The Revelation text leads us to pay attention God is gathering the faithful to bring us to the Holy City of God so we may live into the fullness of God. The Lord God that created us from the beginning, the God we hear in the psalm today and the God who saved Paul and Silas from their chains in prison. This is the same God who leads us to drink of the water of life.
I have mentioned a few times my affection for the Book of Revelation. Most people are at a loss to know what to do with it. Is it science fiction or a B grade horror movie? Is it a surrealistic word painting or a bad dream, a nightmare, written up. Many regard it as cryptic code to be deciphered as a map for world history or is it, as I regard it, to be more like inspirational poetry using symbolism and word pictures to draw us into a vision of God’s hope and future. A time when the pain and suffering of this world, death, mourning and crying will be no more, and God will be with us completely and forever (Rev 21 3 – 4).
We are so accustomed to the story of Jesus appearing to his disciples that we might not stop to wonder what the fear of the disciples was like, how profound that fear was. Was it like the fear of people living in Ukraine not knowing when the next attack would come? Was it like the fear of those working in the hospital in Gaza wondering if they will be able to care for their patients in the hours that lie ahead? Jesus’ disciples know deep fear after his death and the strange stories that he might be alive. And then he comes. And stands among them and says, ‘Peace be with you.’
When someone utters a word of hope, in the voice of the prophet proclaiming the presence of God, speaking comfort in the voice of God, that utterance has power. The power to give hope. And that utterance cannot be washed away, cannot be unsaid. That utterance exists and so “everything has now been changed.” Brueggemann is clear that this utterance gives no certainty, but the hearer surely suspects that nothing that matters gives certainty. The utterance has given hope. Perhaps the voice of the earth or the voice of humanity speaking on behalf of the earth can give hope, too.
There are some days when, pondering the events in the world, we find ourselves shuddering, and we go out into the garden, perhaps, and look at the sky, and cry out, ‘Is there a word from the Lord?’ In our Old Testament reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, we hear the voice of the Lord comparing the word of the Lord to the rain that comes down from heaven watering the earth, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater. "So shall my word be ... it shall not return to me empty but shall accomplish that which I shall purpose," the Lord says.
Jesus is inviting us to follow him and walk in his ways. He has just called his disciples and appointed them apostles in the preceding verses and now he offers for us to come alongside and step into the kingdom of God with him. To live our lives in a way that reflects God’s world and not just the world around us.
Abraham, the wise man from the east who is called by God to the Promised Land and who leaves the Chaldees to journey to Canaan. This kind of continues the themes of the Epiphany season. It is a story about that desire to follow where God leads, not knowing what you will find. It’s fuelled by a desire to see God and know God. To befriend God. Neither Abraham, nor the wise men from the East, knew exactly what they were looking for, and nor did they know when or exactly where they might find it. But they had been prompted by God, and they responded faithfully to that prompting.
The day after the inauguration of the President of the United States of America, the Bishop of Washington, the Right Rev’d Mariann Budd spoke to the congregation in the Washington Cathedral imploring the President to treat vulnerable groups of people with mercy. Reflecting in a conversation with a journalist, in the days that followed, Bishop Mariann Budd gave some insight into where the hope that her words inspired came from, where her inspiration to speak as she did, came from.
The term ‘dark night of the Soul’ derives from the title of a poem written by the C16 Spanish mystic, San Juan de la Cruz (St John of the Cross) which in Spanish was ‘Noche Oscura (canciones del alma)’. John of the Cross had been imprisoned in a tiny two by three metre cell with a tiny slit high up to let in a small amount of light; in this cell he wrote his ‘Spiritual canticles’ on paper smuggled into him by a guard. This famous poem, however, he wrote after his escape from the prison.
We were called to bring this good news of the redemption and restoration that Jesus Christ brings to all who believe in him. From the passage today from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we understand the importance of respecting the differing gifts we have for the work set before us. Unity in Christ strengthens and encourages us to pursue the vision and continue to make it a reality in the world, bringing light and hope.
