Preaching here some weeks ago, Canon Mary presented a convincing argument for our not “skipping to the good part”, the end of the story in life or in faith, - but sometimes it’s hard to agree with her. One of our former American interns used to say, at the end of a trying day in the office “Any time now, Lord, would be good” – and as we reflect on this evening’s reading from Revelation I’m gripped with that same sense of longing that fills our Advent worship .
Perhaps “O come quickly” is the kind of prayer that I need more often than simply in those weeks before Christmas.
After all, Revelation gives us so much to hope for with its vision of a new heaven and a new earth. Just before the passage we’ve read comes the wonderful comfort of God wiping away every tear, the assurance that there will be no more death, sorrow nor sighing, neither shall there be any more pain
With all that in prospect, there’s much to be said for skipping to the good part.
And yet, of course, this radical revision of everything we know and experience as mortals will involve some loss. Listen again to the opening words of tonight’s reading
I saw no temple in the city
No temple at all
This precious beloved cathedral, and all those other holy places that have sustained the faithful through the centuries, not even referenced in the new heaven and earth. The best of human art and artifice wiped away as irrevocably as all those things we will rejoice to see the back of.
For those of us who work or worship here, that may be quite a challenging idea. We know the power of the building to speak of God’s reconciling love. Many of us found ourselves feeling almost cut off from God during our covid-tide exile, and it was very clear when we returned to worship that it was the space even more than the community that held our congregation together.
It’s Christian Aid week, of course, and that always raises questions for me about our stewardship of God’s gifts to humanity, as we recall their one-time strap line “We believe in life before death”. Should we rejoice in this place at all, when we know that poverty, hunger and disease are a daily reality for many, while we have the luxury of feeling irritated if a favourite hymn is sung to the wrong tune? Actually, that’s a false dichotomy…I suspect that abandoning cathedrals won’t lead to a greater generosity towards the world’s poor, and even as we agonise over whether or not we should expend human and financial resources on maintaining the life and worship of this place and so many others we cling to them because they are our windows onto heaven.
Rooted in the material, we humans need material reminders of the God who can sometimes seem so far beyond us that he is out of reach – but who draws near to us in Jesus, and, of course, as we meet him in the bread and wine of Communion.
We are allowed to relish the sacraments, and those other sacramental signs that confirm God’s involvement with our daily lives, indeed we should delight in them, see them as the gifts that they are
But we can look forward to a new reality...a reality in which they are gone because they are no unnecessary.
No places of worship. Not even this one, ruined and rebuilt
No encounters with Christ at Communion.
None of the signs that have spoken to us through the ages of God’s presence among us.
Right here and right now, that may feel like an unimaginable bereavement. It’s hard to leap forward in our imaginations, to put ourselves into a context where this will not be experienced as loss at all.
So today I invite you to try to imagine yourself skipping to the good part
You see, we won’t need signposts to the Almighty- not one, - any more than we will need lamps, as we enter into that place where there is no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light.
In the new creation our whole existence will be worship, and we will see God as God is and know even as we are fully known.
I wonder if we might try, on the basis of this vision, to sit lighter to those things that we treasure now – whether in style or place of worship. It can be so easy to conflate the signpost and the destination, but as we reflect on the brokenness of our world, I long to stand beside that tree whose leaves are for the healing of nations, to walk with others through those gates that will never close, to wade knee deep in the crystal water of the river of life, and to join in the ceaseless worship of eternity.
Let’s pray
‘Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling but one equal light, no noise nor silence, but one equal music, no fears nor hopes but one equal possession, no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity, in the habitations of thy majesty and thy glory, world without end. Amen.’
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