Fifth Sunday of Easter

May 6, 2007

Sermon by Pastor John Marboe

The Holy Gospel according to St. John. (John 13:31-35)

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Today, we have three texts that have to do with vision and receiving vision. It’s kind of interesting. In our world, visions are something that one has. But in the biblical world, and in traditional societies still today, visions are something that people see.

In Revelation and in the Book of Acts, Peter and then the Apostle John both say “I saw” something. In a biblical vision, there is a kind of an otherness about these visions. They come of their own. They don’t come from within; they come from without. And the people who saw visions in this way were seen as “special people.” Sometimes they were honored, sometimes they weren’t, but they were seen as having “special sight.”

It’s not so much in vogue these days, to have visions, to see things. People who see things are people we keep a distance from. Likewise, if somebody is sensing that they are receiving revelations in their dreams, we also kind of put distance between them and ourselves.

So what’s the difference between that day and these days, or that society and our society? I think the difference is that, as a culture, we don’t really believe in having visions quite the same way. I’m not speaking here about something that we have chosen to do, but the world simply doesn’t appear to us this way. This is not the way we think the world works. Maybe, in theory, we accept that people could have divinely inspired visions. But in practice, well, let’s just say, if Al Petersen started telling us all that he had a vision from God, well, we might just avoid him a bit.

Interestingly, however, our world our culture, our society, is in some ways more interested in vision than ever. Everyone is supposed to have vision. It’s almost a requirement in the modern age. Everybody seems to be drafting a personal “vision statement.” Every business is supposed to have a vision; every CEO is supposed to have a vision; every person, if they want to be a highly effective person, or a purpose-driven person, needs to have a vision statement. Churches, too, we have to have vision statements. And pastors: “What’s your vision?” People ask it all the time, “What’s your vision?” I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do those things. But that’s a bit different than “vision” in the biblical sense, because in the biblical sense a vision isn’t something that you have.

Biblical vision (like in our lessons today comes from heaven). But our culture has more or less taken heaven by storm, and now we generate our own vision. Visions in the Bible-sense come as a surprise. They startle people, or disturb people. They come suddenly, and they change the way people see everything. The world becomes different after a vision has been seen.

I want to suggest that, even though it may not occur in quite the same way because of the way we believe or don’t believe these days, people do, in some sense, still receive visions. Perhaps you have. Suddenly, because of something, you saw everything differently, and you knew in your bones that you had been given a gift of new sight. Your whole life, and your approach to life, changed in that moment.

Well, the Apostle John, in the Book of Revelation, had one of these extraordinary visions. And it wasn’t just a personal vision; it was a vision that was to be shared. And he wrote that down, and it’s called now the Book of Revelation. People have puzzled over it, been frightened by it, and inspired by it, ever since.

Today in churches across America people will hear about the Book of Revelation, and they will hear about it in this way: They will hear that it is to be understood as a prediction of future events that are coming upon us. That’s what people will hear all over the place. As we speak, people are hearing that message.

But a vision is not a prediction. A vision is not a prediction. A vision is reality re-imagined. A vision is reality re-imagined. our text is from Revelation, Chapter 21. It is the conclusion of the book. And in it the Apostle John is looking up, so to speak, and seeing, so to speak, a city coming down from God out of heaven, and he calls it “The New Jerusalem.”

Now, the first 20 chapters of the Book of Revelation, as most of you know, read a bit like a Stephen King novel—lots of scary stuff. That is, I believe, because life can be like a Stephen King novel—pretty scary stuff.

But in the end there is this vision of a city that’s coming. Despite everything, a new reality, a new society, a new city is emerging from God. This is a vision of heaven, but not a vision of heaven in the way we normally think about heaven. Not a heaven far, far away; not a heaven that is beyond this earth. But if you read it closely, it is heaven coming to earth. It is the conjoining of heaven and earth. Hmm… Well, I think we know better, I think we know better, than to expect heaven to arrive on earth. A friend of mine used to say: “If you think you have found heaven on earth, don’t stay there because you will spoil it.” Good advice.

In John’s vision, again, if you read it carefully, the city never really fully arrives. It says, “I looked and I saw a city coming out of heaven, and voice from the throne that says, ‘Behold, I am making—am making—all things new.’” The New Jerusalem, the city that God intends, the city from heaven, the conjoining of heaven and earth, is always, always on the way, on the way. I think we can relate to this. We don’t like it, maybe, but we can relate to it.

My daughter says often, “When I’m all grown up, then . . . .” “When I’m all grown up, I’ll tell you what to do, Daddy, when I’m all grown up.” “When I’m all grown up, then I’ll get to wear what I want, when I’m all grown up.” “When I’m all grown up, I’ll be able to reach that, when I’m all grown up.” Well, the most alive people that I know are never all grown up. Isn’t that true? We’re always, always on the way.

What is it that’s on the way? What is this new city? What is this new way? What is this conjoining of heaven on earth that’s on the way? What is it that is this vision that John had that’s for all Christians, that’s for the world, that’s God’s vision?

I think we get the clues in our other texts—in the Book of Acts in our reading today, and in the Gospel—because there was a vision there that Peter saw that’s related to this vision, and a vision that Jesus had that’s related to this vision. Peter, in the Book of Acts, because of a vision that he had, suddenly realized something; he realized something that went against everything that he had thought and been taught his entire life. What he saw all at once changed his world. What he saw all at once changed everything.

And what did he see? He saw suddenly in his vision that God does not make distinctions between people. And the line is, “There is no distinction between us and them.” I would say, in a general way, that that “us and them” can be applied to any “us and them”; that God does not uphold those kinds of distinctions, those distinctions that we so easily and almost naturally make all the time—“us and them.” It was the most basic of religious distinctions that existed at that time, the distinction between Jew and Gentile, between Jew and everybody else. There is no longer any distinction between us and them. God loves all people equally. Regardless of race, religion, creed, lifestyle, nationality, culture, you name it, God loves all people equally.

And then Jesus, in his parting words to his disciples, says, “Love one another”―without condition. “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

It’s a simple vision, but it’s so easy to lose sight of that vision. This is a vision of the city coming down from heaven, a world without distinction or enmity, a world where love is a given, and not conditional. In order to be that world, we must first see it.

Amen.