A New Heaven and a New Earth, a sermon preached on All Saints Sunday with Communion, November 7, 2021, at the Church of the Pilgrimage in Plymouth, MA, by the Rev. Dianne E. Arakawa
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 Revelation 21:1-6a
Friends,
Last Sunday night marked All Hallow’s, Halloween, the eve of All Saints Day. I hope that all of us enjoyed the evening, and at least a few children in costumes were able to go trick o’ treating and a few adults were able to hand out treats.
As I mentioned to one of you, for me the problem with Halloween treats started with the Tufts Nutrition Guide. We still subscribe to it, and our son still maintains that it has been a corrupting influence in our family life. Its once director, you see, had been a former parishioner, so I took to reading about healthy foods and such in its pages filled with interesting information.
So, came the Halloween when I heard about someone handing out organic carrots with green tops, so we gave out apples. Then there was the year that we put out granola bars. And then this past year, we shared Smarties and tangerines, because the Washington Post had conducted a nutrition audit and declared three top candy winners, including Smarties. (Not to be farfetched, this past week, the Boston Globe declared Smarties as one of its top candies, not for health but sentiment.)
Through it all, and despite my now adult son’s continued protests, I remain stubborn and rather stalwart, like one of our saints-in-heaven. For the saints knew that despite earthly slings-and-arrows, they are loved by God for choosing and doing the right thing, and in the end find their happy place in heaven.
Speaking of saints, the passage from the Wisdom of Solomon, the third chapter, is a rather remarkable piece. For, after major persecutions, Wisdom talks about the Righteous, our Saints. Written in the first century before our Era, by a Hellenistic (Greek) Jew, it mediates between earlier philosophies about the afterlife and later Christian beliefs about the Resurrection. If we listen closely, or follow along in our Bibles, we notice three things.
One is that the writer declares that the Righteous are in the hand(s) of God, and no harm will ever come to them. (v.1) We foolish might presume that that they had a hard leave-taking. But actually, they were at peace the 2 whole time. As the writer says, their hope was “full of immortality.” Full of immortality.
Two, this passage says that the Righteous are placed in a sort-of temporary purgatory, where they await God’s scrutiny but are soon freed. Says the writer, “God tested them and found them worthy…like gold in the furnace [they were] tried. But in the time of their visitation, they shone forth and sparkled through the stubble.” Isn’t that a beautiful image…the Righteous standing up, standing out, shining and sparkling in the remains of a fire? So, Wisdom says that the Righteous remain unharmed and, though they are tested, they are exonerated.
Three, the passage says that the Righteous for their trust in God and truthfulness in life, “abide with God in love. Because grace and mercy are upon [God’s] holy ones, and God watches over God’s elect.” Wisdom declares that the Elect remain with God in a state of love, grace and mercy.
So, right here in the Hebrew Bible, we hear the beginnings of what would later develop into Christian theology about the Resurrection, with which we here try to embody as Easter People. These are without doubt, strong words of reassurance and encouragement!
Particularly, when special loved-ones succumb… or strangers… or the more than 750,000 in our nation, who died from the Covid this past yearand-a-half. These days, we as People of Faith are coping with far too many deaths, far too many tragedies and far too many losses of so many different kinds, most of which we feel we are utterly powerless to prevent.
Still, about the Saints, our second reading offers encouragement. Taken from the last book in our New Testament, the Book of Revelation, the 21st chapter, it describes the hopeful vision of a new heaven and a new earth.
Was it written in the first century by one St. John, who because of his early Christian writings had been banished by a Roman Emperor to the Greek island of Patmos in the Mediterranean? Was it written by St. John the Divine? Was it written by St. John the theologian? We are not sure. But there remain in museums numerous handsome paintings, showing the imagined writer wearing a red robe, sitting on a craggy rock, surrounded by a chaotic blue sea, and looking upwards for divine inspiration.
As with our Hebrew reading, we hear from its writer the same worldweariness, from persecutions and suffering to be exact. So, what is God doing to redeem those who have given their lives to God? What is God doing for those who have been banished to faraway places? What is God doing to those who have been imprisoned in Roman jails, or martyred by wild beasts?
The writer of Revelation assures readers, and us, that God takes care of all the Saints. Recalling the Prophet Isaiah, we hear about “creating new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” (65:17) Again, “for as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, so says the Lord; so, shall your descendants and your name remain.” (66:22) These words of promise about the future were written to sustain us through whatever the world may throw at us.
The writer declares that God has not forgotten God’s own. As the philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, would later say, God does not even forget the seemingly most insignificant puff of dust.
God is creating and bestowing on God’s People a New Jerusalem. It will not be like the old one. But it will be a tabernacle, where God will not be separated from God’s Righteous, but will dwell together with them. “God will dwell with them; they will be God’s peoples, and God will be with them.” (v.3b) As one commentator summed up, “Community and communion will unite God and [these people], the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem.” Community and communion.
Then the writer goes further with his vision, saying, that this New Jerusalem will include “people from every tribe, language, people and nation.” (v. 5b) Did we hear that? If this is not an embracive vision of the Christian Church as early as the first century, I do not know what is! It defied tribalism, sectarianism, parochialism. It defied a singular monolithic language as contrasted to a multiplicity of tongues. It defied just one people to innumerable peoples from a variety of races and ethnicities, and nations.
Finally, the writer goes even further, promising, that “God will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for [death] has passed away.” (v. 4) At this time, in the year 2021, do we not all need to hear this vision of promise and hope from two millennia earlier?!
Death will be no more, and so no more crying, grieving and suffering.
On All Saints Day, when we have had death and suffering heaped on us, and are finally able to reflect on our condition as persons, a People, and a planet, we find truth in our Scripture from the Wisdom of Solomon as well as Revelation.
For, our Faith does not leave us like the foolish in depression, despondency and desperation. Instead, as with the Elect, it leaves us with an affirmation of faith, love and peace. And it makes clear that these are signs of immortality.
We look to the future with the vision of a New Tabernacle, a New Jerusalem, a New Realm, where God’s community can be one with God. Together, we can have communion and even celebrate Holy Communion.
So, later in our service, as we receive Communion, let us be grateful for life. Let us be grateful for life together. And let us be grateful for life in Christ. Let us remember Jesus’ life of agape, sacrificial love. Let us recall the saints in our lives, passed and living, who have shown brightly and “sparkled through the stubble” of our lives. Then, let us rise anew, with that enduring vision, of a new heaven and a new earth. A new heaven and a new earth.
It is this Realm where, together with God, life, love, grace, hope, and joy reign forever and ever. In Christ name, let the people say, Amen!
Copyright Rev. Dianne E. Arakawa, November 7, 2021