Today, Advent Sunday, is a time to think about Jesus' advent, his coming into the world; not so much to start thinking about Christmas (we start that too early!) but to think about when Jesus comes again...
We don't know when it will happen. Nobody knows the day nor the hour. And if someone comes along and tells you "it's true, we don't know the day or the hour, but we can know the year, maybe even the month", they are just playing with words. All the Bible tells us the opposite: Jesus will come with the clouds, suddenly, so that two people will be working together and one will be taken, and the other left.
We don't have a programme for what will take place when Jesus comes back. How we will get from Jesus appearing, to the final victory we read about in our reading today, is not clear. What the Bible says is in picture language and poetry: the pictures need to be interpreted - not decoded! Now I don't believe God has hidden truths in scripture in a secret code. He is by nature a God who reveals himself. He gives us what we need to know and he does so generously and freely.
But there are three things that we do know about in the return of Jesus.
1. God - the triumph of the triune.
This is the God who was revealed in Jesus, but more than Jesus. I love to read, study and learn from the ministry of Jesus on earth. We need the Gospels and we need to dig into the Gospels. Jesus was and is a wise, selfless, generous, courageous, warm, insightful witty, funny, sensitive person with authority and power that brought healing and freedom to loads of people and challenge to many more.
But that Jesus is now the victorious Jesus. Throughout the book of Revelation there has been Jesus. He is central... He is there in the first chapter, coming in the clouds, eyes like fire, feet like bronze, and the voice like the sound of many waters... He is there moving among the candle-sticks that represent the seven local churches in Revelation 2-3. He is there throughout Revelation as "the Lamb" that has been slain, a lamb drenched in his own blood (Revelation 5. 6, 12; Revelation 13. 8) but a lamb who is "worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing."
And at the end of everything, when everything is made new, there will be Jesus....
Do you need to be encouraged today? If life is tough - as it was for the Christians in places like Ephesus, Thyatira and Philadelphia - then take a look at where Jesus is today - seated at the right hand of God. He is the Victor. He has won the battle and because he has won, you are going to win, too. In fact, the whole point of revelation is "We win!"
2. The Kingdom in the world - a new heaven and a new earth...
What the Bible actually says is that there will be a new heaven and a new earth and that they will be kind of "open-plan"... so when the new heaven and new earth are made, the dwelling place of God is with men... That's different; it's bigger and more robust.
The old order of things - all of it - will be done away with. John specifically records "There was no more any sea" and in the ancient world with its tiny wooden ships, navigating only by the stars, powered only by wind or human muscle, the sea was a threatening place that represented everything dark and scary... But in this new heaven and earth, there is no sea. Everything of darkness, everything treacherous and dangerous in the created order will be no more.
In the new order of things, there will be no more death, or mourning or crying (v 4). There will be no more cowardly, faithless, detestable (those whose behavioiur stinks), murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, or liars (v 8); they go into the "second death".
The God who spoke the first universe into being will speak a new universe into being. There is a new version of life, the universe and everything coming. And it's going to be good. And the Kingdom as we encounter it today, is the seeds of that new heaven and new earth.
3. The Church - a bride adorned for her husband.
What does the New Jerusalem mean? Well, the answer is in the text. The angel said to John, "Come and I will show you the Bride, the wife of the lamb." The Bride is the Church, the people of God. In Ephesians 5. 25, 32 Paul tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. The whole marriage thing is a picture of the relationship between Jesus and the Church. Jesus isn't a bigamist. He has only one bride.
We sometimes think Church is kind of like a collective noun for a group of Christians. You would talk about a church of Christians almost like you would talk about a flock of sheep or a gaggle of geese. The church is more than the people who make up the church. It is what all these people are, all together, for all eternity. It is the people of God from before Jesus in Israel (the twelve gates have the names of the twelve tribes of Israel written on them) and since Jesus in the Christian Church (the foundation stones carry the names of the twelve apostles).
So, the Church matters to God. Jesus loves it and died for it. It is bigger than Rosyth, bigger than the BU of Scotland. It is timeless, going back to Israel, and going on for ever... If you are part of the Church you are part of something eternal. We need to love the Church because Jesus does. We need to love the Church because we are going to be part of it for ever.
So there are three things that we can look forward to for eternity: fellowship with God. A new Heaven and a new earth; and the Church. As we look forward to these, we can experience a foretaste of each of them now, fellowship with God, the present and coming Kingdom and the life of the Church.
© Gilmour Lilly November 2010
I've been looking at revelation recently. I was trying to de-code it I guess, but it's slowly dawning on me what it is really all about. That has to be one of the most simple and truthful things Ive read on revelation. Thanks!
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