Isaiah 65:17-25 Revelations 21: 22-26
I often hear people complain about the Old Testament. They say that it is full of nothing but violence and ugliness. I just want to point out this beautiful passage from Isaiah is part of the Old Testament.
People, including me, also say that the book of Revelation is chock full of awful stuff. But then you have this exquisite passage from chapter 21.
It is true, in the Old Testament and in Revelation, and perhaps even in the gospels, we wade through a lot of hard stuff, awful stuff – and then we get to this place of breathtaking beauty. Kind of like life, at times. There is a lot of awful and painful stuff in the world, stuff that is hard to look at. Yet, if we remain present, we may get to hope.
These two passages we read today are preceded by accounts of violence and suffering that are hard to read – all the bad stuff you think of when you think of the Old Testament or the book of Revelation. I don’t enjoy reading them. They take us down as low as we can go – into sorrow and fear and pain, until you’re asking yourself why we call this the “good book.” But then we come to this: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” and we come to this: “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” Picture it. The beauty may bring tears to our eyes.
The promise of a new heaven and earth, the shining joy of God’s glorious light, these are wondrous – but they do not erase the suffering. They do not discount the suffering. But they offer hope. And hope is what we need when we are living in this world.
As people who live in relative comfort, we can easily forget that. We may forget that we need a new heaven and a new earth, because we have arranged this world to our liking. We may forget that we need the light of God in our midst, because we feel like we have plenty of light already. But people who live in extreme poverty are unlikely to forget how much they need a new heaven and earth. People who are oppressed are unlikely to forget how much they need the light of God.
When we travel to different places we have the chance to encounter these people. There are 700 million people in the world living in extreme poverty. We don’t actually have to travel far to see this. We only need to keep our eyes open.
It was very hard for me to keep my eyes open when Kim and I traveled to Mexico City. As we walked the city streets, we encountered women begging and young children selling packs of gum to the tourists. All day long they were out there. At night I discovered these families lived on the streets. They had no place else to go. Coming face to face with this staggering injustice shattered me. I could barely stand it. And the truth is I have had similar encounters traveling in American cities – strolling amidst the grandeur I see clear signs that not all is okay in our nation. People are hungry, people are homeless, people are suffering.
It can be very hard to keep our eyes open when we are facing suffering and injustices. And when we travel, especially if we go to places where there is extreme inequality, we may see more than usual of the hard stuff in the world. Staying present to it is not easy.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote a letter to his nephew saying, “Dear Peter, traveling makes men wiser, but less happy.” And so, he advised, stay home – advice he himself did not follow. Travel can, indeed, have that effect. But many things that are worthwhile do.
We have the opportunity to grow from these jarring experiences if we engage in some reflection. If we stay in the discomfort just long enough to reflect on what we see and hear and feel. To wonder where God is in all of this.
As a campus minister I tried to provide opportunities for students to get out of their comfort zones, to encounter people who were different, whose struggles were different from theirs. As a result I received many requests for help.
I once got an unusual request. A man called on behalf of an elderly woman who had the opportunity to move out of her apartment into a care facility. But she had a big problem. She hoarded stuff. Every inch of her apartment was crammed full of junk. And she had become helpless in the face of her problem.
I was scheduled to be out of town on the day they needed help. I asked my students if they wanted to do it without me and they said yes. The week after, when I returned, I asked them about it. They told me they completed the job and left the apartment and stood together on the sidewalk outside, not sure what to do next. They asked themselves, “What would Pastor Maggie do?” and so they went somewhere they could have coffee and a donut and reflect on the experience.
They described to me their initial shock and even repulsion at what they saw. Then they told me they saw embarrassment in the woman’s face. They saw her shame. As they talked, I could see then the tenderness of their feelings toward this woman, and their desire to bless her with the chance to make a fresh start.
It was important for them to reflect on their experience. We need to reflect on who are the people we serve, the people whose lives are so different from ours. We need to reflect on the truth that, as different as they may seem, these people are like us, too. These people have the same hopes we do. They are loved by Jesus, as we are.
The messages of hope we read in Isaiah and Revelation are badly needed by so many people in this world. There are so many people who know firsthand about the ugliness the world can offer, that we like to skip over if we can. But turning away from it will only keep us estranged from these brothers and sisters. Perhaps we need to really hear the powerful hope in these words, ourselves, in order for us to really see the people who are suffering. And then truly know that every one of them and every one of us are beloved children of God.
When we experience the world just as the least of these do, then we will hope for God’s new heavens and new earth just as much as they do. May we seek and find our shared humanity with the others and know that God is in that space.
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Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
