HORIZONS BIBLE STUDY 2015-2016
COME TO THE WATERS
Lesson 9: Revelation 21 & 22
At the beginning of the Bible there is a garden, a river and a tree (Genesis 2:4-14) and at the end is a city, a river and a tree (Revelation 22). In both Genesis 2 and Revelation 21-22, God dwells among and with the people. In between the garden and the city, there are lots of stories of the mess humanity makes in our turning away from God and God’s continuing unearned grace woven in and through the chaos we create.
When we view the news or read the daily headlines, much of what we see is the destructiveness of humanity: greed, sickening violence, life-sucking poverty, gridlock government, human bickering and abuse. Stories of children and adults being gunned down are common. Public education often fails the most at-risk children. Waves of immigrants flee the fighting in the Middle East. Slavery is the highest it has ever been. Approximately 150-200 species grow extinct each day — 1,000 times higher than in the normal ecological processes.
Yet Christians are a people of hope. Though Presbyterians see the deadly infection of sin in all individuals and institutions, we trust that God is at work to bring new life and transformation. God is our hope.
God’s continuing story is that of God reaching out to humanity with a love that will not let us go. God is like a father running to welcome the lost son home. God is like a mother who will not abandon her child.
We are the people of hope, you and I, though day-to-day we may not feel it. That is why it is extremely important to live with the imagery of what God has in mind. God’s purpose for the world is healing and God’s love triumphs in the end.
Let’s look at the closing chapters of the biblical story in Revelation, chapters 21 and 22. At the end of time, there is a new heaven and a new earth. God will dwell with us and we will be God’s community. God will “wipe every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (Revelation 21:4).
Carson Brisson is associate professor of Bible and biblical languages at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. He tells the story of teaching a college class on the Bible in his early career. In the back of the class sat one young woman who always looked disinterested and bored. Brisson knew that she was the daughter of a man who had died in the Vietnam War and she, understandably, had known a lot of misery. When the class reached Revelation 21, where God wipes away tears, this young woman’s hand went up for the first time. Her question was simple, “Every tear?” Yes, every tear of the past and the present will be wiped from our eyes.
In this city, there will be 12 gates, never shut, and into the city will come people of every nation. The city will be illuminated by God’s glory. The deformities of racism and the huge disparity between the rich and the poor will be gone because the nations will walk by the light and do the will of God (Revelation 21:21-27).
Flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb will be a river flowing through the middle of the city and there will be the tree of life. Everyone will have clean water to drink and water for crops, so famine will be gone. The leaves of the tree of life will be medicine for the healing of the nations. Centuries of hatred will come to an end.
We live with the end in mind. We live with hope because Jesus as Lord has the last word. In the words of “A Declaration of Faith” (a confession affirmed by the 1977 General Assembly, though not in our current Book of Confessions):
In our time, we see only broken scattered signs
that the renewal of all things is underway …
but we see Jesus as Lord.
… hope plunges us into the struggle
for victories over evil that are possible now
in the world, the church, and our individual lives.
Hope gives us courage and energy
to contend against all opposition, however invincible it may seem,
for the new world and the new humanity that are surely coming.
We live with the end in mind. The love and forgiveness of Jesus has the power to transform others and us. That is good news that the world needs to hear.
ROSALIND BANBURY is associate pastor for adult ministries at First Church in Richmond, Virginia.
