Sermon text: Revelation 21:1–27
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
It’s the sixth Sunday of Easter. That’s generally reserved as a precursor to Ascension Thursday, which is this coming Thursday. The Easter season has been filled with a message of the resurrection as a very physical reality for believers. And the language of some of the texts puts us in mind of the importance of the office of ministry. We’ve heard sacramental imagery that shows the importance of the bodily benefits of the resurrection that we receive in Holy Baptism as delineated in Romans chapter 6. All the signals of the importance of Christ’s ascension: to sit at the right hand of God, and as a proper place for us — to go prepare a proper place for us.
I’m going to ask you to remember an old movie: Field of Dreams. It wasn’t heaven. It was still Iowa. Kevin Costner’s character and James Earl Jones’s character — a.k.a. Ray Kinsella and Terrence Mann — seemed to be on the edge of a revelation throughout the movie. Costner’s character, Kinsella, had built a baseball diamond in the middle of a cornfield, and long-dead major leaguers including Shoeless Joe Jackson had come out of the corn to play ball. It’s a great movie. They don’t make them like that anymore. Not only does it run over, or survey, a history of American baseball in our culture, but it’s also about family and forgiveness, as Kinsella meets and reconciles with his father who had passed away decades before, who was also a ballplayer.
Near the end of the movie, the players are leaving the field and heading back to the corn, which represents heaven. And Shoeless Joe Jackson turns to Terrence Mann and invites him to come along into the corn, which heaven represents. “Want to come see?” he says to Mann, who is excited at the prospect of going into the heavenly realm. He is a writer by trade, by profession. And just before disappearing into the corn, he promises that he will write what he sees and send it back for all to know, the heavenly realm. Of course, the movie ends. The Jones character never reappears, and we’re still waiting for Terrence Mann’s description of a heavenly realm in that cornfield.
Well, today’s readings — the intro, the sermons — all have been selected, designed to lead us and our thoughts to Ascension Day. Jesus says in the gospel, “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” There is no invitation, though, in the moment, for the disciples to come with Him, or for you and I. At least not yet. This reality is still in all of our respective futures.
But the Epistle lesson for today — Romans 12 — excuse me, Revelation 21: an angel invites John to come and catch a glimpse of heaven and to write about what he will see on this trip. As we sinners and saints long for a full revelation of heaven, we welcome the invitation to see by faith what John is given to see and to write in his book of Revelation. “Come,” the angel says to John, “and I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”
Through the testimony of John, we behold the holy city, the new Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb, of Christ. John’s vision gives us a clear glimpse of what it will be like and where we will live in the heavenly realm. It’s a magnificent place. The text tells us, verse 11, that it had the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. A great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. On the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
Heaven, it would seem, is a place of twelves and of threes. 12 is the number of tribes that the Lord faithfully brought into the promised land. It’s also the number of Old Testament minor prophets who wrote and foretold the coming of the promised Messiah. There’s the 12 apostles who proclaimed repentance and forgiveness of sins to the four corners of the earth. The church would crumble without the foundation that the Holy Spirit had set in place: in the ongoing and continuous office of public ministry, where Scriptures are preached and the children of the heavenly Father are taught His word. There’s also the number three: the number of the holy one and true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the number four: the number of gospels. And 3 × 4 = 12, the number of gates around the city. All giving access to one true Christ, who gives salvation to all those who believe and trust in Him.
The Epistle lesson also tells us of a holy city, which is equated with the bride of Christ. It’s not a place as we think of a place. It’s not like an earthly city. The bride of Christ is the church. It’s a collection of Christians, of saints, of hagioi, of holy ones before God. The church, the heaven, has no place for anything unclean. Verse 27: “Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” The prohibition applies to you too. Your sins have been washed away: confessed and absolved, remitted in the holy sacraments. Nothing impure in you survives the resurrection of the dead. It’s all gone. So as you stand before the Bridegroom, you will appear to Him as spotless and without blemish or any such thing. There’ll be nothing that is unclean in you, nothing in you that is false, nothing in you that is detestable. You will truly be hagios, a holy one, a true saint of Christ Jesus your Lord.
The church is the wife who has been brought to Christ Jesus, as the woman Eve was brought to Adam in Genesis 2:22. “And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” Through the apostle — excuse me, John — we are invited to see ourselves as washed clean by the God-man who gave His life for the bride. Ephesians 5:25–27: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” In Revelation 7:14, the angel said to John, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
It’s heaven. So, there must be a temple. There’s always a temple where God is. But behold, the temple. What temple? John sees no temple. The city of heaven has no temple at all. He writes in verse 22: “I saw no temple in the city.” There is no temple to worship God in the city. It’s rather surprising, given the long Old Testament history and imagery of the temple, especially in Ezekiel 40–47. That’s seven chapters of a description of virtually every aspect about the temple: the appearance, the architecture, the use, the protocol, and just about every other aspect of God dwelling on earth is contained there in the temple. The temple is where all sacred things happened. The temple is where all sinful things are made clean. The word is read and preached on in the temple. It is where the songs were sung. It is where the worship is held and the sacrifices are offered. It was the center of both life and death for the faithful children of the Old Testament. But in the new heaven and the new earth, there is no need for a temple, no temple at all.
He said, “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” In the Old and New Testament, the temple always symbolized God’s presence among His people. Now it shows God’s true presence with His people, and His people with Him. Here in this sin-filled realm, we see God’s presence by faith in the means of grace. He is found in the word and sacrament ministry, because this is where Jesus promised to be. He promised to be present in the means of grace. He promised to be present in His word. He promised to be present in Holy Baptism. He promised to be present in confession and absolution. And He promised to be present in the sacrament of the altar.
We see Christ present in the unshakable foundations of heaven rooted in the holy Scriptures themselves. Through the sacraments, we see the portals that draw us into the divine presence of a mediated God — meaning, by a means by which God comes to us. But in heaven, all the means by which God comes to us are gone. We shall see our Lord face to face. The light that has come into the world and into heaven: John sees no sun or moon, but only the glory of the Lamb of God. And the lamp is the light. Verse 23: “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”
From the beginning it was this way. The word gave life even before the sun was created. Genesis: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” And then He continues in verse 14: “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so.”
The word of God, the light of Christ, is eternal. The eternal Son of God is eternal life and truth. He is the eternal word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The light has come in the flesh, and in the beauty of the incarnation: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
In John 8:12, Jesus spoke: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” But the light had to be extinguished, as we learned, for a little while. It was about the sixth hour on Good Friday, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. But Easter morning ushered in a new day: the Son of God. The light rose on Sunday morning. In heaven, John sees the Lamb is the only light and no other light is needed. Verse 23: “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light.” In heaven, we will see Christ’s shining face always. His light will be the glory of kings, and people of every nation will come to it. The light: by its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory — their praise — into it. That is: all in heaven will see the doxa. That’s the Greek word for glory — it means to shine. The heaviness, kavod: the light of the Son of God.
There’s no need for a temple. There’s no need for sun and moon. There’s no need for the light of the world to hide itself any longer in the means of grace. In the daytime — for there will be no night there — the text says its gates will never be shut. People will come in and out the gates throughout all eternity. Heaven is Eden restored and infinitely more. Matthew 4:16: “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” Colossians 1:13: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.”
You are holy even now in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’s eyes. God declares that you are the holy one for Christ’s sake. You are children of light, and you’re headed for the heavenly kingdom of light where there is no darkness. “In my Father’s house are many rooms,” Jesus promised you. “If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Nothing unclean will ever enter — nor you ever again in the heavenly realm — nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life, as your name was when you were converted, when you were baptized into His holy name. You are holy and named and blessed and recorded in the book of life. From the moment of your conversion and your baptism, your names were written down in the book. And while we see most dimly now the glories of heaven through the eyes of St. John, you will see then, because your sins are forgiven and there’s nothing detestable left in you. Your heavenly home awaits, and you will be called and gathered in His good and gracious time to live forever in the glory of your Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.