The other week, we peaked behind the apocalyptic veil of the Book of Revelation and saw how the anticipated Lion of Judah was in fact ‘the Lamb-Who-Was-Slain’, who alone was able unseal the heavenly scroll. In less symbolic language, it was saying that it was the nonviolent offering up his own life is what made Jesus worthy to conquer death, to be championed by those from “every tongue and tribe and nation,” and reveal to the world the truth that lies behind it. Today’s reading skips forward to the climactic end of the vision, and it reveals to us all that this Lamb-Who-Was-Slain accomplished, and simultaneously the kind of world God longs for.
The passage is worth quoting in full:
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; 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.” (Revelation 21.1-6)
Here we see a wholly renewed creation, capped by the descent of the New Jerusalem, symbolic of God’s dwelling with humanity, as God had at the ‘old’ Jerusalem’s temple. God now dwells with (and within) humans and they “will be his peoples.” While this is easy to skip over in this passage, the plural is critical here; no more can we imagine the boundary of the religious in-group to be defined by nationality or ethnicity. It is for “every tongue and tribe and nation.” This comes out loud and clear in the reading today appointed from Acts 11, in which Peter recounts his own vision and subsequent conversion to accepting Gentiles into the community of faith without having to follow the Jewish Law. This smashing of boundaries was probably the most revolutionary aspect of early Christianity.
Then we are told of the kind of world this “all things made new” Kingdom of God on Earth will be:
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 …
To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.
These words are reminiscent of the wonderful oracles of Isaiah which imagine God’s peaceable reign, in which there is no pain or need. But again, while Isaiah still often images such a world being accomplished by a human, military ruler, again, here it is brought forth by the Lamb figure, who is called “the Alpha and the Omega,” the “Beginning and the End.” From start to finish, this is what Jesus’ life, teaching, ministry, and death were about: a fresh start for humanity to live within the freedom of welcome, love, and good faith. As James Alison put it:
[I]t is only if we begin from the forgiving victim that we can build a culture which has no frontiers, because we no longer have to build any order, security, or identity over against some excluded person, but the excluded one himself gives the identity by allowing us to share in the gratuity of his self-giving. (Raising Abel, 108)
God’s love is limitless, and so God’s kingdom is limitless. All are welcome, the old boundaries and borders are torn down. And it is the limitless, self-sacrificial love of Jesus (”No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15.13) that makes it all possible, and that invites us into this limitless life.
Matthew Root 