5/18/25 Sermon

What if I told you everything you’ve heard about the book of Revelation is wrong? I don’t know if that’s true, but what if I told you that the common understanding or the popular conception of this book that we’re about to read from is at its best inaccurate and at its worst, complete garbage? I think it’s important to start any discussion around the book of Revelation with that understanding.  Why?  Because I avoided this book like the plague for so long.  And I feel robbed, because John of Patmos, the author of Revelation does some really beautiful things in it.

I avoided it because well, honestly, it’s hard to understand.  We need to really take our time to go through it.  And it’s hard to preach about because there is so much baggage attached to the book. You have a whole End of Times industry with books like the left behind series and TV prophets to deal with. And they have such as skewed and - dare I say - wrong interpretation of Revelation. But they’re hard to compete with. And so, we just hand it over to them.  People like Luther and Calvin didn’t even want this book in the bible.  And surprisingly for the same reasons.  It’s difficult to understand and easy to take out of context.  But we really do lose something by ignoring this book.

Let me pause for a moment and invite you into a little time-travel. Picture a small, carved-out room in ancient Ephesus where a handful of exhausted believers huddle before dawn. The empire’s banners hang in the streets outside, declaring, Caesar is lord. Tax collectors and soldiers keep watch; rumors of fresh arrests drift through the marketplace. Someone unrolls a freshly received parchment — John’s Apokalypsis, his “unveiling.” And before a single line is read, hearts begin to race. They know apocalyptic language: it’s the code-studded poetry their ancestors used whenever empires roared too loudly. Daniel saw beasts; Ezekiel saw wheels within wheels. Now John — exiled on a penal colony — pulls the curtain back again to show who really holds history.

That’s why Martin Luther, tossed about by his own political storms, almost left Revelation on the editing-room floor. “Too many date-setters,” he grumbled — people twisting its visions into calendars and conspiracy charts. John Calvin simply skipped the book in his commentaries, worried that curiosity would outrun discernment. Yet even these Reformers, skeptical as they were, couldn’t eject it from the canon. They sensed the Spirit whispering beneath the strange symbols; they just weren’t sure how to listen without getting lost. Their hesitation is a gift to us: it teaches reverence in the face of mystery and reminds us that Revelation is best read in community, not in isolation on a talk-show couch.

Read closely, and you notice the grammar of hope humming underneath all the spectacle. “See, I am making all things new,” God says — present tense, ongoing. This is the tension theologians call the “already/not yet”: Christ’s resurrection has already broken the power of death, but the fullness of God’s reign has not yet unfolded. We live in that holy in-between. This means every communion we share, every baptismal splash of water, is both ordinary and cosmic. A font becomes a miniature version of the River of Life; a loaf and cup become the preview menu of the marriage supper of the Lamb.

And revelation is never politically neutral. Every time John sets the slain Lamb on the throne, he is dethroning Caesar. The hymn-singing in heaven is not escapist mood music; it is a protest song—an anthem of allegiance to a different sovereign. When we gather at this table and pray “Your kingdom come,” we are pledging resistance to any power — economic, military, digital — that demands our ultimate trust.

So the vision closes where Scripture began: a garden, now grown into a radiant city, God walking once more with humanity. It is not an evacuation plan; it is a homecoming. The stones beneath our feet, the water in our cups, the ordinary Mondays of Highland Park—these are the raw materials God is already renewing. John’s letter whispers to that little house-church and to us: Stay faithful. Keep singing. Keep building. The city is already on its way down the mountain.

Now, I’m going to attempt to do that all preachers in all times are afraid to do. I’m going to ask you to close your eyes.  Preachers fear doing this because we’re afraid you aren’t going to open them again.  And I know that some of you, even if you do re-open your eyes are just going to close them again later.  Don’t worry my grandfather was an expert sermon sleeper.  I loved sitting next to him.  Although, it was a little embarrassing when he began to snore...  Anyways.  I want you to close your eyes in a minute.  We’re going to go real slowly over the Revelation text this morning. I’m going to now read the text slowly and I want you to visualize what you are hearing in your mind.  So let’s take John’s vision seriously — not just as theology, but as a lived encounter. Close your eyes…

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

This is the word of the Lord.

Ok... Open em back up... Now, let’s go over some common misconceptions:

Misconception 1: This book is not called “Revelations.”  Its the book of REVELATION not REVELATIONS.   There is one revelation.  One image.  One vision.  It isn’t a series of visions.  It is one unit, one cohesive picture essentially.  Maybe it’s a Small point, but it’s an important one.  Many scholars think that the book was meant to be read in one sitting or one hearing the whole way through. John is trying to give us a vision of what he feels the church COULD be. So it’s one vision and one image. What John is doing is issuing a bold challenge to the Christians of his time — calling them out for their silence and urging them to live out their faith with conviction.  Here he is stranded on the Island of Patmos for testifying to his faith and others are hiding.  They aren’t DOING anything.  and that is really paramount here.  They aren’t DOING anything.

Misconception 2:  This is a big one.  We don’t go anywhere.  There is no rapture in John’s revelation.    I know, right?  Shocking.  The part we’re reading this morning is the end of the book.  And listen again carefully.  Its good to go over things again real slowly.  Listen: And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;

We don’t go anywhere.  The Holy city of God, God’s Kingdom, The Kingdom of Heaven is prepared for us.  Christ tells us this in John 14:1: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? Christ goes and prepares a place for us and tells us in John we’ll be brought to it without much specification on what exactly that means.  But here in Revelation.  The city Descends here!  It is placed here on earth.

I mean, that seems to be pretty huge, because most of the imagery we have are of people disappearing. I mean we always talk about the Rapture when we talk about the end of times.   That life is going along as normal and then POOF!  The Christians have been taken up.  But according to John in Revelation, we aren’t taken up.  God comes down.

Misconception 1: Revelation not Revelations.  Its singular

Misconception 2: We aren’t raptured.  God comes to us.  The holy city descends and it brought here to earth.

Misconception 3: God doesn’t make all new things.  God makes all things New.   It isn’t that this world is utterly destroyed and it isn’t that we leave this world.  But what John is telling us is that once this city comes down.  Once God’s Reign is here, everything is going to be different.  Something new will happen.  Listen to how John describes this new time.  He says: He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

And then God speaks for only the second time in this book.  The first time God says, in Chapter 1:8 ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. Sounds familiar.  God is here before the beginning and God is here after the end. Here God says, “See?  I am making all things new.” And So, God changes all things.  This is a rebirth.  The old passes away and begins anew.  The conceptions of this world are dramatically altered.  You see that?  The world is reborn into a world where there are no more tears.  A world where there is no more injustice or inequality.  The world is remade into God’s kingdom.  But it isn’t destroyed and rebuilt.  God takes what is here and rebirths it. The whole world essentially becomes Born again.  When the city comes there is no place where God isn’t.  God is here and there is no place to hide.

What does this all mean?  What is John of Patmos trying to say here to us?  I think it leads us to the greatest misconception of the book of Revelation, the place where we realize that most understandings presented to us are wrong.   God does not save Christians from this world.  God saves this world through Christians.  John is calling the church to task.  That’s how the book opens up.  He’s telling them to step it up.  He’s telling us we need to put some serious work into this world if God’s Kingdom is to come on earth.  But make no mistake about it, God’s kingdom will come if we work for it.

That isn’t to say that this world is an easy place.  John warns the church and all of us that the road is treacherous.  There will be murders and wars, famines and droughts, persecutions and executions. He warns us that we’ll toil and struggle.  But in the end God’s kingdom descends from heaven and all things are made anew.

There’s that hope.  There’s that promise for John.  That there’s a better world right around the corner. That life right now may be hard, but there will be a time where we are hand in hand with God in this world.  But we need to work with God to build it.  It won’t just come.  We won’t just be plucked from our seats out of this sinful world, as it were, and taken up.

No, John is telling us that we have to work to bring it here.  In the void that is left from a troublesome and hurtful world, we are called to lay the groundwork and build the foundations of God’s new city.  We are called to persevere when everyone else wants to run away.  John is warning us precisely against giving up here for a promise that we will be taken somewhere else that is better.  He is telling us we need to make it better here.  And that is a dramatically different understanding than what we are normally given about this book.

At the root of John’s radical new vision for the church is the central theme that We’re called to witness. That’s the heart of the Book of Revelation.  In fact, one could argue that IS the Revelation. We are called to live lives of dedication to building this kingdom of God.  The promise that John gives us in this book is that body of Christ.  The communion of the saints joined with all members of the church can and will save this world.  Do you believe that?  It’s hard to believe.  It’s hard to understand.  It may be more comforting to believe we’ll be plucked up and saved from the world.  But that isn’t what Revelation is telling us.  Its telling us the road is hard and there is pain involved.  But make no mistake about it, if we work for it, not only CAN we save this world but we WILL save this world.  God is not saving Christians from this world.  God is saving this WORLD through Christians.  That is our calling.  To build the kingdom.  To build the foundations of that Holy City where God will dwell with his peoples and will wipe every tear from their eyes.

So may you be a strong witness to Jesus Christ.

May you persevere in your faith despite opposition.

May you attempt to remake this world to look more like God intended.

And may you know that God does not save Christians from this world but God saves this world through Christians like you.