Sermonstudio

Years ago I worked at a telecatalog center. People called in their orders and I entered them into the computer. Each day I had to log on to my computer station with a password. It was my password. At the training session covering passwords, the trainer suggested we use something not very obvious that no one could guess. Your children's names or grandchildren. Your car license plate. Your bowling team name. In that system, the computer asked you to change your password every six weeks. So you had to think of something new you would remember, and could spell, surprisingly often.

But the main point of a password is to make it hard for anyone else to get into your system. If you've ever used a password, you'll appreciate this story.

It was Parent's Night at the high school. Mrs. Schulz walked through her son's day at high school, along with other parents. In the computer lab, her son's password didn't work. It cannot vary by even one letter or space, and some words can be deceiving. But she got an opportunity just made for mothers. The teacher helped her change the password on her son's computer. That's why young Mr. Schulz's new password is "ilovemom." (Mosley, Emphasis, May-June, 1998, p. 26)


One day, a teacher, a garbage collector, and a lawyer all die and go to heaven. Saint Peter is there and is having a bad day since heaven is getting crowded. When they get to the gate, Saint Peter says that there will be a test to get into heaven: they each will have to answer a single question.

To the teacher, he says, "What was the name of the ship that crashed into the iceberg and sank with over half its passengers and was the worst disaster in maritime history?"

The teacher thinks for a second, and then replies: "That would be the Titanic, right?" Saint Peter waves him through.

Saint Peter turns to the garbage man, and, figuring that heaven doesn't need all the stink that this guy would bring into heaven, decides to make the question a little harder: "How many people died on the ship?"

The garbage man guesses: "1,513."

"That happens to be right; go ahead."

Then Saint Peter turns to the lawyer: "Name them."

We know there will be a final judgment. And we usually think of heaven as so good that none of us is good enough to get in. We worry we won't know the password. The test questions might be too hard. So we get lots of jokes about trying to get in.

We really can't know what either heaven or hell actually is; even the Bible can't tell us because they are vast unknowns. The human mind can't grasp either one. The most we can have is what we have here in Revelation: an approximation in word-pictures that give us some idea of heaven or hell.

Today's reading from Revelation 21 gives us two ideas: 1) God is making all things new, and 2) God is preparing to dwell with his people. Let's take the second point first.

Revelation can be broken down into a play with seven acts, each act having seven scenes. Act 1 deals with the church in this world, in John's time. In Act 2 we turn to the church in heaven. And there are some bizarre pictures here, but they are not all of John's making. The four living creatures described earlier in chapter 5 come from a vision of Ezekiel, and they have elements of the vision of angels in Isaiah's vision of the temple in heaven. So John carries us back to the Old Testament for some of his imagery.

God is the God of the living, in this world and the next. And what we do here, while living in this world, shapes us for the next.

Our idea of the afterlife or heaven or hell will shape the way we shape ourselves for it. You may not be too thrilled with the picture John presents: just praise God in Christ for all eternity. But that's what he says. Could it be a picture that makes sense? It does if your life in this world tries to make every minute a practice for it: looking to Christ as central to life and his praise as its most important activity.

John says that in heaven the worship of Christ is central, comes from every living creature, and is sevenfold praise.

On the syndicated television show The Pretender, the hero, Jarrod, had been abducted as a child and forced to use his genius for the machinations of "The Center." Now that he's an adult and has escaped from "The Center," he sees what he missed not having a mother or family while he was growing up. He desperately wants to be reunited with his mother. He almost got to meet her once, but "The Center" got to him before he could talk to her and she had to flee the scene. Since then his thoughts have turned more and more to his mother. Along the way he helps people in trouble, but mainly he's searching for his mother.

Revelation 21 says that God's longing to be reunited with humanity is even more intense than Jarrod's longing to be reunited with his mother. That's the whole message of the Bible. In the beginning, we turned away from our Creator and God. And ever since then, God has been at work bringing us back to him. And here at the end of time, God recreates heaven and earth so that we can finally live together as one family.

Jesus' death and resurrection make it possible for us to begin to experience that family of God today. And we, as priests serving God, are to be the presence of God for others when they can't feel that presence themselves.

Remember his command, "Love one another, even as I have loved you."

God longs to be one with his people, and is preparing to dwell with them. That's why we see the Holy City, God's people the church, prepared for him as a Bride adorned for her husband.

But God is also "making all things new."

In France, September of 1783, Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier publicly demonstrated the first practical hot air balloon. Passengers on the flight were a duck, a rooster, and a sheep. Among the witnesses of the demonstration were Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The three animals were safely recovered, paving the way for more test flights, and human beings went up in the balloon two months later.

Also in the audience was a man invited for his reputation as an inventor and scientist. At the time, he was an ambassador from the American colonies in rebellion against England. Benjamin Franklin was in France to get help for the war effort. Looking at the Montgolfier balloon, someone asked Dr. Franklin, "But what good is it?"

Was he thinking of the nation struggling to be born across the Atlantic? Could he have known or foreseen the leap to heavier-than-air flight and the power of aviation? Might a statesman and politician of that day imagine travel to the moon and stars? Maybe not. Certainly he himself had seen the birth of many new inventions, some of them useful, some of them silly.

But what he said was, "What good is a newborn baby?" (Mosley, Emphasis, May-June, 1998, p. 32)


Can we be open to God doing a new thing? And not just one new thing, but making all things new?

Look at the strange story in today's Acts reading. Peter (not Paul!) is able to reach Gentiles because along with his impetuous nature he has now become able to see what God is doing beyond Peter's own limited expectations. Peter has finally learned that when you call someone "the Christ, the Son of God," you don't go on to tell him what to do (remember "get behind me, Satan"?). Nor do you deny him when it gets inconvenient. Instead you listen. You feed his sheep -- and since it's his flock, you let him decide who the sheep are. When you discern the presence of the Holy Spirit, you set self aside and follow. God's loving, creative power is nothing new -- it has been from before the beginning and will continue after the end (or if you prefer, in eternity which has no beginning or end). This same power is also everything new: so we can hope. We can dream great dreams. We can be encouraged and challenged to aim for that new life by loving as Jesus loves us.

This praise arises out of the joy of salvation, rather than the fear of doom. And that is precisely the hymn of the multitude in heaven: Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!

God will put new things in your life. Look for new things in your life. They may not be what you expect, or even what you want. With God, you can't be timid or afraid of new things or unknown things. Because the God who makes all things new also makes his dwelling with us. And in dwelling with us he brings all those comforting things that Revelation keeps repeating, about the wiping away the tears, and no mourning or pain, because the former things have passed away.


Lord, make of us a new thing, that your people may be prepared as your bride, saying no to everything that makes it more difficult to say yes to you.