Rv 21

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints…” That’s a line from the Apostles’ Creed. (I realize that, as part of a non-creedal tradition, Baptists, as well as the Assemblies of God, to which I used to belong, don’t pay a great deal of attention to it! I think I’m safe in saying that…) [note: this sermon was preached at another church in Jamestown, NY] Yesterday was All Saints’ Day (today is All Saints’ Sunday), which is in the same category with the Apostles’ Creed. Still, I would like for us to consider that phrase from the creed, “the communion of saints.”

There are few times in the year that so deliberately orient us to the past, present, and future as All Saints’ Day. It’s true that the past occupies most of our thoughts as we think of this day (especially if a necrology is part of that), and that’s as it should be. We could do much worse than to remember those throughout the centuries who have shown Jesus Christ in their lives. If we take their faithfulness to the Lord as our guide, and give thanks to God for their witness, then that is a good thing!

Still, we don’t live in the past. And those saints are with us now. As Hebrews 12:1 puts it, they are a great cloud of witnesses who surround us. There are the saints known to the world: Mary Magdalene, Francis of Assisi, Roger Williams. And there are the saints who lived obscure lives, whom the world has completely forgotten. Here and now, in the present, we are called to communion with them and with the saints who live in every place, in every part of the earth—including those in this building and in our own homes and places of work.

This day also positions us toward the future. Those who are in Christ will join those who have gone before and will become part of that cloud of witnesses. And, it seems to me anyway, in the timeless mind of God, we’re already in communion with saints yet to be born. (Of course, as a fan of Star Trek, I’m always wondering if time travel will ever be possible. There were some shows where they got in trouble for it!) Aside from my idle pondering, that does say something about the legacy we leave behind!

All Saints’ Day speaks to what it means to be the church. The church breaks the boundaries of time and space. If you haven’t already figured this out, it’s not just about us here. And we need not be hesitant to celebrate the lives of the saints, because in doing so, we celebrate the living Christ at work. One particular saint, John Wesley, once said, in his eighteenth century vocabulary, “How superstitious are they who scruple giving God solemn thanks for the lives and deaths of his saints!” He considered the day a “triumphant joy.”[1]

As we move to our scripture text, which is one of the readings for All Saints’ Day, let’s keep that understanding of joy. And also, bear in mind the reality that the church extends throughout past, present, and future. I say these things because the book of Revelation has been used in many ways, some of them quite bizarre.

If you ever watch horror movies, you’ve no doubt seen at least one in which this book plays a part. Perhaps we learn that…it has been foretold that the dog of Satan will attack a small town in Texas, or something to that effect. The confirmation is some vague reference to the book of “Revelations.”

The book of Revelation is often presented as a deep mystery, something only the privileged few can fathom—such as so-called prophecy “experts.” And that leads to misconceptions. We don’t see joy in it (it is largely a book of worship), only weird stuff. And it can be hard to see how its words apply to the church—past, present, and future—if we imagine it’s only for us and our immediate future.

Like the name suggests, the book is a “revelation.” The title in Greek is Apokaluyi" (Apokalupsis). That’s the origin of our English word “apocalypse,” which means a “disclosure,” an “unveiling.” The book does a lot of its unveiling, its revealing, through what’s called apocalyptic language. We see this in the Old Testament, in the books of Ezekiel and Daniel. It’s a way of speaking that uses vivid imagery to express the hope of persecuted people that God is still in control of history.

For Ezekiel, Daniel, and others who used apocalyptic language in the Old Testament, their crisis came after the Babylonians had invaded and sent people into exile. In the New Testament era, the threat came from the Roman Empire, which tried to crush the young church. John himself tells us that he has been sent into exile for his faith (1:9). In each case, Old or New Testament, the community of faith needs to know that God is indeed at work in the unfolding events—day by day, month by month, year by year—that constitute history. Whether it’s Daniel’s vision of a ram and goat or John’s vision of a beast rising from the sea, the message ultimately is that God’s people will survive.

Today’s text, at the beginning of chapter 21, speaks of the ultimate survival: that of the cosmos itself. The “new heaven” and the “new earth” replace “the first heaven and the first earth,” the world which we now know. When God’s perfect kingdom is fully revealed, the imperfect kingdoms of humanity fade away. We live in a fallen world, one in which sin has power, but it won’t always be so.

In verse 2, we see “the holy city, the new Jerusalem” descending from on high, and we hear the pronouncement that God’s home will be among us humans. That’s the holy city, not the holy forest or mountain. A lot of people hate city life, but God has another way of looking at urban planning!

When God dwells with us, every tear is wiped from the eyes. “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” The “first things,” as verse 4 puts it, pass away. The first things are the old order under which we live and die.

At the beginning of the war with Iraq (the first one, the Persian Gulf War), George Bush announced the arrival of a new world order. Of course, he wasn’t the first to make statements like that. Humans throughout history have struggled to create a new world order. World War I was to be the war to end all wars. I believe that we, the human race, are making slow progress, but who can seriously doubt that we do exist in an old world order?

We pay so much attention to ourselves and so little to others. We try to hide from God, and our world is testimony to that, in the abuse of human rights and the trashing of the environment and the intolerance of others that spreads like cancer among us. We mourn and cry and are in pain. And we’re afraid.

By ourselves, we can’t bring about a world order that really is new. None of our revolutions are really revolutionary! Only the one who declares, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,” can make it happen. Only the one who makes all things new, as verse 5 teaches us, can deliver us from this old, obsolete world order.

Only Jesus Christ, who through the Holy Spirit even now is God dwelling among us, can transform the chaos that exists among us sinners into a communion of the saints. This is an act of grace, a unilateral decision made for our benefit. Still, we have to cooperate with that grace, or we remain like that bunch described in verse 8.

That list—the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters—it’s summed up by the phrase, “and all liars.” You know, we all have that stuff in us! And any one of those alone is enough to hamper or destroy communion among us.

I realize that I’ve used that word several times during my sermon—the word “communion.” What exactly does that word mean, anyway? It can be used in different ways. It can be a group, a denomination, of people who believe the same thing; it can be a synonym for the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper. But when we speak of the “communion of saints,” something less tangible seems to be in view.

When I was at Eastern Baptist Seminary, I had a student hospital chaplaincy at Cooper Hospital, across the Delaware River in Camden. Our supervisor would often get after us for using “churchy” type words—God talk. At a hospital, you deal with people from all parts of society. He wanted us to say what we mean in language that people who’ve never darkened a church door could understand. From time to time, I’ve challenged our people at Westminster in the same way. It’s very easy to lapse into that kind of jargon.

What does communion mean? Is it enough to do a Bible word study and say, “Well, it comes from the Greek word koinwnia (koinōnia).” Or can we borrow from your church’s name and say, “It means fellowship.” It still doesn’t get to the heart of the matter; it still doesn’t get inside communion.

If we believe that Revelation 21 speaks of a new world order, and if we believe that the Lord brings this about through the communion of saints, how do we explain that? How do we do that? Most of all, how do we become that?

[1] Hoyt L. Hickman et al., The New Handbook of the Christian Year (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 267.