To read scripture from the book of Revelation requires the contextualization of the words; in what historical setting were they written? Without this context, the reading and interpretation and understanding of the book can head off into wildly disparate avenues, often frightening and, even, damaging, as the interpretation of this book over the centuries has often traveled. So, let us remember, first, that this book was written by Christians in the midst of enormous persecution and suffering under the Roman Empire, because of their faith. As Roger Ferlo explains, the people for whom these words were written, “…Were Jews become Christians in a Roman world, members of a heretical wing of a minority faith barely tolerated by a brutal empire.” In our particular passage for this morning, many of the words used to describe the vision of the new heaven and new earth are drawn from the writings of Isaiah, words written to an exiled, suffering community, a community with whom the people of the book of Revelation would have easily felt a kinship. And though not drawn from the book of Romans, the concept in Revelation of a suffering world waiting for its redemption and renewal sounds very similar to that described in Romans, where we read, “For the creation waits with eager longing…in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay…and not only the creation, but we ourselves.”
The reality of death, decay, suffering, sorrow, and separation is a strand that runs throughout the scriptures, as does the hope for renewal and redemption and wholeness. It is an old, old story in which we might find ourselves, quite easily, identifying and finding our places within it. Though we are not being persecuted by the Emperor Diocletian for being followers of Jesus, we, too, all of us- have known our burdens, and come here perhaps, even this morning, heavy laden. So, though the historical background of Revelation is specific and enormously different than our own, it is still the shared story of chaos, represented in Revelation as the sea- chaos seeming as though it has the power to drown us in its potentially overpowering waves- AND, it is the story that we share, too, of the hope that the sea, that chaos, confusion, heartache and sorrow, evil- that this abyss will not win, in the end, because there is a force, a mysterious force, that is greater still- the Alpha and the Omega, the one who gives the water of life to the thirsty, God.
Though all odds for survival and flourishing were against the community for which Revelation was written, and though Diocletian was attempting to control all aspects of the lives of the people of his empire, these persecuted Christians would not allow, as Roger Ferlo writes, their “religious imagination[s]” to be controlled. And thus, we can read of an overpoweringly beautiful vision of the way things could and should and will be, one day- a vision that refuses to allow hope to be eliminated. A vision, even, of how things could be today, right now, not later, not in the future- now. We hear, “See, the home of God is among mortals.” Earlier in Revelation, in chapter fifteen, the home of God, the tabernacle, was in heaven, but here, in verse twenty-one, the home of God is among the people, God present, Immanuel, God-with-us. These words echo the words of Jesus throughout the Gospels where he speaks of the Kingdom of God being among us.
One of the privileges of my call is performing weddings and funerals. Both are beautiful. Both are a reminder of God’s incredibly present love around, among, and within us. Both are reminders of our fallen nature, and God’s willingness to be there to help pick up the pieces and mend, through grace, the torn fabrics of our lives in inexplicable, very personal ways, ways that extend far beyond the wedding day or day of burial for those who are still alive. But it does seem, in my experience, that it is particularly at memorial or funeral services where the hardest work of all happens, and happens naturally- happens, unconsciously, even- happens, it must be, through grace- the work of stripping away so many layers of superficiality and pretense and resentment and shame- and leaving behind something similar to that which is described in this vision in Revelation- the vision of the lived knowledge of the dwelling of God among us, and the resultant washing away and overcoming of the hurt which we inflict upon one another, and the thirst within us that seems never to be quenched, suddenly, for a moment in time, is satisfied; this vision comes to life, in the here-and-now, in real time. My experience is that it happens, and it happens over and over again, at service after service and gathering after gathering, where the deceased are remembered and the life of the resurrection is witnessed to; and all this happens, so paradoxically- through death. Through death, through grief, through sorrow, through suffering- new life emerges. It is as if the dead speak to us, inviting our religious imaginations to run wild and be unleashed, and we allow ourselves, finally, to drink from the spring of the water of life.
And though I have witnessed this time and time again from afar, as the pastor presiding over a memorial or funeral service, I have experienced it in my own life, at my oldest brother, Christopher’s, service, and the gatherings that happened before and after. After I was told by the chaplain of my seminary that my brother had died, I packed up a suitcase, and the next day flew home from San Francisco to Tucson, where my family was waiting for me at the airport. One of the most sorrowful memories of my life is seeing my parents standing there as I got off the plane. And my expectation, because this was the first time I had experienced a tragic death in my own family- my expectation was that of a tortuous week of mourning. And in many ways, it was. I remember after the memorial service, going to the public pool for some lap swimming to clear my mind, and having to pull myself out of the pool after nearly drowning, literally, in my tears as I swam. It was a week of spontaneous, uncontrollable weeping- grief that would overwhelm anyone at anytime. Unpredictable. Ugly. Heart-stabbing.
And I also remember spontaneous, beautiful gatherings and conversation, and food and conversation brought to our house in endless waves by the community of friends and family and church and neighbors that my family had grown with over the years. I remember taking my North Dakota grandmother with two of my family’s best, hip friends to a Starbucks, before Starbucks had overtaken the world and it was still considered a unique concept, and my nana having a latte for the first time in her life, and my friends and I so very pleased and grateful that we could sit with her over her first latte, and hear her call it, many times over, a “la-tay”. And I remember my best friend’s mother bringing over to our house hamburgers and French fries from the local dive and beloved hamburger joint with Coca-Cola in bottles, and vats of lasagna delivered to my house from our high school’s cook, and the sound of Bill Captain, a good family friend and my parents’ favorite voice in their church’s choir, singing at the service. I remember basketball coaches from long, long ago entering the sanctuary, leaving my brother, Tyler, and my jaws agape that they would come and that they cared and that they remembered and loved Chris- and us, too. And I remember family gathering in the same room that had not gathered for a long time, family who came from far away places, despite past hurts and misunderstandings and grudges, who came, it seemed, without a second thought or without hesitancy, and who gathered agenda-less, except for the sole purpose of loving us during this time of utter disorientation.
“See, the home of God is among mortals.” It is true, and perhaps, unfortunate, that it often takes death to remind us that the Kingdom of God is among us, and for us to live as if it is- to allow our religious imaginations to be utterly unleashed and uninhibited, and to live into a new vision of a new heaven and a new earth- one where we wipe the tears of those around us today and surrender to the wiping away of our own. It often requires of the dead to do the work of reminding the rest of us to live. And so we name them as Saints today. May we remember the dead well through our living.