The City of God

November 3, 2024 homily on Isaiah 25:6-9; John 11:32-44; Revelation 21:1-6a by Pastor Galen for All Saints Sunday

“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 and be their God; 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.’” – Revelation 21:3-4

A Day When We Get It Right

Earlier this week several of my Facebook friends shared a quote by retired United Methodist Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes that said, 

“Halloween: a day when we get it right. Strangers come to us, beautiful, ugly, odd or scary, and we accept them all without question, compliment them, treat them kindly, and give them good things. Why don’t we live like that [all the time]?” – Steve Garnass-Holmes

I was thinking about this quote this past Thursday evening as I sat on the front steps of our church building handing out candy, and as I joined my wife and daughter and her girl scout friends in going around the neighborhood trick-or-treating. Thursday evening was a beautifully warm evening here in Baltimore, and in many ways it provided a small glimpse into the city that is to come — the city of God depicted here in Revelation 21. Here in Hampden there were crowds of people, from all walks of life, from all backgrounds and wearing all sorts of costumes, talking with one another, complimenting each other, taking pictures with each other, and yes, giving each other good things like candy. 

We typically don’t get crowds of trick-or-treaters here on Falls Rd. on Halloween — most of the trick-or-treaters walking past were parking here to walk up to HalloweenFest on The Avenue. Since we had plenty of candy to give away, I decided to offer candy to anyone who went past, including adults and teens coming home from work and school, and folks heading into the AA meeting and Spanish tutoring sessions that take place in our church building on Thursday evenings. The Spanish instructor, Mario, sat with me on the steps for a while, and we chatted and handed out candy together. I even offered candy to kids in cars stuck in the heavy traffic here on Falls Rd. — many of whom seemed afraid they might miss out on trick-or-treating altogether because traffic was at a standstill and there was nowhere to park. But across the board, whenever I offered candy to someone — whether they were an adult, teen, or child, in costume or not, a smile spread across their face, and we had a momentary connection that gave me just a small glimpse into the future that is to come when we will live together in perfect community with God and all the saints.

The City of God

But of course, Halloween here in Hampden pales in comparison to what is to come when God dwells with us in that eternal city. In the city depicted in Revelation 21 and in Isaiah’s foretelling of the world that is to come there will be no sickness, pain or death. There will be no more conflict or wars, no more crime or violence or overdoses. No more scarcity, no more greed, no more traffic. No more homelessness, no more addiction, no more injustice, no more poverty, no more children going hungry. 

And the reason that everything will be made right is because God will be with us, and God will wipe away all our tears, and destroy sin and death and injustice once and for all. There will be no more reason to be afraid, no more reason to mourn or cry. God will put an end to all suffering, and everything will be made new.

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus

Mary and Martha got to experience a foretaste of this resurrection life when Jesus brought their brother Lazarus back to life. For Mary and Martha, it must have felt like their world was falling apart when their brother Lazarus died. He was way too young to die. It just wasn’t fair! And they knew that if Jesus had just gotten here sooner, he could have healed their brother. They had seen him heal plenty of other people before. Why hadn’t Jesus simply come right away when they called for him?

But now, Lazarus was dead, and there was nothing more that could be done. Or so they thought. But Jesus said to Mary and Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:40), and he proceeded to call Lazarus forth from the grave! In bringing Lazarus back to life, Jesus points to the fact that death is not the end. Truly there is life after death, and the life that is to come is so much better than we could ever hope or dream or imagine.

But this story here in John 11 not only points forward to the life that is to come. Here in John 11 we also catch a glimpse of the compassion and empathy that God has for us here and now, and the intimacy and closeness that God longs to have with us. Through Jesus, we see that God is not a dispassionate, far-off, cold and uncaring deity, just sitting there waiting to punish us. Rather in Jesus we see that God cares about what we go through in this life, that he understands our pain and suffering and grief, and that he longs for us to experience new and eternal life.

One of the ways we see this here in John 11 is in two profound little words — the shortest verse in the entire Bible — in which John tells us that “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Now, when I was a child growing up in Sunday School, I used to love John 11:35, because of how short it was. All I had to do was memorize two words, and I could say that I had memorized a whole verse of the Bible! But little did I know the profound nature of those two words. In his humanity and in his Divinity, Jesus wept for his friend Lazarus who had died, and for his friends Martha and Mary who were grieving the loss of their brother. In that simple but profound phrase, we see evidence that God cares about us and loves us, even in the midst of our doubt and pain and anger and grief.

The word “wept” here does not mean that Jesus just shed a little tear. Rather, the word translated as “wept” describes the snorting of a war horse. It’s a guttural response – and it goes along with verse 33, where John tells us that “he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”

Jesus knew that Lazarus could be raised to life, and yet Jesus experienced the grief and sorrow and anger that his friends were experiencing, and he was distraught that they had to experience loss and sorrow in the first place. As humans, we were made to live forever with God. Death is not natural. God created the world to be a place where we would live forever. But as humans, we chose to go our own way. We ate the forbidden fruit, and believed the serpent’s lie that if we chose to go our own way and do our own thing, we would be like God. And we continually choose what we think is best for ourselves, at the expense of our relationship with God and others.  And so Jesus wept for all the pain and grief that humans experience and for all the times when we are left to wonder what is happening and why and where is God. 

Every Tear

We see this intimacy and empathy in our Scripture readings from Isaiah and Revelation, where we see God wiping away every tear (See Isaiah 25:8 and Rev. 21:4). 

The act of wiping away someone’s tears is such a loving and tender gesture. It’s an intimate, gentle expression of love. It’s also something that can only be done in person, when you’re in close proximity to someone. You cannot wipe away another person’s tears from a distance. You have to be right there with them, so close to them that you can touch them. The visions in Isaiah and Revelation of God wiping away every tear from our eyes look forward to that future day when Christ will return and we will be gathered together with our friends and loved ones and those who have gone on before us. God will be present with us and will wipe away our tears. This is not a dismissal of the pain and suffering and loss that we’ve experienced in this life, but rather an assurance that God is with us, and because God is with us, it will all be OK. “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (Rev. 21:4). The former things will pass away, and all things will be made new (Rev. 21:5).

This is indeed why Jesus came into the world – to remove the barrier of sin that separated us from God, to reconcile us with God, and to begin the process of making all things new. 

All Saints Sunday

Today is All Saints Sunday, a day on which we remember our friends and loved ones and all those who have gone before — all those who have inspired us on our journey of faith. Some of us have lost loved ones this year, and later on in our service we’ll have an opportunity to say their names out loud as we remember and reflect upon their lives and on their passing. 

As I think about the hope that we have in Christ, and the future reality that we see portrayed in the visions of Isaiah and Revelation, I can’t help but think that perhaps the people we think of as “saints” are simply people who lived into the future reality that we see portrayed in these visions in the here and now. They were people who lived and worked to make God’s new creation a reality in our world today.

Many of those saints who have gone on before us gave their lives in service to others. As the song we sang we’ll sing in a little bit proclaims, they “showed the kingdom coming still through selfless protest, prayer, and praise” (“For All the Saints,” The Faith We Sing, 2283). Saints are those who pray, and long and work for God’s “kingdom to come, and God’s will to be done,” as we pray every time we recite the Lord’s prayer.

It is good and right to feel honor and gratitude and respect for those who have gone before us and paved the way, and who spent their lives proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ through Word and deed. We can and should be inspired by their faith and their action, and seek to follow their example.

But it’s also important for us to remember that saints were not perfect people. Saints were regular, everyday people like you and me who allowed God to work through them. They were people like Mary and Martha who had faith, but sometimes struggled to believe. They were people like you and me, who tried to get it right, but often got it wrong. In fact, in the Bible, all of the followers of Christ are referred to as “saints.” The word “saints” refers to “holy ones, set apart, consecrated or dedicated to God”  — which in fact is what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Saints, both past and present, know that we can’t do it on their own, that we need God’s help. Saints don’t do it for fame or glory, to be thanked or recognized. They just believe that God’s way is the best way, and that if we want peace on earth then it must begin with us, as we allow God to work in and through us.

So this morning as we remember all those who have gone on before us, let us live in hopeful expectation of the world that is to come, when there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, when we will be reunited with our friends and loved ones.

Let us be inspired by the example of those who have gone on before us, and may we too seek to be people who pray and long and work for God’s Kingdom here and how. 

Let us ask God to form us into the type of people that future generations will want to emulate, people who point others towards Christ through word and deed, people who live into the simple yet hopeful reality that God is with us, and that in the end we will be with God. May we long and pray and work for the day when there will be no more sadness, grief, or pain, when all will be made right. When peace and justice will reign, when we will welcome strangers, no matter who they are or what they look like, and when God will wipe every tear and remind us that it will be OK.

Amen!