Revelation 21:10-22; 22:5
Easter 6 - Year C
Babel's tower arises from our midst to the heavens. Here the heavenly Jerusalem (Jerusalem renewed) descends into our midst.
Someday we will get this act of partnership, this desire for being together, together that the same time we reach to G*O*D, G*O*D reaches toward us. When these hands touch we find them both washed by the Water of Life. On the wrists of both grow Trees of Life bearing fruit of twelve tribes whose seeds will lead us back to a new dynamic story falling and rising toward yet another new heaven and earth.
This reflects "John's paradoxically dual emphasis through the book. There are pictures of exclusion: So sinners and nothing sinful will enter the city (21:8, 27; 22:3, 14-15). There are also pictures of transformation and ultimate inclusion: The city is not for the "faithful few" but is inconceivably large (21:16); the kings and nations of the earth will be there (21:24-26); the nations are not only destroyed (19:15; 20:7-9) but finally are also healed, walk by God's light, and bring their gifts to God (20:24-26; 22:2). The city has walls and gates that function as the boundary markers to separate insiders from outsiders, but the gates are never closed (21:12-14, 21, 25)." [NISB]
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/may2004.html
Rest well now. Soon and very soon there will be no night for ever and ever.
We are in over my head at this point, talking about something so different from our experience. It is difficult to know just where to pick up to catch a glimpse of what beyond the world this might signify.
We sleep in utero, we sleep through all the various stages of life that try to strut along, we sleep the big sleep past physical life. Then we image things as, pythonesque, something completely different. What would the life of Brian look like here in the Jerusalem from above instead of the Jerusalem below?
I must admit that the kind of static imagery here, including the constant light, doesn't hold much sway over me. Is it that my life is too stable and predictable and so I look for diversity? Is this to speak only to those facing turmoil who dream about stability and final victory?
I suspect that the place where these perspectives meet is with there being no temple in the city. For those seeking stability this throws mystery into the mix. For those seeing variability this restricts the picture to a constancy beyond buildings.
Even if we give light its due, how would a visual artist deal with constant light? Would they want screens to bring shade? Would it be light from every direction so no shadows would be present to mar a scene or make it interesting? Would it be blinding if oriented in one direction and diffuse if looking in another? Would light still behave as though it were wave or particle and in so doing begin again the thesis and antithesis that would lead to a synthesis of a new heaven and a new earth and a new G*O*D?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/may2004.html
The Cold War of recent days brought about a Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line of radar installations. This would make it possible for us to "duck and cover" for the longest amount of time should a nuclear warhead be headed our way. This DEW Line strung across the cold belt of North America from the Aleutians to Greenland.
Imagine being Spirit carried to the DEW Line to get an extra early glimpse of what was coming. We set things up with our Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking so what we would see would be exactly that destruction on its way. Often times folks read Revelation in exactly that way, as a spiritual DEW Line anticipating destruction.
Here, though, what we catch a glimpse of is not destruction, but an illuminated city with open gates built on honor and glory given (to G*D and Neighbor). Here we don't feel the polluted rain falling for years that Malvena Reynolds wrote about (listen to Joan Baez singing [MISSING URL] without the distraction of the background video) but living water and healing leaves.
What is your Distant Early Vision about - destruction or healing? What about what's on your forehead - numbers or grace. Odds are you'll see what you want to see - foreseeing and foreheads are sort of like that.
- - -
imagine Ron Popeil as an angel
showing / marketing
all New Jerusalem's features
one "wait there's more"
piled on top of the last
until we reach forever
and everdoors open for you
a light left on to guide
ionic sanitizers at the gate
books of life larger than life
flowing crystal water
straddled by a tree of healing
and more
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
If you were to see what you understood to be a City of Peace descending slowly from above, would you note what was there, or what wasn't?
It takes a theologically sophisticated viewer to note there was no Temple and the whole place glowed from an internal source. Most of us would get caught with the shape, size, color of the walls, and ornateness of the gates, strange that they are standing open, but look at those jewels. The elided section covers all these shiny things that first catch our eye, but we are interested in what lies beyond glitz.
Later, shown the Life River, we might look back and wonder if there were a waterfall from the city as it lowered upon earth. If such a river is not overflowing, is it a circular river contained within the city itself? If it is not overflowing, it is really a river of Life?
Eventually we will probably come to reflect on this vision as a vision and begin to have it inform our own behavior drawn to be based on it. Worshiping for Worship's sake is gone (no temple there to receive manipulative praise). With open gates there may be some uncleanliness that enters (after all, aren't you expecting to be there?). The whole Book of Immigration Policies, aka., Book of Life, is trumped by an open door. And so we are informed about our living when restrictions take a second place to our work of opening doors. With an abundance of living water we can expect that a Tree of Life (left over from Garden Eden?) will keep on bearing fruit, everlastingly. With such fecundity, we can afford to be generous, month after month, new fruit will ripen.
So worship changes, relationships change, and economics change when we are living in the shadow of a New Jerusalem. Imagine the changes in your life if hanging over you were not Damocles' Sword, but a templeless, open-gated, fruitful city - a preferred future - that we can model here below as it is ahead and above.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/05/revelation-1010-22-225.html