There is a longing for...
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There is a longing for the new that's especially powerful in our society. In advertising, the single word "New," followed by an exclamation mark, signifies something worth buying. Yet this is not the newness the author of Revelation is talking about. This newness is more than mere novelty. It is a return of the old: but the old made glorious, beautiful, and true.
This would have been vividly clear to John's readers. Many of them had visited Jerusalem. A few short years before John wrote Revelation, the Romans had pulled down the temple, leaving but one wall standing -- known to this day as the "wailing wall." When John tells of a new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven, he's assuring his readers they no longer need to focus on the past, on the glories of days gone by: that God is capable of working new wonders, even out of the rubble of broken dreams.
Revelation is not so much a book of terror and woe, as it is a promise of hope. The new Jerusalem is not some distant goal to which we aspire to escape. It is, instead, a promise of God's determination not to desert this world and a pledge to "make all things new."
This would have been vividly clear to John's readers. Many of them had visited Jerusalem. A few short years before John wrote Revelation, the Romans had pulled down the temple, leaving but one wall standing -- known to this day as the "wailing wall." When John tells of a new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven, he's assuring his readers they no longer need to focus on the past, on the glories of days gone by: that God is capable of working new wonders, even out of the rubble of broken dreams.
Revelation is not so much a book of terror and woe, as it is a promise of hope. The new Jerusalem is not some distant goal to which we aspire to escape. It is, instead, a promise of God's determination not to desert this world and a pledge to "make all things new."
