[Most weeks, I present as many updates on my reflections and study of the Biblical texts on which our weekend worship celebrations will be built as I can. The purpose is to help the people of the congregation I serve as pastor, Friendship Lutheran Church of Amelia, Ohio, get ready for worship. Hopefully, it's helpful to others as well, since our Bible lesson is usually one from the weekly lectionary, variations of which are used in most of the churches of the world.]
The Bible Lesson: Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
10And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God...22I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 25Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 27But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
22Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; 4they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
General Comments
1. In last week's lesson, we saw the first heaven and the first earth supplanted by a new heaven and a new earth which came down to the first. Here, the new Jerusalem is described.
2. C.S. Lewis does a wonderful job of explaining what Revelation is getting at in describing the new heaven, earth, and Jerusalem in the seventh book of The Chronicles of Narnia. It's called The Last Battle. There, the main characters of the book which I regard as the most sublime in all of English literature, witness the end of Narnia, the world they so loved. Its end is wrought by Aslan, the Christ figure of Lewis' novels.
They find themselves in a beautiful place: Narnia, but not exactly the Narnia where they'd once lived. It's a new Narnia. As Lucy Pevensie, the girl from our world who became a queen in that world she once reached through a wardrobe, explains it:
"I see...This is still Narnia and more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below..."Lewis helps us to see that everything we love about this life and every good thing for which we naturally yearn as creatures made in the image of God will exist in the new Jerusalem and according to the vision given to John in the book of Revelation, all who have believed in Christ--whose names are written in the Book of the Lamb--will live in that new city.
3. Jerusalem was not only the capital city of Israel (later Judea) or the focal point of its worship life. Jerusalem, because it housed the Temple was also thought to be the place where the very presence of God dwelt. It was in the Holy of Holies, once the repository of the tablets on which God inscribed the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.
4. What's stunning is that in this "new Jerusalem," there is no Temple. God--the Father and the Son (the Lamb)--dwell among the people with no structure concealing or containining God's presence, although God is still worshiped, still higher, still greater. Accessibility doesn't lessen God's glory. But, contrary to some religious teachings, the Bible reveals that human beings will never be on the same level as God. Even in eternity, God will be the Creator and we will be God's creatures. God will always be divine and we will worship God.
5. As throughout the book of Revelation, Jesus is described as "the Lamb," the One Who, like the sacrifical lambs once offered in the Temple, gave His life for all who turn from sin and believe in Him to live.
Verse-by-verse comments on the lesson tomorrow, I hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment