The Beauty of Destiny's Children

1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. 2 The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. 3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. 4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. 5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

You will be called by a new name

Isaiah 62:1–5 ESV

That the mouth of YHWH will give you

3 And you will be a beautiful crown in the hand of YHWH

And a royal diadem in the hand of your God

4 And it will not again be said of you, "Abandoned One"

And of your land it will not again be said, "Desolate"

For of you it will be proclaimed, "My Delight is In Her"

And of your land, "Married"

For YHWH delights in you

And your land will be married

5 For the young man will marry the virgin

And your sons will marry you

As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride

Your God will rejoice over you

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the former heaven and the former earth passed away. Also, the Sea was no more. 2 Then I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, as it descended out of heaven from God after being prepared and adorned as a bride for her husband. 3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne say,

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the former heaven and the former earth passed away. Also, the Sea was no more.

Then I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, as it descended out of heaven from God after being prepared and adorned as a bride for her husband.

“Behold the the dwelling of God is with humanity, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

It is significant to note that the participles here are passive. The Bride has been prepped and adorned for her husband. Brides don’t do their own make-up. They don’t make themselves beautiful.

Then I heard a loud voice from the throne say,

4 And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Nor mourning. Nor crying. Nor pain. There will be no more because the former things passed away. 5 Then the one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Then he said, “Write! For these words are faithful and true.”

“Behold the the dwelling of God is with humanity, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them as their God.

According to bridalguide.com, the most popular months to get married are June, September, and October. They say that this is because the weather is typically beautiful in early summer and fall. I’ve personally officiated plenty of weddings over the past 12 years, and those wedding dates have been all over the calendar. I haven’t done a survey, but I suspect that the reason those wedding dates are all over the calendar year is because the most important thing isn’t actually the wedding date, but the marriage itself. When my wife and I take couples through pre-marriage counseling, one of the messages that we work hard to emphasize and repeat is that we’re not simply preparing them for a wedding day. We’re trying to prepare them for a long life together as husband and wife. It’s so easy, as you prepare for a wedding, to become consumed with all of the details in trying to make sure that the day goes well and that everything is beautiful. When you’re consumed with all of those details you can easily miss the whole point, which is your union together and the new home that is formed by that union.

And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Nor mourning. Nor crying. Nor pain. There will be no more because the former things passed away.

I always tell couples that the day is going to be beautiful, even if everything isn’t perfect. The day is going to beautiful because of what’s taking place. And most, if not all, of us have been to a wedding. Many of us have been bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls, ring bearers, or ushers. And when you’re at a wedding, any number of thoughts can be going through your head. Typically for me, and I know it’s the case for my wife as well, I’ll reflect back on my own wedding day. As I hear the vows I’ll be reminded of my own vows and renewed in my commitment to live them out. If you’ve never been married and you attend a wedding, you can experience a sense of longing as you anticipate the day when you’ll be married. If you were once married and are no longer married because of death or divorce, while you might be happy for the newlywed couple, weddings can be challenging. They can remind you of your loss and the accompanying pain or disappointment of that loss. There can be a longing for relief from that disappointment or pain.

And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Nor mourning. Nor crying. Nor pain. There will be no more because the former things passed away.

So, whether your experience at weddings is delightful or difficult, whether your marriage experience is mostly picturesque or painful, it should amaze us that when God wants to give us a picture of what heaven is like, the imagery he uses is of a wedding. Do you want to know the destiny of those who come to God through faith in Jesus Christ? Picture the best marriage you can imagine and then multiply it by infinity. Take it to infinity and beyond! When God wants to declare to his people what their destiny is, have the picture in your mind of a beautiful bride decked out for her husband in anticipation of life together with him. Understand that the Bible begins and ends with a wedding. In the first two chapters, the pinnacle of creation is the man and woman. We hear these words from at weddings all the time, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Those words weren’t just for repetition at weddings, they also set a trajectory forward in anticipation of these words in , “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem as she descended out of heaven from God after being prepared and adorned as a bride for her husband…And I heard a great voice out of heaven say, ‘Behold the dwelling of God is with humanity. And he will live with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Then the one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Then he said, “Write! For these words are faithful and true.”

What does it mean to have this kind of destiny? What does it mean to be “Destiny’s Children”? It means a guarantee of beauty; personal beauty, collective beauty, where nothing that is not beautiful will ever exist again. It sounds like a fantasy, but it is backed by the full faith and credit of God himself.

Then the one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Then he said, “Write! For these words are faithful and true.”

So, I want to hone in on two things as we work through this passage, Longing for Beauty and Living for Beauty. Destiny’s Children live with longing for all things to be made beautiful. That is the longing for everything to be the way it ought to be. They have to become comfortable with the fact that as long as they are in this world they will not escape the reality of longing for something more and something better. Things are not as they ought to be. The wedding is scheduled but they don’t know the date. Secondly, Destiny’s Children live together in the reality that the future promise of beauty has broken in on the present world. As they are being prepared for life as it ought to be, they experience a life of beauty today. Therefore, life now is not a hopeless venture. They have eyes to see that renewal, renovation, and transformation is coming.

Longing for Beauty

John says in v. 1, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the former heaven and the former earth, they passed away.” Here toward the end of this last book of the Bible what we are seeing with greater clarity is how God intends to satisfy the longings of his people. One of the questions that God’s people ask him in the Bible is, “How long?” David asked in ,

Psalm 13:1–2 ESV

1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

In , the martyrs

The point is that we are seeing here toward the end, with greater clarity is how God intends to satisfy the longings of his people. One of the questions that God’s people ask him in the Bible is, “How long?” David asked in , “How long, O Lord? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul, sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?” Here in , the martyrs ask, “O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” How long can you wait for things to be the way they ought to be?

Revelation 6:10 ESV

10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

Here in , the martyrs ask, “O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” How long can you wait for things to be the way they ought to be?

How long can you wait for things to be the way they ought to be?

the martyrs ask, “O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” How long can you wait for things to be the way they ought to be?

Do you know what words repeat themselves over and over again in Revelation? John keeps saying, “I saw this,” “I saw that,” I heard this,” “I heard that.” The covers are pulled back for him so that with his own eyes he sees, and with his own ears he hears the true reality. It’s not that the things you and I see and hear with our senses isn’t true. It’s that what our senses provide isn’t the full picture. There’s more to it. The Lord gives John and the Church insight to what’s going on behind what we’re able to perceive.

There’s a purpose to it. A few years back, when we studied Revelation in our Wednesday night Bible Study, I would ask the question each week, “What is the central focus of Revelation?” The central focus of Revelation is to exhort, to encourage, the church to continue faithfully witnessing and living for Jesus Christ in the midst of a compromising and idolatrous church and world. That’s the purpose of the whole book. That purpose is evident right here.

The curtains are back and John sees a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and earth passed away. The sea was no more. John is letting us know, “This is where the world is headed. This is the world’s destiny.” Not only that, John says, but the holy city, the new Jerusalem, I saw that too. I saw that city as she descended out of heaven from God after she was prepared as a bride who had been adorned for her husband. “I didn’t only see the destiny of the world; I saw the beautiful destiny of God’s people.”

And John wasn’t the first to see it or say it. The Lord declared it to Isaiah centuries before John was alive. Israel was in exile, longing to be restored to her land. The Lord gives Isaiah a message in ,

We didn’t read this passage, but just a few chapters before our Scripture reading, the Lord says to his people in ,

Isaiah 62:3–5 ESV

3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. 4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. 5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

We didn’t read this passage, but just a few chapters before our Scripture reading, the Lord says to his people in ,

In Isaiah’s day the people’s longing was too short cited. They just wanted to get back to that patch of land in Palestine. The Lord had to say to them, “Your vision is too small. It’s too short sighted. I’m not just concerned with some little piece of land. I’m remaking this whole deal.” And hundreds of years later, after Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world―after he comes to save his people, giving up his life on the cross for their sake, being buried in the tomb, rising on the third day in triumphant victory over death―after all of that his people are still waiting. When is our resurrection? How long, O Lord? The one who sits on the throne has to reiterate, “Behold, I am making all things new. Write it down John, because these words are faithful and true. It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

And a royal diadem in the hand of your God

4 And it will not again be said of you, "Abandoned One"

And of your land it will not again be said, "Desolate"

For of you it will be proclaimed, "My Delight is In Her"

And of your land, "Married"

For YHWH delights in you

And your land will be married

5 For as a young man marries a young woman

And your sons will marry you

Your sons will marry you

As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride

Your God will rejoice over you

You see, we ache. We groan. We long for things to be better than they are. The compromising and idolatrous nature of humanity is that we try to fix our longings for beauty ourselves.

I like to hold out hope for that beautiful, aesthetically pleasing athletic body. I batter my body doing CrossFit. I try to eat right, doing a Whole30 every year. And I tell people, “I’m just trying to delay the decay.” The human mind has been able to discover and develop great medical advancements. We put our minds to use through technology, attempting to make life better, to heal what’s broken, whether it be bones or relationships. I’m glad that I can Skype with my cousin in France when she wants to talk. I can’t afford to fly over there whenever I want, but can see her face. I’m glad that medical research continues to discover remedies and medicines that attack the diseases that attack our bodies. I’m glad that the creative genius in humanity tries to strive for something better by making beautiful music and art.

However, In all of our striving, in all of our longing, we cannot make things so beautiful, so radically new such that there will be no more decay! Death is not the great enemy defeated by modern medical technology. Death is the great enemy defeated by the cross of Jesus Christ. John is declaring to us that only God can do this. He is the source of beauty. So only he, as the Preacher says in , can make all things beautiful in its time. Only God can make all things new. It’s not the outcome of human scientific or technological advancement. As one commentator put it, “The new city comes ‘down out of heaven from God,’ a sheer miracle, a gift [that is] bestowed at the end of history and not the outcome of history.” In other words, the beauty of the bride, the beauty of the new creation isn’t the outcome of human progress. It’s a gift from God. That word in the text, “Behold,” isn’t a call to first and foremost do something. It’s a call to observe and see. “Behold, I am making all things new.” Watch and see. It’s an invitation to look, believe, and rejoice. God is committed to the beautiful renovation of his creation. The word for “new” used in our text typically indicates newness in terms of quality. In other words, through the victory of Jesus Christ over death, God is executing his renovation project.

Living for Beauty

And this longing we have for our beautification and the beautification of this world can weigh us down. This is because, try as we might, we can’t successfully cover our eyes at the ugliness. The beauty we’re longing for is not the airbrushed sheen of the fashion magazine trying to hide the imperfections. Fleming Rutledge, in her new book on Advent puts it well. She writes,

Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ Looking into the “Heart of Darkness”

To grasp the depth of the human predicament, one has to be willing to enter into the very worst.

Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ Looking into the “Heart of Darkness”

Entering into the very worst means giving serious consideration to the most hopeless situations: for instance, a facility for the most profound cases of developmental disability. What hope is there for a ward full of people who will never sit up, walk, speak, or feed themselves? Tourists go to the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau and take pictures, but who can really imagine the smells and sounds of the most depraved of all situations? The tourist can turn away in relief and go to lunch.

Can I tell you something? Those who belong to Jesus aren’t tourists who turn away from the ugliness and go to lunch. We’re people live for beauty even as we long for it.

However, when, in this life, we get glimpses into reflections of eternal beauty, the paradox of it - the seeming contradiction of the presence of eternal beauty alongside the ugliness and deep depravity of this life can be a burden too heavy to bear.

In a recent talk on the paradox of beauty, artist Makoto Fujimura described his becoming a Christian in this way. He was in Japan studying an old form of Japanese paintings called Nihonga. He said that the way Jesus led him to faith was by confronting him with beauty. It was through the extravagant crushed minerals he was using in the artwork; malachite, azurite, gold, silver, and others; beautiful extravagant materials he was learning to use and was mastering. He said,

Everyday I sought higher transcendence through the extravagant materials. I found success in expressions through Nihonga materials. And yet the weight of beauty I saw in the materials began to crush my own heart. I could not justify the use of extravagant materials if I found my heart unable to contain their glory.

The presence of beauty now is hard to bear because its glory can be too much. Would you look with me a few verses beyond our text at the weight of glory, not just of God, but the glory of the Bride?

Revelation 21:9–11 ESV

9 Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.

REV21.

If you keep reading, John is beside himself to give us a picture of how beautiful and glorious the Bride is. The walls of the city are built of jasper. The city itself is pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the city are adorned with every kind of jewel, jasper, sapphire, agate, emerald, onyx, and on and on. It’s a description of the eternal weight of glory.

But listen. The point of John seeing for us and describing for us this eternal beauty isn’t simply to make us long for the sweet by and by that’s to come. It’s even more to enable us to live for beauty in the nasty now and now. It’s for us to feel the weight of beauty that Fujimura described and not be crushed by it as we refuse to turn our eyes away from the very worst of the human predicament.

Destiny’s children hold on. Destiny’s children take their cues for living from what has been revealed by God. The churches to whom John was writing were in a fight. They were suffering persecution. They were facing poverty. They were facing political oppression. They were facing the temptation to compromise their faith so that life would be better and easier. They needed to know that God’s promise that their destiny was to be with him as he remade everything was more certain than what their eyes were seeing and their ears were hearing. It’s the same thing we need to know.

The people who have this destiny can live for beauty even as we long for beauty. Do you understand that because of who God is he can declare in v. 6, “It is done”? The Greek text literally says, “They are done!” Not a singular, “It is done.” Everything I said was going to take place, everything I promised they’re already done. I am the Alpha and the Omega. I’m the God of the beginning of history, of the end of history, and everything in between!

Destiny’s children live right now knowing that it’s all done. God doesn’t promise us that we won’t be wounded. He doesn’t promise us that we will no longer have any longings for something better. He promises us that our ultimate healing and satisfaction is a done deal.

, brothers and sisters, as a result (of Jesus’ once for all sacrifice for sins) we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus―which he opened for us, the new and living way through the veil, that is, through his flesh.” Jesus Christ has done for us what Moses could never do. He has opened the way for his people into the very presence of God. Praise the Lord. But there’s still an issue! Right now we can only experience it by faith. Right now, through faith in Jesus Christ we believe that God is with us and we are with God. We believe that God is faithful to keep his promise. But faith is required because life experience is regularly trying to tell us a different story. We experience death every day. We still mourn. We still cry. We still feel pain.

The goal of God’s renovation project, of his making all things new is communion. It is to establish the permanent experience of communion between God and his people. Let me remind you of what we saw in , when Moses and Aaron, along with Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, went up Mount Sinai. It says that they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very sky for clearness. And God didn’t lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and they ate and drank. They experienced communion with God. But it wasn’t permanent. Over and over in the book of Exodus we saw God promise, “I will be with you.” Moses doesn’t want to go back to Egypt in . The Lord says to him, “I will be with you.” Before God give them the law in ch. 20, he tells them in 19:3-4, “I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” They were to build a sanctuary in , so that the Lord may dwell in their midst. He tells them in that the reason he brought them out of the land of Egypt was that he might dwell among them.” That’s what happens at the end of Exodus, in chapter 40. The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. But there was a problem. It says in that Moses wasn’t able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. He didn’t have unhindered entrance into the presence of God.

Do you remember what we heard last week in ? Let me remind you. The Pastor said to the Hebrews, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, as a result (of Jesus’ once for all sacrifice for sins) we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus―which he opened for us, the new and living way through the veil, that is, through his flesh.” Jesus Christ has done for us what Moses could never do. He has opened the way for his people into the very presence of God. Praise the Lord. But there’s still an issue! Right now we can only experience it by faith. Right now, through faith in Jesus Christ we believe that God is with us and we are with God. We believe that God is faithful to keep his promise. But faith is required because life experience is regularly trying to tell us a different story. We experience death every day. We still mourn. We still cry. We still feel pain.

Let me close this by sharing two things that help us to live for beauty right now. First, in Jesus Christ, God has smiled on you. Do you belong to Jesus? God delights over you. One facet of beauty is the fact that it delights. You’re beautiful. In Christ, God looks at you and is smiling. I know you still have problems. I know you still fight temptation. But God is still smiling.

“A sense of personal beauty comes, I believe, only in the generous, self-giving gaze, the noticing regard, of another person.” – Esther Lightcap Meek

“A sense of personal beauty is nevertheless accessible to all, in the life-giving noticing regard of Jesus Christ. If—when—human noticing regard fails to occur, any person may nevertheless experience it in the gaze of the Lord, in personal redemption and the celebration of the Eucharist. His alone is the face that will not go away, and his alone is our highest joy.”

The second thing is that nothing is wasted. The loud voice from heaven says to John that God will wipe away every tear, that there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain. Those things will have passed away. But please know that today’s tears, deaths, mournings, cryings, and pains are not wasted. They’re not wanted, but they’re not wasted either!

Notice with me please that what John sees in v. 2 is the holy city descending out of heaven from God after it was prepared and adorned for her husband. These are passive verbs. The emphasis is that it’s God who prepared and adorned the Bride. He was the one who selected the wedding dress. He was the make up artist and the hair stylist. He even drove the limo because it says she came down from God! How did he prepare her for the wedding day? It was through the tears, mourning, crying, and pain. He equipped her to endure by faith as a part of her beautification.

This enables us to keep our eyes open and live for beauty right now, following Jesus’s lead. We live for beauty just the way our Savior did. Two days from now we celebrate the fact that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who exists in eternal beauty and glory, refused to turn his eyes away from the darkness of the world. So, the Son left his beautiful communion to take on our fragility and our weakness and our vulnerability so that he could restore us to beautiful intimate communion with God and each other. Secure in our own beauty, we see the darkness of our world and we keep looking for, pointing out how this world - even though things are often terrible and tragic - is still charged with the grandeur and glory of God, and we keep working for beauty.

The covers have pulled back for John and he hears God saying to his church, “The wedding date has been set! It is your destiny to be with me. Not only that, but no one better is coming along. No one or nothing better can come along because there isn’t anyone or anything better. So, don’t shrink back. Don’t try to return the engagement ring just because it seems like you have to wait an unreasonably long time. No live for beauty right now, even as you long for it.

Isaiah 53:1–6 ESV

1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

ISA53.

Two days from now we celebrate the fact that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who exists in eternal beauty and glory, refused to turn his eyes away from the darkness of the world. So, the Son left his beautiful communion to take on our fragility and our weakness and our vulnerability so that he could restore us to beautiful intimate communion with God and each other.

The people who have this destiny can live with longing. They live now knowing that they are being prepared for life as it ought to be. So we know that the grace of God comes, in the renewal of all things, not to destroy God’s creation, but to make it perfect. Do you understand that because of who God is he can declare in v. 6, “It is done”? The Greek text literally says, “They are done!” Not a singular, “It is done.” Everything I said was going to take place, everything I promised they’re already done. I am the Alpha and the Omega. I’m the God of the beginning of history, of the end of history, and everything in between!

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