A World Restored

Homily for June 1, 2025
The Seventh Sunday of Easter
Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20-21

At his second inauguration on March 4, 1865, President Lincoln gave a brief but powerful address.  Its last paragraph is famous:

With malice toward none, with charity for all… let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among the nations.

At his inauguration on a frigid day in January, 1961, President Kennedy likewise gave a powerful address.  Its last paragraph, too, is famous:

And so, my fellow Americans:  ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country… Whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you.  With a good conscience our only sure reward,with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

And, for something more recent, here is from the last paragraph of George W. Bush’s first inaugural address (January 20, 2001):

After the Declaration of Independence was signed, Virginia statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson…:  “Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?”…  [Though] much time has passed… the themes of our day [Jefferson] would know:  our nation’s story of courage and its simple dream of dignity.  We are not this story’s author, who fills time and eternity with His purpose.  Yet His purpose is achieved in our duty, and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another… to make our country more just and generous, to affirm the dignity of our lives and of every life.  This work continues; this story goes on.  And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.

In their speeches, each President shared a vision of what he imagined and hoped for in his forthcoming term:  Lincoln, to heal a people and bind up their wounds; Kennedy, to brace the nation for the costs of freedom and the work of democracy; George W., “to make our country more just and generous, [and] to affirm the dignity of our lives and of every life.”  

During this Easter season, we have been hearing from the book of Revelation. In this last “paragraph” of the Bible, the author gathers up and shares the vision of what the Bible imagines and hopes for.  As the author writes in chapter 21:

I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See,the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
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 will be no more…
And the one who was seated on the throne said,
“See, I am making all things new.”

Three things about the vision of Revelation….

First, the vision of Revelation is not that, “At the end of time this world will be destroyed, but don’t worry, God will save us and take us to heaven.”  Rather, the vision of Revelation is that heaven will descend and be part of this world: “I saw the holy city… coming down,” the author writes; and, “See, the home of God is among mortals.” Revelation does not imagine that we will be whisked away to heaven as this present world is destroyed.  Revelation imagines instead that this present world will be restored:  “See,” said the voice from the throne, “I am making all things new.”

Second, note that the vision presented in Revelation is not like a “prepper” fantasy in which, at the end of civilization, with a store of food and water, we can live off the grid in an expanse of untrammeled wilderness.  Rather, the vision of Revelation is that of a city, “the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”  In the future that the author of Revelation imagines, there is no “getting away from it all.”  For – according to the vision – we will all be together, neighbors in a city.  We’re going to have to figure out how to live together.  And we will not be together in just any city, but in Jerusalem, with all its varied peoples and its history and challenging tensions.  The Bible’s vision for us,expressed in its “last paragraph” of Revelation, is that we are together in a city, a “new Jerusalem.”

Lastly, “He will dwell with them as their God, and they will be his peoples.”  While the Presidents I have cited have acknowledged a God, and while I sense that these Presidents may have hoped we might “be his peoples,” Revelation imagines definitively that God “will dwell with them as their God,” and that “they will be his peoples.”  In this new earth that Revelation envisions, human beings willingly take God as our God, they willingly become His people, and they worship Him and Him alone.   The result of humans taking God as their God and dwelling with him as his people is that, “He will wipe away 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.”

Revelation, the Bible’s “final paragraph,” presents God’s vision for humanity.  To a world that may seem chaotic and with a future that may seem uncertain, Revelation presents a vision of a world restored, of peoples living together in unity, and of human beings in right relationship with God.  This is a vision I can get behind.  And so, I will continue to do my best to faithfully follow Jesus as his disciples, to work,pray and give to God and God’s work.  If this is a vision you can get behind, won’t you join me in in doing your best to faithfully follow Jesus as his disciples, to work, pray and give, so that the home of God might indeed be among mortals, that he might dwell with us as our God, and that we might truly be his people?