught up, uh, the Latin term is where we get the term rapture.

So the idea is that Christ will return and human beings will be caught up with Christ in the sky.

Um and then oftentimes in modern understandings of rapture theology, at that point along the way, all the human beings like vacate the earth and they go back up into the heavens with Jesus, and then like World War III unfolds down below just in death and destruction.

Um but in the uh first century kind of model framework that Paul is familiar with, um, whenever a dignitary would come to town, you know, the towns had gates outside, um, and so a dignitary would come uh to town uh and people would go outside the gates to meet the dignitary, but then they wouldn't leave and go away from this from the city, the gates.

They would escort them back into the city gates.

And so that same model, that same imagery uh is what Paul is using to say that the believers will be caught up with Christ in the air, and Christ will usher them not up, but back down.

So remember how the book of Revelation unfolds according to this New Testament imagery.

In the book of Revelation, the earth is not destroyed, but God remakes and renews and heals all things.

It is a mending, a repairing of the world, tikkun olam.

The idea being, and this you know translates from uh the Hebrew to tikkun olam, to heal, to mend, to repair the world.

It's that the new heaven comes down to earth and everything is remade and renewed and restored.

The old order has passed away.

There's no more suffering or crying or pain, as we hear about in the book of Revelation 21.

So the idea there is not that God destroys the earth, but God renews and heals the earth.

Now, if you happen to be interested in the big question, okay, well, what happens to those who aren't Christians?

Is God's healing and love and salvation for all people or for a few select people?

I would encourage you to be here.

Do you remember what Sunday that one is, David?

It's toward the end of August.

It's on it's on the back of your bulletin.

Very handy, we put those on the back of the bulletin.

Um it's toward the end of August.

We we ask the question of whether you know what the Bible actually says about the salvation for all people or just some people.

So that's a question we'll unpack uh then.

Um so so you get the strong affirmation uh of the of the afterlife.

Um but the New Testament also has a strong affirmation of resurrection more specifically.

It's in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and John.

Uh it's a huge theme in all of Paul's writings, especially 1 Corinthians 15.

Um now, what's hard, when the Bible talks about the afterlife, we don't get a lot of descriptions of like what it's really like.

I mean, there's like imagery that's figurative, you know, that tries to evoke like the best things that human beings can imagine.

But but the biblical authors are are pretty clear in saying that that whatever is next is not something human beings can fully understand or or describe.

But what we are given, even though we may not know exactly what lies next, what we are given is a sense of assurances, a sense of promises, that everything will be okay, that the same love that holds us in life will also hold us in death.

Now, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul compares the difference uh between a seed and a plant, with like our physical body being the seed and our spiritual body being the plant.

The seed and the plant like look very different.

They look very different.

Um, Martin Luther, uh the reformer, he liked to say that we can't understand what heaven will be like any more than a baby in a birth canal can understand what awaits them.

But this baby is born into the care and the love of their parents.

And even as the baby can't understand or grasp that care and that love, they can experience that care and that love.

So even though we may not be able to grasp or understand, we can still experience that love.

We can trust that the love that holds us in life will also hold us in death.

That love is everlasting, that love never dies.

And that would be a good place to end the sermon because that's very positive.

And the next part's positive too.

But what I've shared is not the whole story.

Um there's something that often gets overlooked.

One of the earliest calling cards in the New Testament is the idea that Christianity is not about waiting to go to heaven when we die, it's about bringing heaven to earth.

It's not just about life after death, it's about life before death too.

As the New Testament scholar N.

T.

Wright says, quote, the point of Christianity is not that we should go to heaven.

The point of Christianity is that heaven should come to us.

If you're interested in what the Bible really says about heaven, this is a great book.

It's called God's Homecoming.

It's very orthodox, you know, it's it's very traditional.

Um, and it really unpacks the idea of uh what is inaugurated in Christ's resurrection according to the New Testament.

The idea here is not that Christ is resurrected, and so we just wait to go to heaven when we die when we die.

The idea is Christ is resurrected, and that is the inauguration of bringing heaven to earth here and now.

And we are invited to participate in that work that God is doing.

Um, N.

T.

Wright talks about the way that heaven and earth, you know, it's it's like instead of being like these dualistic like opposites, you know, heaven way up here and earth way down here, N.

T.

Wright talks about how it's two dimensions of the same reality.

Two dimensions of the same reality.

Um, so it's not like two places separated by a vast physical distance, it's two different dimensions.

Um, there is a prayer that we sing every single Sunday that goes back to Jesus.

And in that Lord's Prayer, we pray for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The idea of the resurrection in Christianity is not just waiting for the afterlife.

We can celebrate God's love that holds us in life and in death.

But the resurrection is also an invitation for us to participate in God's will being done on earth.

Earth as it is in heaven.

There is too much sadness in this world.

There is too much heartache in this world.

And God does not want just to wait for us to have to get to heaven to experience healing in the midst of the struggle, in the midst of the heartache.

Sometimes life deals us blows that break our heart, that shatter our spirit.

Sometimes we have relationships that break.

Sometimes we experience relapse.

Sometimes we have to say goodbye to our beloveds.

And sometimes much, much too soon.

There are times we experience unspeakable loss, sadness all around us.

But the promise harbored in the figure of Jesus is that God does not wait for us to die to offer us care and love.

The idea is that God tries to bring heaven to earth.

God comes to be with us, not abandoning us.

God meets us in solidarity and love, giving us strength to go on.

God does not will suffering to happen.

But God comes to be with us in the midst of suffering.

And whenever God's love comes to us in the midst of our struggle and helps us find a way to get through what we're facing that sometimes feels unfaceable, when God's strength helps us get through it, heaven and earth intersect.

They overlap.

Healing, mending, repairing, not just for another life, but in this life too.

I was at a meeting earlier this, I guess it was last week.

And one of our church members was talking about the movie Selma.

It's about uh Martin Luther King Jr.

and the civil rights movement.

And she talked about that scene where Martin Luther King Jr.

had just didn't know if he had the strength to go on anymore.

He was losing faith, he was losing hope.

He didn't know if he had what it took, he didn't know if the movement was gonna succeed, he didn't know if he could go on.

So he called up his friend Mahelia Jackson and asked her to sing a song by Thomas Dorsey called Precious Lord, Take My Hand.

And it was a song that was written out of unimaginable grief, something that I couldn't begin to understand the depths of.

Thomas Dorsey wrote this song in 1932 while he was away leading a revival.

He found out that his wife had died in childbirth.

And then one day later, his newborn son had passed.

And he didn't know where to go, didn't know where to turn.

He just had a broken heart.

And he called out for God's love to be with him, to meet him, to hold him where he was.

While he knew that he could be reunited with his beloveds who had passed away, he knew that he needed God's healing there and then.

And he wrote the song, Precious Lord, take my hand.

Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me, let me stand.

I am I am take my precious me when the cut my feet hold my hand, take my hand precious.