Revelation 21:1-8

The proclamation of Advent is not just that Christ has come but that Christ will come

The church stands in the middle, not just as ones who memorialize the advent of Christ in the world.

Advent is the promise that God has come to free His people. Revelation shows Him keeping it. He undoes everything we have twisted up.

What does it mean to stand in the middle?

We look back and celebrate the Advent of Christ.

We have peace because of Christ’s Advent

Luke 2:8–14 ESV

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

When they Saw it. They came to the place where Christ was. Where He was born. Where He entered into the world. The shepherds were shown. They searched and He was there. He was present. But they found Him in their search.

We anticipate Christ’s Return

So by the time we get to Revelation, our hearts resting in Christ. We see that we no longer have to search or wait. We receive.

To receive is to understand anticipation. It is to have to wait focused.

Tomorrow is Christmas and there are kids that are waiting to open gifts under the tree. But in order for them to receive those gifts they will have to wait. And not only that they will have to wait close by the tree.

They can’t say, bye mom and dad, I’ll be in San Diego while I wait for that gift. They have to be close to the giver. Close to the one giving.

To receive as the church is to wait close.

But as we wait, we are not just relieved in the Advent, we are hopeful in the resurrection.

Revelation 21:1–3 ESV

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.

This is unmistakable. This is not a baby entering into the world. This is re-creation. This is a new city. A new heaven and a new earth.

There are two movements happening in this passage.

The old is passing away.

Chaos (the sea) is passed and gone.

This is better news than we could imagine. I mentioned that we were in Nuremburg Germany last month and part of what we did was go to the Nazi rally grounds. This a giant piece of land that allowed for an annual gathering of 500000 nazis to gather and march and show off their plans and power.

It was created under indellible evil. I know that becuase the scars and the marks of that evil still remain.

The evil is so prominent that the Germans have created a word and culture around how they are managing that evil, even 80 years later.

The word is Vergangenheitsbewältigung

It means to work off your past. The past was so brutal and so evil that it has left an indellible mark. So much so that two generations past are working off the evil that was created by their grandparents.

The culture revolves around understanding and working off that evil.

Any culture has realized it cannot remove evil. IT has to find a way to live with it.

It is chaos and the Scriptures refer to that chaos as the sea. For a desert dwelling people, the israelites saw water as chaotic. Evil as the sea. It was chaos.

We have not been able to tame it.

Advent shows us that we can’t tame it.

So much so that God had to enter into the chaos and the sea in order to not just tame it but to remove it.

The sea is gone. Only God knows what to do with evil. Only He can truly master it. We have seen that in Revelation. We see that He removes it and brings renewal beyond it.

And God is making all things new.

And we have no need to find God. Because God is with is. We don’t have to run to find HIm. He has found us. He has come to us.

This is why the church is the bride. We are connected with Christ. We belong to Him. Revelation shows us that we no longer look for Christ. We know where He is.

Revelation 21:4–5 ESV

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.”

Because we dwell with God there are no tears. No death no mourning. No crying or pain.

Christians begin with understanding God is making all things new. And while that is an eternal reality, we live that backwards.

We understand that as a hopeful reality. And we do face pain and brokenness and mourning.

The church, the visible church, collectively as well experiences pain and loss. We do that together. But when we experience loss, we know all is not lost. When we cry ourselves to sleep we know there is joy in the morning.

Christ makes all things new. We see that in the advent and resurrection. We see it completed in Revelation 21.

There is a new heaven and a new earth. It is recreated. And we see a visible New Jerusalem descend down.

We know that just a few chapters earlier there was babylon. A city who was entirely destroyed. Destroyed by it’s own sin. couldn’t hold up under it’s own deception.

And we see the city as that which is completely independent from God. Who wants to start as something that describes itself as “other than God.”

But then God even redeems the city. HE uses the city to as the representation for dwelling.

That which had no hope just 3 chapters earlier is now used by God as the place where He dwells.

There is no place that does not carry within it the hope of the Gospel.

The world is still pregnant with the hope of the Gospel. With the need of the Gospel.

But the church, we are the ones who proclaim it. Who live it in reality.

You are here to proclaim the lived reality of Advent and the Parousia.

We wait in hope. not hopeless.

Even when it feels like our hope is leaking we remember that God reclaims even that which rebelled against Him.

That is how powerful the redemptive work of Christ is.

Our role is to agree with Christ. To stop using whatever we have used to hold us up and to find our hope in Christ alone.

He reclaims. He undoes we we have twisted up.

One of my favorite scenes in any story of any time is the end of the Return of the King in the Lord of the Rings series.

Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins, two hobbits, have just completed the impossible task in front of them. They were rescued as an act of complete Grace. And as they are recuperating in Rivendell, a safe place where the elves live amongst the mountains, Samwise wakes up and finds Gandalf, their wise wizard friend, who they thought was dead, was in fact very much alive. Seeing him alive causes Samwise to shout:

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?"

A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

TO me this is such an incredible picture of the end of all things.

All the sad things come untrue.

Revelation 21:6–7 ESV

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.

The promises of God in Revelation are the promises of God throughout the Scriptures.

God will make all things new. Christ’s unrelenting effort on our behalf. His victory on the cross boldly proclaimed, It is finished.

In revelation 21 we get to see what the finished work looks like. It is not a perishable or transitory or temporary work. It is permanence for all who trust in Him.

We have faith in the promise offered and the promise kept.

The Advent invitation is to come to Him. To put down the weights and sin that bear us down. To take up His promise. To understand freedom, to live in it. To live in His permanent renewal.