Chris Blumhofer—Year C Easter 6

Anthony: Let’s transition to our final text of the month. It is Revelation 21:10, and 22:1–five. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the sixth Sunday in Easter, which is May 25. Chris, we’d be grateful if you’d read it for us, please.

Chris: I’d love to.

And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. … Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Anthony: Hallelujah. I think sometimes we make the mistake in biblical interpretation, asking the texts, what does this tell me about me or what I’m supposed to do? And I think the first course of action is to find, what does the text reveal about who God is? So, can you help us with that? What do these scriptures reveal about who God is and what we can anticipate?

Chris: Well, it’s a great instinct and a great question, Anthony. In a narcissistic age, we might actually think it is all about us. But it’s actually not. This passage — like so much of Revelation, but again, the details are important — this passage teaches, insists on the fact, that God intends this restoration for us, for his creation. It is the will of God, and it is joined to the character of God for this to be the future of the world.

And this is meant to be for us, as the hymn says, “a strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” This is God’s commitment. It’s not based on us. Or, if one of those seven churches, beginning of Revelation, decides to throw in the towel and quit, this is still going to happen. God is more faithful than we are.

As we look at the details of the passage and what or how God’s commitment to restoration plays out, we see a lot of the Old Testament caught up in this passage. But especially Genesis.

I would encourage anyone who’s studying this passage, go back and read, especially Genesis two and three. Let your imagination kind of work in the resonance between these two passages. In Revelation, we get almost a kind of urban garden. There’s a river running right through it, just like the Garden of Eden. There’s a tree of life, which we haven’t seen in a few pages, but it’s back again.

Let your mind try to picture this so you have a main street in the city with a river flowing right through it. And the tree actually seems to be straddling the river, so its roots go onto both sides of the city. There’s not like a good side of the tracks, bad side of the tracks here. Nothing accursed will be found in that city anymore.

And think about the curse from Genesis three, when sin entered the world. And this curse resonated through all of creation and all of our relationships. And in place of that curse is the throne of God and the Lamb in the midst of it — opportunity, the ability, to be face to face with God, which is something that has been unavailable to people since the garden. We have brief glimpses of face-to-face encounters or almost face-to-face encounters, in the life of Moses especially, but for the most part, that doesn’t happen in the Bible.

But here, all of God’s people see his face. They see him and his name is written on their foreheads. Such a fascinating image of God looking at us and seeing us but also seeing himself in us. And there’s no more night, no need for light of lamp or sun. Again, these are all, these are additional Old Testament images. They speak to the assurance, the comfort, and the peace of this communion that God is committing to establishing. And it’s really a recreation of the communion of Eden, the communion that the tabernacle and the temple sustain, the communion that Jesus brought. And here it finalizes.

Anthony: I can’t help but think of, since we just recently transitioned through a transfiguration Sunday. You’re mentioning seeing God face to face. And of course, his three friends on the Mount of Transfiguration saw a brief glimpse, the thin veil space between heaven and earth, with Jesus transfigured. And Peter, out of his mind, just, “Hey, let’s build three tabernacles here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

But we see here that Jesus, the Father, the Spirit — they are our home. This is our home. And we find our home in him and are able to be transfigured in such a way that we can look upon him and not die, as was often the case that we see in the Old Testament. How we praise him.

There are a lot of details in this pericope. Is there anything else that you’d like to bring to the forefront for people that are studying scripture or teaching this text to others?

Chris: I would say I just love all the details of this passage, Anthony. And one thing I would add on that transfiguration note you made is, in the transfiguration scenes, we see Jesus dressed in white — not a surprise. But in Revelation, we see him and all his people dressed in white.

Anthony: Yes.

Chris: Some have seen that as not coincidental, but this kind of unity that God establishes there. So, that’s what, as we’re living in the presence of God here at the end of Revelation, I think that’s another link to Transfiguration Sunday and where we are now.

One detail in this text, just — it’s puzzling to me, it’s very full of promise for me — is this line in verse two, talking about the tree of life producing its fruit. And it says, “and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” That’s a beautiful image. Also, a puzzling image. It reminds me of Adam and Eve covering themselves with leaves and their shame being replaced by these leaves that are meant for healing here. I’m kind of wondering, and I think something I would hope to continue learning about this passage is, why is there a tree for healing in the new Jerusalem? Why is there any mention of healing? Why would you need any healing at all at this point in the story except for the fact that there is this sort of never-ending deepening of our reconciliation and union with God as we live in his presence, this kind of deepening of our life with him forever. That seems to be the only way to explain why you would need anything for healing, except that as creatures we are constantly being turned more and more toward the love and understanding and worship of God and the Lamb in heaven.

So, I’ll leave you that with that wondering, with that guess about what may be happening here in the middle of this scene.

Anthony: And one of the things I’ve appreciated that you’ve done throughout the course of this episode, Chris, is to take advantage of the hyperlinks back to the Old Testament so that we see the grand narrative of scripture, that there is a story being told and there’s a movement in that story towards something. And in Revelation, we get to see the culmination in many ways of the telling of that story. And that’s something I would encourage preachers and teachers to do, is to take advantage of those hyperlinks to bring the story forward in the person of Jesus Christ. I think there’s real beauty in that, don’t you, to bring that together?

Chris: Certainly. Yes.

Anthony: Yeah. Chris, thank you so much for being with us. It was a joy to have you and to hear the testimony of the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world who is bringing all creation together in him. Thank you so much for being with us.

And listeners, we so appreciate you. We couldn’t do this without you, and I wanted to leave you with this thought from Michael Reeves from his book, Enjoying Christ Constantly and he wrote, “being a Christian means Christ wears your crown, the crown of thorns. You wear, his crown, the crown of glory. He puts on the filthy rags of your sin and shame. And you put on his royal robes of life, blessing and honor. The benefit of being in union with Christ is Christ. He gives us all that he is. He gives us himself.” Amen and amen.

I want to thank the team that is behind the podcast. I couldn’t do it without them. I want to thank Reuel Enerio, Elizabeth Mullins, and Michelle Hartman. It’s so great to have a collegial and collaborative team effort to bring this to you. And as is our tradition, we’d like to end with a word of prayer. So, Chris, would you pray for us, please?

Chris: I would love to. Let’s pray. We give you thanks, Lord God, that you are more committed to us than we are to you. Yes, we give you thanks that behind and beyond our line of sight, you are working to redeem this world, that you are closer than we can imagine, and you are more active than we can imagine. We pray that you would renew us by the transforming of our minds through the book of Revelation. Renew us in hope and in confidence, and in doing so, make us faithful to you. We look forward to life in your presence. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.