One Story: Restoration

Armageddon

I grew up in the 90s, and I’ve thought more than once about filing some kind of lawsuit against Hollywood for emotional trauma. Because it was in these formative years of my fragile psyche that they decided to release like a whole slew of disaster movies that depicted the end of the world. Do you remember this phase? Like every few months it seemed, a new movie starring some big name actor would come out detailing the destruction of earth.

My favorite one of these films was the movie Armageddon. Do you remember that movie? It had Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis in it. And they play oil riggers who somehow become space cowboys in an attempt to blow up a super big asteroid that’s hurtling towards the earth? I think I was in 8th grade or so when I first saw the movie, and I remember that I saw it with my 8th grade girlfriend in the movie theater, so that’s probably why it was my favorite. It might have legitimately been my first real date ever. It was a long time ago so, who knows.

But aside from the stunning love story that embroils Ben Affleck and the daughter of Bruce Willis, I was fascinated by this and many other stories of the near destruction of the world. I don’t know why. But Armageddon was particularly interesting to me because it took on a name that was closely associated with a word that was found at the end of the Bible. I was a youth group kid, so I knew the terminology that was regularly used to describe what was supposed to happen at the end of all things. Words like armageddon, apocalypse, and revelation were all words and concepts that were strangely prevalent in my thinking, which is pretty ironic considering that this was the same time that the general population was shunning heavy metal music and video games as being bad influences on the minds of young people.

But the point is that this era of Hollywood’s obsession with the end of the world is really rooted in a long standing tradition within the broader Judeo-Christian understanding of where the world is heading. Doomsday, armageddon, and the apocalypse are all words that we use to talk about the end of life as we know it. The sensationalization of these ideas has certainly taken on new form as humans have further understood our universe and our place within it — hence the plot line behind movies like armageddon and deep impact where rogue flying space rocks threaten to collide with the flying space rock we call home and end life as we know it.

But we also live in the knowledge that human striving has actually created a means for us to end this thing on our own. The nuclear age, cold war, and resulting world in which we are always a few button presses away from total nuclear destruction is a harsh reality that we have to live with. This is even more a reality now these days than over the past several years with Putin scrambling to exert power.

But all of that aside, it has always been the hope of Jews and Christians alike that the world as we know it would end. And yes I say hope, because unlike the general cultural obsession with the end of the world and avoiding it, the biblical depiction of the end is actually a vision of restoration. It’s a vision of hope, a much greater hope than could ever be realized without the final few chapters of our Bibles.

Back to the Beginning

We started this sermon series nearly 2 months ago, and when we began, we saw God’s creative efforts and how the world was a place that promoted and sustained life. We saw how humans messed that up, and instead of continued to build and institute power structures, governments, and nations that do just the opposite. The Bible uses the term “Babylon” in order to describe this kingdom of darkness that humanity is continually adept to creating — despite even our best laid intentions.

God’s plan was to pull a family out of this very real land of Babylon in order to establish his kingdom. That kingdom was made up of a people who came to be known as Israel. But Israel failed, and ended up becoming just like Babylon. And so God, from the midst of this darkness, sent a savior. Out of the best of the worst displays of human striving, empire building, and oppression came Jesus. And Jesus came to call people out of the kingdoms of darkness that humanity had created in order to establish a new kingdom — the kingdom of God.

But the kingdom of God was and continues to be only partially realized. It exists in pockets of people, people called the church, who exist in the midst of this messy, dark world, as little glimpses into who God is and who God is calling humans to be. And that is our present reality as the church. Our job is to be a place of hope that exhibits, invites, and embraces people on their journey to experience the life promoting and life sustaining love of God in this world.

And we’ve been doing this thing for 2000 years now. I don’t know about you, but it seems like its getting harder and harder as we go. The world seems like a place that is less hospitable and more corrupt than ever. So this can’t be all there is right? Right. There is far more. There’s the end of our Bibles. The most improperly taught, misunderstood, and confusing book in your Bible: The Revelation

Reading Responsibly

When we turn to the last book of the Bible we are immediately greeted with a hot mess of images and scenes that make very little sense to us. So it’s easy to get lost in the weeds. And I can’t possibly explain it all in a sermon. That’s some pretty heavy bible study stuff, but what we need to focus on in the book is what it accomplishes.

One of my favorite scholars puts it this way: (slide)

Revelation serves as a symbolic vision for every age of the church that reveals the historical pattern that all human kingdoms become Babylon and must be resisted, and God’s promise that Jesus will return to remove evil from his world. - Dr. Tim Mackie

What this means is that the primary thrust of the Revelation is focused on God’s goal and the human task — not as some secret code that we should spend our time deciphering in order to figure out when Jesus is coming.

This also means that our primary hope, the primary hope of the Bible, and therefore the primary hope for God’s people comes from chapter 21 of Revelation:

Revelation 21:1–8 NRSV

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. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

The writer of Revelation is striking here at the second of those two core ideas. Jesus will return and remove evil and remove it eternally. And along with evil, the effects of evil will cease to exist — Death, mourning, crying, and pain.

Remember what God created the world to be — A life promoting and life sustaining place. Evil introduced death into this world. When evil is removed, the world once again becomes a place that truly promotes and sustains life, without the threat of death looming in the shadows.

But this passage illuminates for us an even deeper truth that might require us to rearrange our own understanding of heaven and earth.

Resurrection

The real hope for humans, according to the Bible, is not that we would die and go to the good place. Certainly our modern conception of Heaven is not entirely incorrect. We certainly experience paradise when we die in Christ. But what we need to do is not put all of our stock in a future of floating around as disembodied spirits and playing harps. Also — when you die you don’t become an angel. I’m sorry if that’s what you’re hoping for. But it’s just not true. It’s not in the Bible. All the Bible really tells us about heaven is that God’s throne is there, that the full and glorious presence of God is there, and that we will experience rest in God’s presence while we wait for a new future reality.

And that future reality is what Revelation is pointing us to. It is the joining — actually rejoining — of heaven and earth. And with that joining, the souls of those who have passed will be reunited with resurrected and glorified human bodies — just like Jesus had in the resurrection — and we will live on this earth together in harmony with the presence of God.

It sounds crazy right? But this is what we believe. Every time we say the apostle’s creed we say “I believe in the resurrection of the body” and we don’t just mean Jesus’s body. We mean the resurrection of all humans to eternal, physical life here in a real and tangible world that is free from the influence of evil, where God’s presence is fully avaliable, where Jesus reigns with righteousness and Justice, and where creation is truly a place that promotes and sustains life.

If you think I’m crazy, I don’t blame you. But this was the original intention of creation. In the very beginning, God walked with humans in the Garden of Eden. And humans had access to the tree of life. Death didn’t exist. Look at these parallel verses:

Genesis 2:10–14 NRSV

A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Revelation 22:1–2a (NRSV)

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.

So in the beginning and end we have a river flowing from the presence of God to water and bring life to the world. And then just one more example here:

Genesis 2:9 NRSV

Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Revelation 22:2b (NRSV)

On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Once again, the tree of life is present. Its purpose is to heal the world. The renewing and restoring work of God finds its fulfillment in the world that is created when Jesus comes back and brings all believers home with him.

Discerning Babylon

You may be thinking, what about the first like 20 chapters of Revelation. Yes. That whole mess is part of God’s reminder to us that human history is riddled with kingdoms that perpetually become Babylon - kingdoms of darkness. And our only defense against becoming a part of this mess is to actively resist it. And the only way to resist becoming or being tricked into declaring our allegiance to these kingdoms of darkness is to keep our hope in God’s kingdom in the front of our minds. Because the power of darkness is cunning and insidious. It veils itself as good, it seduces us and tempts us with offers of power. Sometimes it comes wearing clothes and claiming to be of God.

And so it is on us to enter into discernment about who and what we align ourselves with. First we must discern — is this a person, organization, political entity, or church that is seeking to create a world that promotes and sustains life?

Then we must discern on a daily basis if our ultimate hope is in that entity or if it remains in the hope of God’s restored world. Typically our biggest mistake comes here. We buy into the promises that people make to us that they are going to fix this broken world. We follow politicians, philanthropists, scientists, celebrities, and pastors more closely than we follow Jesus, and in the end we are left empty.

These are the ways that we are distracted from the primary purposes of God in this world. We get lost in the mess and what happens is division and disillusionment happens. The hope of God’s new world gets tossed in the back seat and we start driving down all the wrong roads. We forget to live into our purpose to love God with all of our hearts. We forget to love our neighbor as ourselves. We forget the One Story. We forget that as much as it’s a story about Jesus, that it’s also a story about us. It’s a story that we are called to inhabit. It’s a story that is meant to command our allegiance. Because it’s a story about our true home, and the one who welcomes us into it.

The End

It’s my deep hope that the past 8 weeks now have opened your eyes and your hearts to the deep well of God’s story and how it invites us to partner with God in living out the mission of Jesus Christ here in our world, in our city, and in your own life. The Bible is one story that leads to Jesus. And it’s not just that all of the plots and themes find their ultimate culmination and fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ. More importantly is that this story leads YOU to Jesus. That like any good story you find yourself lost and found in its pages, challenged and redeemed in its message of radical inclusion, stretched by the extreme hospitality that God demands of you, and that you find yourself at home and hopeful when you ponder the union of heaven and earth and the ways God has called you to bring this story to all of God’s people through the gift sacrificial and self giving love.