Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35
I don’t know why the music of my high school years has become the soundtrack of the grocery, but the other day I caught myself absent-mindedly singing along between the spinach and the crackers
…They say in Heaven, love comes first We'll make Heaven a place on Earth…
I guess some things get into your head at an impressionable age, and just… stick with you.
And that particular refrain got stuck in my head again a day or two later, as I read that bit of the Revelation we just heard: “See, the home of God is among mortals…Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more…”
I can’t tell you how much I crave that heavenly experience right now.
It's no wonder I crave the assurance that John’s vision of God’s close and constant presence and care, of earth and heaven renewed and united, is trustworthy and true.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that John recorded this vision for the benefit of a community of people who were worn down by the trouble they were living through.
It’s…a little less encouraging when I remember from my biblical reading that this is part of a vision of – essentially – the destruction of the whole earth; near-universal suffering and plague and sorrow and war.
That John first paints a picture of how much worse it gets because the world actively resists the possibility of God dwelling so closely with us.
And then shows us what we read today – the banishment of pain and the renewal of life – as a vision of the end of tribulation. It’s all a vision that suggests there may be quite a long way to go before we get to there.
Which may be why we need to crave that vision. To want that unity of heaven and earth for ourselves, now and here.
When you’re feeling the weight of suffering, you need to know that the end of it is not just an end, as stopping, but something you truly long for, good beyond imagining.
When we’re trying to avoid suffering, we need to know that there’s a destination we long for beyond the trouble we fear: a destination we are invited to crave, to seek in spite of trouble.
(It’s the grand, universal-scale version of me needing to remember that the place I want to be and the people I want to be with are more important than how much I hate the process of traveling.)
We need to crave that divine closeness and care.
So that we’ll recognize it when it comes looking for us.
Which is what’s happening as Jesus talks to his friends, the night before he dies.
They’re confused and uncertain. Their tribulations and triumphs and deepest need still lie ahead of them. They’d like to avoid trouble if they can.
In the same way that I love you – because I love you – love one another.
That’s the way that all through their “separation” from Jesus at his death – his resurrection, transformation, glorification – how all through that “separation” they will in fact be united with him.
It’s how we – you and I – experience the closeness of God to us, here and now.
By loving one another.
That’s what Belinda Carlisle said, too, in the 80s and in Shop-Rite the other day.
They say in Heaven, love comes first
We'll make Heaven a place on Earth.
She was talking about romantic love, physical love; Jesus is talking about divine love.
But the refrain they both return to is the same truth:
Putting love first is how we experience God at home among us, wiping the tears, quenching our thirst for eternal life.
Loving one another, as God loves us, comes first.
It’s not a feeling, that divine love, that primary love.
It’s action. It’s attitude. It’s adopting a set of expectations that everyone you meet is worthy of God’s love, and care, and that you and I get to give that care.
Love one another as I have loved you:
like listening for the yearning heart of the child of God in front of you, even while every word they are saying is wrong (and just what you told them not to do). Just as Jesus listens to Peter, and the other disciples, and… honestly, everyone he meets, even the most annoying of the religious lawyers who argue with him.
Love comes first.
Rejoicing in the joy of someone else comes before that other thing you meant to do with this precious fifteen minutes.
Holding the hand of someone who slows you down comes before getting the errand done.
Speaking up for people worn down from being unheard comes before speaking your mind.
Kindness comes first. Generous honesty comes first. Building trust comes first.
Receiving all those things comes first, too.
Receiving kindness, trust, sincerity, empathy, justice, and joy from others, from God, comes before doing what we can for ourselves.
In our spending of money, in our personal politics, in our decisions about what Covid precautions to adopt and let go, in our work and family calendars, in our quiet time, in the grocery store,
when love comes first,
when we are loving and being loved as Jesus loves us,
we start to find ourselves living in that divine closeness and care, that renewal and life that John envisions for us,
heaven in place in earth.
Because when Jesus tells us to love one another as God loves us,
he's telling us to know that God is as close to us, as one with us, with you, with me, as God is with Jesus, and to act on that knowledge.
That knowledge that God dwells with us, in you, among us,
just as John envisions it for us,
life so close to God that death and grief and pain and everything we’ve ever feared are vanished.
Carlisle sings:
In this world we're just beginnin'
To understand the miracle of livin'
Baby, I was afraid before
But I'm not afraid anymore
The world around us may still be in turmoil.
It probably will be.
But to put love first conquers fear.
To put love first changes the world as we live in it.
Changes us.
To love as Jesus loves is to live in the certainty that God is at home with us, dwells with us, wipes every tear from our eyes.
And then heaven is indeed how we live on earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment