The Restoration of All Things" Revelation 21-22, Pastor Nick Tawa

Okay, would you please stand if you are able for the reading of God's Word?

The scripture passage for this morning is from the Book of Revelation, chapter 22, verses 1 through 5.

Revelation 22:1–5

And if you can uh uh follow along with your in your own Bible, or if you would like to follow along in the Pew Bible, it's on page 1074.

Uh or you can just uh close your eyes and listen.

Revelation 22, one through five.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

In the middle of a street, and on either side of the river was a tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month.

The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, and there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and the servants shall serve him.

They shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.

There shall be no night there, they need no lamp nor light or the sun.

For the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever.

A challenge for me from a scholarship standpoint, especially when it comes to things that, to be honest, are unknown.

This is a text that was written almost 2,000 years ago in a context that is largely foreign to us today.

It's a mix of symbols and imagery that are, to be honest, quite difficult to decipher.

But the overarching narrative is one that we see actually throughout the biblical narrative, and it is that God created humanity and the world with goodness and purpose.

There's something we call the image of God that is embedded within each person, and I think this is something that we resonate with, even if we don't identify as Christians or religious people, there's something to the dignity of humanity that goes without saying.

But it goes without saying, because of the influence of Jesus, there were empires and cultures prior to Jesus where this was not taken for granted, where this was not intuitive, that all people have dignity and worth, and that there's a certain equality to people, regardless of their socioeconomic standing, of their race, of their nation, of their gender.

And I think this is one of the beautiful things of the legacy of Jesus, at least in the way that it's manifested in Western culture, is that there is this beautiful reclaiming of the dignity of humanity.

And one of the reasons I wanted to go through this series on the book of Revelation is to simply shape our understanding of God.

At least in the West, we often throw around the term God or divinity as if it's sort of taken for granted.

Especially, I think, in a nation like the United States, where it's printed on money and politicians use the name of God to their advantage.

How often do we stop and actually ask, like, who is God?

What is he like?

What are the images that shape our understanding of God?

And so as we look through the book of Revelation, that was kind of one of my goals, to expand our prayerful imagination when it comes to this transcendent, eternal, invisible being who created everything that we know and experience, our own consciousness.

Who is this God?

And I think there's both uh a mystery and an invitation here.

And the whole narrative arc of the book of Revelation is that God restores.

And it's easy to lose that in the vivid imagery of evil and fantastical beasts and judgment.

But the end game is that God does all of this, and I don't exactly know why or how, but he does all of this, and I mean this, I mean judgment, which is hard for us to wrap our minds around, in order to restore.

And I want to ask you this morning, what needs restoration in your life?

I think one of the things that I pondered in middle age as I kind of journeyed through my 40s, has been looking back and recognizing the ways that I have been hurt and the ways that I have caused pain.

And I think the longer that we live, the more we accumulate whatever life patterns that we have kind of lived thus far.

And so, for example, for me, if if there is this kind of bitterness or resentment that builds in my heart, that's sort of perpetuated as I get older.

On the other hand, if there's this just way of being where there's this grace and forgiveness and mercy that define how I live day to day, then I think that's magnified into middle age and beyond.

And so I want to ask this morning for you, what perhaps needs some grace?

What perhaps in you needs to be restored?

Last Sunday I was moving some furniture with with Pastor Kevin and uh we were actually at Jeff Musco's house, and as we're leaving, uh there's this surfboard that was kind of outside.

Um, pretty beat up, kind of been in the sun a while.

And normally I'm a minimalist, I don't just collect stuff, but I do love surfing.

And there's something to me that is just bothered by, well, there's parts of so there's parts of the surf industry that are just not great for the environment.

Surfers love the environment, but surfboards are not great.

And so the idea of uh a surfboard in the landfill just doesn't sit well with me.

And so I uh Jeff was like, Do you want it?

Do you want to take it?

I was just gonna toss it.

I said, Yeah, sure, I'll take it, even though it's not a board I would normally surf.

Uh it's a higher end, high performance.

Like I'm not that great of a surfer.

It's kind of a weird thing.

I love surfing, but I'm actually not that great at it.

Probably never has have progressed like normal sports, but I just love it.

I love surfing, I love being in the water.

It's one of the few places where I'm in God's creation uh in an immersive way.

Anyway, so I take this board home, and just as a meditation this week, stripped off the wax, cleaned it off, looked at kind of the damage, um, sanded it down, uh, put epoxy and resin in it, and and I look forward to surfing it.

And I think there's something for me, this might not mean anything to you, but to me, there's something beautiful about restoring something that once had meaning and purpose.

And that largely is the narrative of revelation.

It's the narrative of the Bible that God restores.

And one of the big misconceptions about revelation, about heaven, about earth, is that God's intent is not to transport individual souls to this other planet called heaven, but rather God seeks to restore earth as we know it.

That the imagery is not going to heaven, but rather heaven descending on earth, and this merging of the place where God is, which is heaven, and the place where humans are, which is earth.

And there's something also deeply symbolic about that.

That where is this invisible God?

And what does it look like for him to invade our space to restore it, to make it new again?

And so why don't you sit with that as we look into the text?

What needs restoring in you?

There are so many images and symbols in the book of Revelation.

And it all comes together in chapters 21 and 22 in the very end with two particular images, and they're loaded with meaning.

So the first image is the city.

And I think this is beautiful because it resonates with our concept of city even today.

You look at the ancient world, you look at today, uh, what the city represents from a human perspective is actually very similar.

And I actually preached a whole series last year on the city.

So, on one hand, if you have an optimistic view of humanity, the city is beautiful.

People move to Los Angeles, for example, for all sorts of reasons, for entertainment, for music, to be a part of something that is lively.

Uh if you're like Pastor Kevin, you moved here for the weather.

Um, it's just people move to the cities because this is the culmination of culture and commerce and productivity.

At the same time, every city on earth is also defined by crime, by poverty, by sex trafficking, by all sorts of evil that go wrong with humanity.

And we see this throughout the biblical narrative, and we see this in our cities today.

People flock to cities, and at the same time, cities are defined by everything that is not great.

I'm reminded of this in a former life as I worked as a civil engineer, and the civil engineering world oftentimes worked with architects and city planners.

And I've had numerous conversations with the city planning side of things where people majored in things like urban planning, and they went on and got master's degrees, and they have this vision of I want to create these cities, these hubs of civic engagement and culture and beauty, and then over time they get really cynical because they realize that there is bureaucracy and there are systems that keep the status quo in place, and so they get frustrated because their vision of the city didn't come to fruition.

There's this disappointment, and we see this in the book of Revelation as well.

The second image that we see in the end of the book of Revelation is a garden.

Uh, this is uh our local garden here at the Bocanic Garden.

There's something deeply, I think, primal and basic about being in spaces defined by plants and ecosystems and water and natural terrain.

The story of the Bible begins in Genesis in a garden.

This is where God first placed humanity.

This is where humanity was meant to thrive.

I think this resonates with us today, is that when we need to get away, we go to the mountains, we go to the beach, we immerse ourselves in nature.

And so we see these symbols come together in order to represent the eternal redemption of God through Jesus.

And this is highly symbolic, but it's symbolic of something real.

It's symbolic of something tangible that we get to taste in this life, and that we'll see in its entirety in the next.

At least that's the promise of Scripture.

One more thing before we really kind of get into the text is this idea of heaven.

I found this really profound.

That when we look at the Old Testament, which is written in Hebrew, the New Testament, which is written in Greek, both languages have one word for the physical sky and for the cosmic heavens, or heaven where God resides, or where the gods reside in pagan theology.

And what that singular word does is that when humans in the ancient world looked up at the sky, so whether that's a beautiful sunset or a sunrise or the night sky, there is this transcendent recognition that there is more to this life.

That the place of God and the literal sky somehow are connected.

One is a symbol of the other, but it's a profoundly powerful and vast symbol.

And I love how pastor and author Eugene Peterson puts it.

He says, in the ancient world, having a singular word for both the physical sky and heaven as a place of God, it creates this whisper, this thin space between our understanding of the world and where God is.

And in the English, in a post-scientific world, we have separated the two.

We talk about sky, we talk about the cosmos, the night sky, as if it's something that is measurable, and we see it, and we know that it is tangibly there.

And the place of God, which is sort of this other dimension.

God is invisible.

Um, and there's mystery there.

Where is this invisible God?

I don't know.

Some people talk about quantum theory as if there is something that transcends our five senses that shows us that at least the possibility of God is not outside the realm of uh our scientific worldview.

Anyways, as moderns, we do have this distinction between the sky and where God is.

And there's something about the ancient scriptures that invites us back into that ambiguity.

I thought about this this past week.

I wake up early a few times a week to go work out at a friend's house.

And so this time of year in the fall, the sun is rising right around that time.

And so I'm driving to my friend's garage in order to work out, and there's this beautiful sunrise coming over the houses, through the clouds, and there's just this moment of having to pause and sit in silence.

And even though, in my modern scientific worldview, that's that's the sun rising over the clouds and light refracting.

Um, yet in that there is this whisper, there's this invitation that there is more going on here.

And I think that that's an invitation that extends to all of us.

That when we catch a glimpse of the night sky or a beautiful sunset or sunrise, there's this invitation to consider: is there more?

Is God here with me?

What is God doing in my life?

And we see that in our English translations of the Bible.

Sometimes it's translated sky or stars or heaven.

And I think all of it is designed to position our hearts in a place of humility, looking toward something that is transcendent, something that is bigger than us.

And I think there's something beautiful and healthy about that as well.

Alright, so jumping into the text, Revelation chapter 22.

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

This is God restoring all things, and this is what John the visionary sees.

So Revelation chapter 22, verse 1.

Revelation 22:1

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, down the middle of the great street of the city.

So here we see, again, this intersection of the city and the garden.

And throughout the book of Revelation, the central focus is this image of a throne with this slain lamb, which is clearly symbolic.

It has to be symbolic because it is a lamb with seven eyes, seven horns, and its throat slit.

I mean, it's it's vivid, but it points to Jesus on the cross, the atoning sacrifice by God, of God, for the fractured brokenness of humanity.

Tonight, Jews around the world are actually celebrating Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

And in the ancient world, this was the one day a year where the high priest slaughtered an animal on behalf of the nation of Israel in order to atone for their sins, in order to bring them in relationship with God, and that is what Jesus does.

I don't know how that works.

I don't know the cosmic system that requires this, but this is the image of the slain lamb on the throne.

And out of this throne, in this vision that John sees, is this river of life.

And I know in, especially in Los Angeles, we don't have this great connection to the land.

You think about the LA River, and it's just this concrete line channel that you just would never ever go to.

But in the ancient world, water was this beautiful, life-giving gift.

Most rivers did not flow year-round.

Kind of like Los Angeles, actually.

But they flowed in the winter in the rainy season.

And it represented both danger because of flooding, but it also represented life that God was going to provide for your crops that year.

And so this image of water is actually found throughout the Hebrew prophets, throughout the Hebrew scriptures, and it is tied directly to the blessing of God.

And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

I love this.

In this imagery of this water flowing from the throne of God, flowing out of this slain lamb, is the tree of life.

And if you know anything about the Hebrew scriptures, this goes all the way back to the very first page of the Bible where God creates humanity, puts them in this idyllic garden, and there's this tree of life, which is actually a symbol that we see in a lot of ancient civilizations in Egypt and Babylon and Canaan.

And so what the writers of the Old Testament are doing, they're taking this contemporary image and they are expanding it.

They're connecting with the people around them, and then they're using it to show their people this is who God is.

And so the tree of life is a symbol of God's presence.

That is the ultimate gift that God would dwell with his people.

This is what God is restoring here in Revelation chapter 22, that God would be with his people.

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

In the house that we live in now, there is a lemon tree that was there when we moved in.

Since then, we've planted a couple other trees.

My wife has planted a couple other trees.

And at best, and you know this if you have fruit trees or if you've been around agriculture, at best you get one crop per year.

And even then, the squirrels are probably gonna eat them, and there's bugs, and if maybe you get a few pieces of sweet fruit that year, it's been a good year.

And there's a vulnerability to um farming, to agriculture, because you're at the mercy of so many other things.

And so, from an agricultural, cultural standpoint, to have this image, this vision of this tree of life that bears a different crop of fruit every month.

It is this image of abundance that God provides, not just the bare minimum, but over and above.

And I love this image of a tree with leaves that are for the healing of the nations.

In the ancient Near East, religion was localized.

The gods that you worship had to do with the local God of your shrine, of your local spring or local river.

And for the Jewish people, so much of their history was defined by what they were not.

Time and time again in the Hebrew scriptures, there are instructions that you are to be holy, meaning you are to be set apart.

You are not to be like the nations, you are not to be like the Gentiles.

Some translations say, like the pagans, you are different, you are God's holy people.

And so here we see this beautiful reclaiming of God's original vision for humanity, where there's this heart, there's this, there's this compassion for the outsiders.

That this isn't healing for Israel, this is healing for the nations, this expanding of God's Race.

And I think it's relevant for us today.

Do the nations need healing?

When we look at Psalm 2 and we read about nations conspiring and building wealth and empires and using military power to expand their influence and to expand their wealth at the expense of others.

Do the nations need healing?

Do we need healing?

I love this image as a meditation.

Verse 3 no longer will there be any curse.

And this again goes back to Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

That there is something deeply wrong with humanity.

And I say this all the time.

You don't have to be religious to believe that.

You just see that.

There is this ideal for what humanity should be, this ideal for what we should be, who we should be.

And every day we just know that there's something off.

We fall short of that.

And that doesn't have to be a religious thing.

We just know that.

The writers of Genesis call this the curse: the curse of being away from God, of losing touch with the presence of God.

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.

This is a little bit hard for us to see, but the whole imagery here is this reclaiming of the most holy place in the nation of Israel.

So that would be the temple in Jerusalem.

But it's not about the literal temple in Jerusalem.

It's not about Zionism.

It's not about reclaiming and rebuilding a physical place.

This is about God reinserting his presence with his people and then expanding the definition of people to all nations.

It was something deeply subversive and controversial, even to a Jewish first-century mind.

No more curse.

God is with his people.

Verse 4, they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads.

We've talked about the idea of human eye contact.

What does it mean to look on someone's face?

That's probably the most intimate of human interactions.

And it is a personification of God's presence.

What does it mean to look God in the face?

The eternal, invisible God.

To have the beauty of his face upon you.

And to have his name on your forehead.

This is the opposite of the mark of the beast.

Which, as I've talked about in previous sermons, is probably not about some superstitious thing in modern day America.

Rather, the mark of the beast means this alignment with the oppressive economic systems and empires that cycled through human history.

It's something that is before us.

What are the things that we are aligning ourselves with?

What are the things that define our identity?

And so to have God's name on your forehead in Hebrew thought meant that you are defined by God Himself.

When the high priest in ancient Israel would offer sacrifices, he had the name of Yahweh, the name of God on his forehead in order to represent God's favor and God's ownership over him.

And so this is something that gets extended to all the people of God.

That you are defined by the God who ransomed you, who loves you, whose face shines upon you.

Verse 5, there will be no more night.

They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.

This doesn't mean that there is no more sun or that the cosmos have fundamentally changed.

It might, but the imagery here is that God is the source of all of life.

God is the ultimate light.

All that is evil has been done away with.

And the people of God will reign with God forever and ever.

This is the beautiful promise of Scripture.

This is the promise that we see going all the way back to Abraham is that God's people would embody God's original intent for humanity and that they would reign over the earth.

Not dominating it, not exploiting its resources, but storing it, owning it, restoring it.

And all in all, this is a vision that we see of the end of the world.

This is how God descends on earth to restore the earth, which is a beautiful thing.

But the question and the dilemma that we all sit with today is what does that mean for us?

Sure, this happened somewhere way out in the future, another lifetime.

What about us?

This is significant as we remember that this book of Revelation was originally a letter circulated amongst seven actual communities of early Christians in what is now Western Turkey.

And it was meant to encourage them as they lived under the oppression of the Roman Empire.

These were people who were mostly poor, had no influence, no vote.

They didn't live in a democracy.

There wasn't a way to get on social media and get mad at the government.

This was a people with virtually no power.

And it was meant to give them hope.

It was meant to remind them that there is a God who reigns over all of this perceived chaos.

Over even the oppressive human governments that cycle through human history.

There is a God who will restore, a God who desires to be with you.

And we see this in the person of Jesus.

And this is the central focus of all of Christianity is that God would come show who He is to a people who did not deserve it, who perhaps were not even looking for God.

Live the life that God originally designed for humanity.

We go back and we read the Sermon on the Mount, and it is this revolutionary teaching on what it means to be human.

And it is hard to do.

It's easier to control people, perhaps through religion or legislation or guilt.

It's another thing to live from this deep place of communion with God that restores who we were always meant to be.

And then Jesus dies the death that humanity deserves in order to break the curse, to be resurrected from the dead in a representation of what the first century Jews would have understood as the first fruits.

And I know that's kind of a religious word, but it's basically the beginning of a new humanity.

We don't live in an agrarian society, but the first crops that were harvested, it was a symbol of God's faithfulness that year that God would provide.

And so Jesus is the first fruits of the new creation, of the redeemed, restored humanity.

And that is what we celebrate every Sunday.

It's what we celebrate when we take communion.

It is this unmerited grace of God that we receive by faith.

So I'm gonna call Scott back up.

I want to close with this passage from the prophet Habakkuk, which I know it's a little bit obscure.

It's this short ancient Hebrew prophecy, but I think it speaks to I think a truer eschatology, a truer theology of how this all is wrapped up.

The prophet proclaims this in Habakkuk 2.14.

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

I'm gonna read that one more time.

Pay attention to the imagery.

For the earth, for the land will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

This vision of humanity in Revelation 22 is not about us going to some other planet.

It's not about escapism.

It's about God restoring all that is broken here.

It's about God being here with us in the land.

And so as we live our lives, as you look up at the sky, as you consider all that needs restoring in your own life, would you be reminded of the grace of God?

The beauty of this promise, that there will come a day when the land will be filled with the knowledge and the truth of who God is.

And that is a good and beautiful thing.

Would you pray with me?

God, we do pause before you today.

And I know that we have many images, many, many thoughts, many experiences that in our individual psyches define who you are.

I ask God that you would transcend that.

That you would speak to us.

Show us who you are.

And we thank you for this vision.

In Revelation 22.

May our souls be reminded, God, of all that you are doing, all that you are restoring in us and around us.

And for that we give you praise.

And for you, we sing.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.