He Is Risen! Now What? (2)

Good morning everyone, and welcome to our worship service on a downright beautiful Sunday morning. It’s good to see you all here and online.

Sue is on a much-deserved vacation this week, so I’ll be filling in for her today. And by that I don’t mean playing the piano and singing (because no one wants that), I just mean I’ll be talking a little more.

We have some announcements in your bulletin I’d like to draw your attention to.

Our family ministry team is working on some amazing things that will be coming in the near future. The church council met with Jesyka Rowzie on Tuesday, and she’s taking the lead for a lot of this, including resuming Sunday school for teens and kids beginning in June. So thank you Jesyka for that, and if you would like any information on all of that, please see her.

Just a reminder that we are collecting for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering through the 25th. Our goal for that is $2,500.

Comfort Care Women’s Health is looking for a volunteer to head up a Stride for Life here at our church. You’ll see an email address in your bulletin to contact if you’re interested.

These beautiful flowers here this morning are from Amy Campbell in honor of her brother, who was buried this week. His name was Danny Myrtle, and please keep Amy and her family in your prayers.

And with that, let’s begin our worship with a video from our Ladies Ensemble, “I will Bless the Lord.”

Let’s pray:

Father we thank you for this beautiful spring morning and for every person gathered here. You know each of us by name, know our hurts and our worries, our fears and our dreams, you know all of our sins. And yet you continue to cherish us with a love that is unending, with a patience that knows no limits, with a care like Abba, and with the guiding hand of a Lord leading us home. We ask you come into this place and be among us. Fill our hearts with thanksgiving and open our minds to your truth. For we ask this in Jesus’s name, Amen.

Please stand as we play our opening hymn, How Great Thou Art.

Sermon

I learned a new word the other day. Over Easter week there were a lot of articles written about a new poll that said for the first time in our nation’s history, less than 50% of the population attend church.

Lots of reasons for that. I won’t get into them because you probably already know most, but then I read that new word. It was in an article about the breakdown of religious views — this many people were Protestant, this many Catholic, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, atheist, and then that new one — apatheist.

And I thought, now what in the world does that mean? So I looked it up. Sounds like “atheist,” doesn’t it? “Apatheist.” So I figured an apatheist was a certain kind of atheist, and I was right on that point.

An atheist is a person who doesn’t believe there is a God. But an apatheist takes that unbelief one step further to say, “I don’t know if there’s a God, and I don’t care.”

And honestly, I couldn’t believe such a person existed. Because at least an atheist has taken the time to think about the possibility that God exists. He’s weighed whatever bit of evidence he’s found and decided that it’s just too great of a leap.

An apatheist, though, doesn’t even do that. He won’t even ask the question if there is a God. He says, “I really don’t care if God exists or not. Doesn’t matter to me. One way or the other, it doesn’t affect me at all.”

And the sad thing is that there is evidently enough people like that in our country right now that we had to invent a new name to describe them.

The oldest known building in the world is Göbekli Tepe, in Turkey. It’s dated all the way back to 10,000 B.C., and do you know what it is? It’s a temple. A place of worship.

In the entire history of humanity, the single most important question was always, “Is there a God?” And now we seem to be quickly approaching the point where not only is that not the most important question, it’s not important at all. It’s no longer, “Is there a God?”, it’s “Maybe there’s a God, but So what?”

Last week we celebrated the most important day on the Christian calendar. Easter. The day when Christ rose from the grave to overcome death itself. And last week we talked about how the very worst thing we can do is keep living like it’s that Black Saturday instead of Easter Sunday, because Christ’s victory over the grave is also ours if our faith is in him.

But what’s so great about that victory? What does it mean, practically, for you and for me? Why should the joy of Easter Sunday be our joy every single day?

If there is a God, now what?

That’s the question we’re going to answer today, and for that we’re turning to the book of Revelation, chapter 21, verses 1-7. Follow along with me in your bulletins:

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, 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, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

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

And 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 from the spring of the water of life without payment.

The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

And this is God’s word.

These verses written by the Apostle John about 2,000 years ago are the most precious in the Bible. Right here is every reason for our joy, our hope, our faith, and our longing.

It’s freedom in its very essence, freedom in the sense that because of Easter, because Christ rose, we can live our lives free of fear, free of worry, and free of sadness.

Jesus rose. Now what? Or for those apatheists out there, So what? Why does that matter? These seven verses answer both of those questions. Because these verses are a promise of true freedom and true happiness that this world can’t provide.

Because what John is talking about, right here, is home. And what we learn from these verses are the nature of that home, the need for that home, and how we can live right now with the hope of that home.

The nature of it, the need for it, and the now of it. Let’s get started.

First, the nature of that home. Notice what John says right away in the first verse: This heaven and earth that he’s talking about is new. The Greek word there is “kainos.” It means fresh, unused, unworn. It’s not a recycled world. It’s not a world where all the bad has just been covered over. It’s a new world, a world free of waste and pollution. A world of peace and stillness and light.

And notice the last phrase in verse 1: “And the sea was no more.” So important, and I’ll tell you why. When I was younger, I’d read that verse with a frown. Because what’s heaven without the beach, right? What’s the new earth without an ocean?

But you have to remember what the sea represented to the people of that time, and especially to Jews like the Apostle John. They were not a seafaring people. To them, the ocean was a scary place. The ocean was mystery. It was danger. The seas were filled with the missing and the dead.

But in the next life, in heaven and on the new earth, there’s none of that fear. There’s no danger. No death. Those things are gone because of what God says in verse 3: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

God is going to wipe away our tears. Pay attention to that. That means our tears won’t simply be forgotten. It’s better than that. They’ll be wiped away, and in that process we’re going to be shown how all of our hard times and all of heartbreaks worked together to bring about all of our joy. There will be no more death. No more mourning. No more pain. These are called the former things, and verse 4 says the former things are passed away.

This renewal of heaven and earth is more than a healing. It’s a filling of every one of our deepest needs. It’s the quenching of a thirst this world can’t satisfy. “To the thirsty,” God says in verse 6, “I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.”

That’s the promise we have. It’s a vision of the future, the end of history. The climax of our story. It’s not everyone going up to heaven, it’s heaven coming down and transforming the earth. It’s a feast, right here. It’s bodies dancing and running and hugging. It’s the end of suffering and pain and want, and we don’t have to pay anything to purchase it, because Christ purchased it for us.

That is the nature of our home. So what about the need for it. Why does that matter to us?

Here’s the short answer: Because of home.

I’ve lived my whole life in this town. It’s the only corner of the world I’ve ever truly known, and what’s great about this church is that I can come here and be reminded of a home that I can’t really find anywhere else.

When I was a boy, my mother used to buy our food at a grocery store owned by the Trumbos. I grew up in school with Johnsons and Almarodes, a Sparks, a Harper, and more Burritts than I can count.

I was even taught by an Almarode. Harvey gave me a B in sophomore geometry when I probably deserved a C.

I played ball with Campbells, a Corbin, and a Lavender.

I spent my summers at a lake owned by Blackas. Spent ten years of my life at a gas station owned by Eavers. Grew up down the road from a Hutcherson, across the street from the Snyders who built the bell tower outside, right next door to the Corks. A Tomlinson was once my boss. We’re band parents with Saksaughs. I see a couple Mahailoffs here today — my son Will plays lacrosse with them. And that’s just off the top of my head.

I remember my high school friends talking about wanting to get out of this town and see the world, wanting to make a life somewhere else, and I thought — Why would you ever want to go anywhere else? Because this town was where we belonged. This town was home.

It’s easy to think that sort of thing when you’re 18 and don’t know any better. Harder when you get some years behind you and realize that maybe the place you always thought was home really wasn’t. Stuarts Draft in 2021 is a lot different from Stuarts Draft in 1985. I remind my kids of that almost daily.

Because it’s not the same as it was, is it? This town? I don’t know about you, but I miss that old Stuarts Draft. Back when everybody knew everybody and there was only one stoplight between here and Lad, and 340 was just two lanes. Back when there was farmland instead of neighborhoods, and everybody left their doors unlocked and their keys in their cars. That was home to me.

But it wasn’t, I guess. Not really. Because we all gloss over the past, don’t we? We call those the good old days because back then things were simpler, better. And maybe they were. But my grandmother died when I was 11, and I remember thinking that anyplace where she wasn’t could never really be home.

I look across this room and see the empty places where people once sat but are now gone from this world. I see the empty places in my own life that were occupied by people who aren’t here anymore.

Sue told me last week that since she’s been here at this church, she’s had to play or take part in over 115 funerals. Can you imagine that? How can this town, this world, be home when the people we’ve loved and cared about aren’t here with us? That’s not right, is it?

It’s not. It’s wrong, and deep down we all know it’s wrong. We go through our lives chasing after one thing and another. We get married and save money and find careers and have families just to feel safe, to feel like we’re anchored to something solid, but we’re not.

We try to stack things and people and dreams around us like walls to keep trouble away, but trouble still finds us. We eat right and exercise to keep death away, but death still wins. And we say to ourselves, “What am I doing wrong? Why aren’t things working out? Why am I hurting like this? Why do I feel so lost?”

I’ll tell you why: Genesis chapter 3. God created the world to perfection and put a man and a woman in the center of it, in a garden where every one of their needs were met. Physical needs, emotional needs, spiritual and psychological needs. All taken care of. And then they lost it.

Adam and Eve’s relationship with God became broken. That means our relationship with God became broken too, and when we lost that, we lost everything. Our relationships with one another and with the physical world collapsed. Suddenly there was fear and death. We went into exile because we wanted to become our own masters.

Eden became the memory of a thing that Adam and Eve could never have again. And listen to me, because this is important — it’s the same for us.

Written deep down in our DNA is a collective memory of the Eden we’ve all lost, a home that we never had. It’s a knowing in our gut that things aren’t right, but we can’t figure out why. And that longing, that deep need that nothing in this world can satisfy, is what drives all of our troubles in this world. It fuels every bit of the despair that we read about in the newspapers and scroll through on Facebook and watch on cable news.

We won’t ever be able to understand what’s really wrong with us until we understand that none of us feel at home in this world, because this world can’t provide for our deepest needs. And what are those deepest needs? To have love that doesn’t end and to know that what we do counts for something forever. But we can’t get there from here, can we? It all feels like it’s something we’ve never had but something we still feel like we’ve lost, and why? Because of that collective memory inside of us from Eden.

It’s the nature of life to struggle and fight and chase after those things that always seem to be just a little too far out of our reach. No matter how much we have, there’s always something missing.

And that feeling of loss and searching is the first thing that starts pointing us right to John’s vision here.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way: “Though being hungry does not prove I will get food, surely being hungry proves there is such a thing as food. You say the material universe is ugly, unjust, I don’t like it, but if you are just the product of a material universe, if that’s all you are, why don’t you feel at home in it? Do fish complain about the sea for being wet? We feel wet when we get into the water because we’re not aquatic creatures. Then why don’t you feel at home here? The only possible explanation is that real home is somewhere else.”

Of course you’ll find plenty of people who disagree, especially now. They say we need to get over all this nonsense about religion, because the truth is much more wonderful than some imaginary God. And that truth is that we’re all part of the circle of life. In the end we all become dirt, but from that dirt grows grass that the animals eat, and then those animals die and become dirt, and the whole cycle starts again. Isn’t that wonderful? That is the grand purpose of life: we’re all fertilizer.

This life is all there is. We were nothing before we were born and it was all just an accident that the world is here at all, and when we die there’s just more of the nothing that we experienced before we were born. There is no God, there is no purpose, there is no plan, there is no heaven. There’s just this.

But, they say, this is a wonderful thing, because it means we’re all free. We’re free to discover our own meaning, define our own purpose, to make our own rules without having God to tell us what to do. All this notion of religion is just a chain hung around us, and breaking that chain not only allows us to make our own meaning, it’s what gives us true freedom.

But the Christian says no. The Christian says that if you believe there’s no meaning in your birth and no meaning in your death, then you should at least have the guts to admit there can’t be any meaning in all the years in between.

Because death will always win out in the end, so what does anything matter? What does it matter how much good we do or how much we love or how hard we work to make this a better world if it’s all going to be gone someday anyway?

How can this world be all there is when we sit around our kitchen tables for supper every evening and realize that somebody sitting there will have to watch everyone else sitting there die?

A world where everyone we love will become fertilizer and anyone who remembers anything about us will die is not a world that fits us. It’s not a world that supports the most basic desires of our heart, and so it’s a world that can’t be our home. This world is not the home we’re built for.

But this vision that God gives John, that is our home. And we see it right there in verse 3: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Do you see? It’s Eden. It’s Eden restored. It’s things being undone so they can be put finally and forever right. It’s God bringing everyone home.

Why do we need the knowledge of that home? Because that’s what makes life meaningful. That’s what gives us the faith and the power to overcome. To endure and rise up.

Do you know what history tells us of people who have claimed the promise of these seven verses? I’ll give you three examples, very short.

First are the very people John wrote this Revelation to near the end of the first century. The Christians at that time were suffering a great deal, and things were getting much worse.

The Emperor Domitian rose to power and began persecuting every Christian he could find. Homes were plundered. Christians were put in the arena to be eaten by lions. They were hung from wooden stakes and then covered with pitch and lit on fire. They were crucified by the thousands and left hanging along the roads leading into and out of Rome.

That’s what these people faced, and John knew that’s what these people faced, and so what does John give them? He gives them this. He gives them this promise of what’s coming.

And it worked. Those early Christians took their suffering with such peace that they sang hymns as the lions devoured them and forgave the people killing them. They took their suffering and death and mourning with peace and even joy because they were going home.

Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, wrote that the blood of the martyrs were like seed, because the more the Romans killed the Christians, the more Christianity grew.

Why? Because the Romans saw these Christians had something special that couldn’t be touched by the world. They had these verses right here. They had a living hope.

About 1700 years later in this country came another people who were persecuted and murdered. Slavery was common all over the southern United States. In 1947 an author and theologian named Howard Thurman gave a lecture at Harvard on the meaning of the religious songs that the slaves would sing and pass down, and I want to read you what he wrote.

He said, “The facts have made it clear that this sung faith served to deepen the ability of the slaves for endurance, and to absorb their suffering, and it taught the people how to look hopelessness squarely in the face, and fashion a hope that their cruel environment could not crush. This enabled them to reject death and to affirm a terrible right to live.”

A terrible right to live.

Critics say that we can’t take any of that literally, crowns and heaven and judgment day, but Thurman said if we can’t take it literally, then it’s not a hope.

Imagine going back and telling those slaves that what they really need is an education, and if you went to one of the better schools like Harvard you would learn that this life is all there is, there isn’t a judgment day and new heavens and all that, and now get out there and live a life of hope in all your misery and slavery.

No. These people were able to continue on and survive because they knew one day all their hopes would be fulfilled. That no one would get away with evil and all the wrongs done to them would be made right.

That’s how they were able to overcome such a hopeless life, because they had a living hope that couldn’t be crushed. That’s how the songs sung in those fields are still sung now:

Oh Lord, oh Lord, come on, Jesus

And oh Lord, sometimes I’m exhausted, Lord,

And driven ‘til I decided that I would roam

That’s when I heard of a city called Glory

And oh, I’m trying to make that city my home.

Right around that time, in 1864, a priest from Belgium was to be sent as a minister to the people of Hawaii. When he became sick, his brother, a man named Father Damien, offered to go in his place. When he arrived, Father Damian was told he was being sent to the island of Molokai, where there was a leper colony.

Imagine that, being sent to a leper colony. Being told to care for those who had the most frightening disease imaginable, to care for people who were considered the most unclean. People who had been quarantined to the point where they had to live on their own, cut off from the rest of the world.

But when Father Damien arrived he gathered every leper in the colony and said, “I will be a father to you, and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you; to live and die with you.”

Father Damien not only cared for the lepers, he established leadership in the community. He taught the people to read and write, painted houses, organized farms, built churches and roads and even hospitals. He changed the dressings of the lepers. Dug the graves. Built the coffins.

He ate food by hand alongside those who were rotting away and lived with them as equals. He told them that no matter what the outside world thought, they were always precious in the eyes of God.

One morning in December of 1884, Father Damien drew himself a bath. He accidently put his foot into scalding water but felt nothing. Then he spilled more on the other foot. Still nothing.

Every morning for the past eleven years, he would meet worshippers in church and say to them, “Welcome, fellow believers.” But that morning, Father Damien said, “Welcome, fellow lepers.”

In the last years of his life he worked harder than ever before even as his body wasted away. Father Damien died on April 15, 1889. He was buried there in Molokai.

In 1936 the government of Belgium requested that Father Damien’s body be returned to his native land.

And do you know what the people of Molokai said? Fine, but let us cut off his right hand and keep it here. You can take the body but leave us his hand. That hand is precious to us, because that’s the hand he touched us with.

Do you want to know why we need that home in heaven? Because that’s how those early Christians could stand in the arena in front of ten thousand cheering Romans and sing and pray as the lions circled ever closer. That’s how slaves who were told they weren’t even human were able to survive and not lose hope. That’s how a single man could save an entire island and not be afraid of a disease he had to know he would end up getting just because he chose to go there.

These people changed the world because of the truth found in these seven verses from Revelation. They didn’t just face their trials, they overcame them.

So here’s a tough question: What’s our problem? None of us are ever going to be thrown to lions. None of us will ever be slaves or suffer leprosy, and thank God for all of that. But we still suffer troubles. Sickness. Doubt. Fear. We won’t have the trying times that these people had, but we still have trying times that consume us, so What’s our problem?

Do we live like these people? Do we have that faith? I’m going to go out on a limb and say no. The world doesn’t look at our suffering the way that the Romans looked at the suffering of those first Christians. By and large, they don’t see anything in us that’s any different than anything in themselves, much less something that they don’t have. Something they realize they need.

Half of the people in this country who call themselves Christians don’t even come to church anymore. They’re out taking their kids to ballgames or sleeping in on Sunday morning.

They talk the same as the world does and act the same as the world does and lust after the same things as the world does, and you know what? When you talk like the world does and think like the world does, you’re going to start living like the world does.

So what’s our problem? How can we have the faith of those Christians of history? How can we have that notion of home right now?

We have these words, but do we live these words? They’re right (here), right in our heads. We know them, but do we believe them in our hearts? Do we hold them as true?

And let me tell you, no matter how far you travel this world, the longest journey you’ll ever take is the one from here (head) to here (heart).

Those slaves? They had these seven verses right here (heart). Father Damien, who is now Saint Damien? Right here (heart). What about you? Because it’s not just a matter of knowing it’s true. It’s about believing it’s true.

Look at verse 5: And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Write this down, John, because this is what the world needs. Because you can bank on it. Because if my people know it then they can set it alongside the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, but if they believe it, it’s going to change their lives.

Remember this, because it’s the most important thing I’ll say this morning: The way we live our lives is completely controlled by what we believe about our future.

Do you believe that when you die, you rot? That this world is all we have? That someday the sun is going to die and we’ll all be gone and no one will remember what we’ve done?

Or do you believe that everything we do now counts forever? That everything is going to be made new again, that’s God’s promise, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Heaven and the new earth might be off in the future, but they’re so certain and so real and so promised by God that we’re able to live like they’re here right now.

And that promise is everything. Because of that promise, no matter what happens to us now, it can only make us better. Because of that promise, the suffering we face will either make us better or kill us and make us a lot better.

We can’t lose. Don’t you see? You can’t lose in this life. Jesus said in this life you will have many troubles, but rejoice! I have overcome the world, and you’ve overcome it too so long as you believe in me.

We don’t just have the hope of heaven later, we have that hope now. The lower we’re laid, the higher we’ll be raised. The worst things are the best things, and the best thing are yet to come.

I don’t know what you’re going through today. I don’t know your struggle, your doubt, your danger. I don’t know your pain. But I know who you are. You are a Christian, saved by faith in Christ, and that is why I can say to you, Hold on, because there’s coming a day.

There’s coming a day when you’ll be free of all that and God himself will stand before you and call you his own child, and he will take a hand that created the universe and lay it gently on your face to wipe away every tear you’ve ever shed.

There’s coming a day when your fading body will be remade as new and you will leap and dance and run forever without getting tired.

There’s coming a day when everyone you’ve ever loved will be joined with you again and there will be no more separation, no more longing, only the joy and the peace that comes from being with each other.

There’s coming a day when all the questions you’ve ever had will be answered, and you’ll laugh at that answer and shake your head because it makes so much perfect and beautiful sense.

There’s coming a day, friends, when we will all gather right back here again, right in this place, together. There won’t be a church anymore, since the whole world will be a church. But there will be a spot for us, right here at the foot of mountains made so beautiful and blue that we could stand here for a million years just looking at them. And we’ll eat. And we’ll talk. And we’ll laugh. And we’ll rejoice.

That’s God’s promise to us. And God doesn’t break His promises. It’s time for us all to start living with that hope. It’s time for us to get this scripture out of our heads and into our hearts. It’s time to start looking at our troubles and our worries and this big dark world and laugh, because the very worst this life can do to you is send you home.

You want to know, Now what? You want to know, So what? That is the answer.

Let’s pray:

Father we thank you for the promise given through your servant John, a promise that we don’t have to wait to claim on some distant tomorrow but we can claim now, today. A promise of home waiting just close by, a place where there is already a mansion you have prepared for us. Help us, Father, to take these words on our long trip from our heads to our hearts. Help us to live by this truth today and every day, and to live not as those who have no hope, but as ones who have overcome the world. Let sickness grip us. Let despair rain down. Let death bare its teeth, we will stand firm and with joy knowing that home is near. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

will you stand for our closing hymn, Amazing Grace.