The Happy Ending (part ii)

In Revelation 22:10 we’re reminded that time will soon run out for those who don’t trust in Jesus, and in verse 12 Jesus promises us that He is coming soon. And when He comes, we’ll be blessed if we have washed our robes. Read verse 14 with me. What does it mean to wash our robes? Well remember in chapter 7 when the great multitude stood before Jesus and worshiped Him, their robes had been washed in the blood of Jesus. This obviously isn’t literal, but figurative. The blood of Jesus cleanses our consciences, the blood of Jesus cleanses our past, the blood of Jesus makes us clean. Sin makes us feel dirty doesn’t it? Sometimes it feels like mud we just can’t wash off, and we can’t wash it off, but Jesus can.

Why is it Jesus blood? Because when Jesus shed His blood for us, He was dying for our sins and He was providing a way for us to be sanctified. You’re saved by faith, and you’re cleansed by faith. The faith that saves is the faith that changes. Thursday morning’s Bible reading in Zech 3 showed us that. Joshua stood before the Lord in filthy clothes, but the Lord gave Him clean ones. And the same is true with us.
How do you know if your faith in Jesus is real? Because you’re cleaning your heart and your mind and your actions in His blood. You love sin less and Jesus more each day.

Finally in this book, and in the Bible, we see that blessed are those who wait faithfully. Read the last four verses with me. We see the call for faithfulness in verses 18 and 19. God is no longer writing the Bible, the Bible is closed and finished. He has said exactly what He wants to say. It is our joy as Christians to spend our lives reading, understanding and applying this word. But the opposite is also true. We must make sure we obey all of it. James tells us that anyone who breaks part of the law breaks it all. You can’t comfort yourself that you’ve never stolen anything while you commit a murder! God takes his word very seriously, as the warnings in verses 18 and 19 show us.

But if we don’t meddle with the Word, if we don’t make it say something it doesn’t, or stop saying something it does, then Heaven, the beautiful city, the tree of life and Jesus Himself will be ours forever. Jesus tells us four times in these verses that He is coming soon. If we wait for Him, we will be rewarded. Maybe He’ll come in our lifetimes, maybe He won’t. Maybe there will be massive, worldwide revival in our lifetimes, or maybe we’ll be mocked, or worse for believing that Jesus will come. But whatever happens we’re told to wait patiently, to obey God, and promised it will be worth it. Phul 3:20 reminds us that we are citizens of Heaven, and our responsibility as citizens is to wait for a saviour who will come.

God is a God who invites. In verse 17 we can almost see Him holding out His hand. Look at that with me as we close. Come, says the Spirit, come says the bride, come says the Lord. Come and drink, comes and be filled, come and be satisfied. You worship a God who wants all of you, who wants to reward you with more than you can possibly imagine, who wants to give you a better future than you can dream of. And He asks us to come.

Have you come?

Stones in the Easter Garden

This week, in a field a thousand miles away, my family says goodbye to Beryl Sparks.

That won't mean much to most people, but indulge me for a moment. Beryl was the closest thing to family there is without actually being related. She was my parents' friend, she was the first person my mum left my sister with, she took me to my first Wycombe Wanderers game, she was one of the people that made my childhood special.

It's an odd thing death isn't it? Odd to think about, and odd not to think about. And over the last few months, i've thought about it a lot. My maternal Grandfather, Beryl, and in between, our faithful, lunatic hound, Limestones Burt have all died this summer. It still astonishes me that Grandfather, such a force of life, such an exuberant fount of joy should be gone. He doesn't walk to the Bowjey stores for his Times anymore, he doesn't do his stretches overlooking Newlyn Harbour any more.

But why does death so astonish? Why does death surprise? If, as enlightened minds tell us, death is just part of life, why should it shock us any more than, say, being hungry. Why does death leaves such a gash in the living if it's normal? Not just death, why does the passing of of time shock us so? Five o'clock already? Time to get up? Time to go back to school? If we are supposed to be people that live in a world marked by time, why does time catch us out so? Are fish caught out by being wet? If we're supposed to die, why does death puncture those it leaves?

Well, you know the answer, it's because we're not. Because we're made to be like the One who is outside time. The One who entered time to take us out of it. Jesus, He who was before time began, He for whom time exists, came. Time had no hold on Him except what He gave it, and we are made in His image. So of course time is an unwelcome impostor on our reading, our summers and our lives.

This is our hope, that Jesus came, submitted to time, and bested it, skipping out of the tomb on that first Easter Sunday, Psalm Two playing around His lips. It's our hope that time points to the day He'll come again. He'll come not this time to enter time, but to end it. Earth and sky flee from His presence, and time too. Because He left the tomb, we know one day He'll climb His war horse, and knock time off it's throne.

And death too. Oh yes, and death. Jesus rose, defeating death, and so will we. We'll hear His voice, rise from the stones planted in the Easter garden, and be with Him forever. We'll be outside time, as we were meant to be, we'll be healed of death's sting by our groom. We'll see His face, and He will wipe the tears from ours.

The Happy Ending (part i)

This chapter is the ‘happily ever after’ of the Bible. The end of Revelation is the ultimate eucutastrophe, because the end of the world is the ultimate eucutastrophe. As we’ve seen over the last few weeks, Jesus returns on a war horse, destroys His enemies, and we will reign and live with Him for ever and ever in a beautiful and secure city. As you might expect, the last chapter of the Bible sums up the story of Revelation, and in fact, sums up the story of the whole Bible. What Jesus has promised to His people has never changed, whether it’s the first or the 21st century. We see three of those promises in this chapter.

In the first six verses John finishes his vision of the new city, the holy city, made of gold and pearls and jewels. Verses 1 and 2 tells us a river, the river of life flows through the city. Isn’t that a great picture, that the city is so alive that the river of life itself runs through it. This city is more beautiful, more attractive the more we learn about it. On either side of the river is the tree of life, which heals the nations. We’re told that nothing accursed will enter the city and that we will reign, with Jesus’ name on our foreheads, forever and ever.
Everything that was lost to us in the fall, access to the tree, access to healing, freedom from the pollution of sin and being cut off from Jesus will be restored. Everything will be new, everything will be mended, and we will live and reign in this beautiful city with Jesus.

How could you not want that? To live in purity, to live with Jesus will be better than we can possibly imagine it. And it will always get better. Always Christmas, never winter.

We can trust these words, because of what we read in verse 6. These words are trustworthy and true. We have no need to doubt them, The Bible isn’t the latest press release from a self interested company, or the latest news report spun to make a point, the Bible is the true and sincere and trustworthy Word of God. And if we keep this word, we’ll be blessed. Happy, richly rewarded by Jesus in Heaven. That’s what verses 7-9 tell us, look at those with me.

What does it mean to ‘keep the words of this prophecy?’ well I think it is a call to be faithful to the Word of God. To obey it, to live it and to do it. This is a prophecy about Jesus, about how He wins for the sake of His people. Are we going to live like that’s true or not? If you were in one of the seven churches this letter was originally written to you’d know what you were supposed to do to keep these words. Stop tolerating sin. Stop being lukewarm. Keep persevering in your faith. And things haven’t changed that much for us. We need to read the Bible to draw closer to Jesus, so that our hearts are shaped more by the Word than by the world, we need to be sharing our faith, which is the most radical, counter cultural, revolutionary thing we can do. If you want to be radical, live for Jesus and speak for Jesus! Keep the words of this prophecy.