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Revelation
21:1-6a
Then
I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for
the first heaven
and the first earth had passed away,
and
the sea was no more.
2And
I saw the holy city,
the
new Jerusalem,
coming
down out of heaven from God,
prepared
as a bride
adorned for her husband.
3And
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See,
the home of God is among mortals.
God
will dwell with them as their God;
they
will be God’s peoples,
and
God’s own self will be with them;
4God will wipe every tear
from
their eyes.
Death
will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain
will be no
more,
for
the first things
have passed away.”
5And
the one who was seated on the throne said,
“See,
I am making all things new.”
Also
that one said,
“Write
this,
for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6Then
the one said to me,
“It
is done!
I
am the Alpha and the Omega,
the
beginning and the end.”
The
holy gospel according to John (1:1-14).
In
the beginning was the Word,
and
the Word was with God,
and
the Word was God.
2The
Word was in the beginning with God.
3All
things came into being
through the Word,
without
whom
not one thing came into being.
What
has come into being
4in the Word was life,
and
the life was the light
of all people.
5The
light shines in the darkness,
and
the darkness did not overcome it.
6There
was a man sent from God,
whose
name was John.
7He
came as a witness
to testify to the light,
so
that all might believe through him.
8John
himself was not the light,
but
he came to testify to the light.
9The
true light,
which enlightens everyone,
was
coming into the world.
10The
light was in the world,
and
the world came into being
through the
light;
yet
the world did not know the light.
11The
light came to what was their own,
and
their own people did not accept them.
12But
to all who received the light,
who
believed in the name,
the light gave power
to become children of
God,
13who
were born,
not
of blood
or
of the will of the flesh
or
of the will of a human,
but
of God.
14And
the Word became flesh
and lived among us,
and
we have seen the glory of the Word,
the
glory as of a father’s only child,
full
of grace and truth.
The
gospel of the Lord.
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Today
is a day of endings and beginnings.
As we end our calendar year, not only do we prepare to begin a new one,
but we are already right in the middle of Christmas and the birth of God with
us. Add into that Advent being the
beginning of our new church year, and we have a whole mess of beginnings and
middles, even at this ending.
Our
readings for today reflect this as well.
A story of beginning creation in Genesis, new hope for a Messiah to come
in Micah, a hymn of beginning creation and the Word made flesh in John,
and newness in Revelation. The
poetry of these readings pulls us into the mystery that comes with beginning
and ending.
The
vision laid out in Revelation feels magical, even, with the new heaven and new
earth. For me, especially having
grown up in the mountains of Colorado, it’s like the day after a snowfall—this
morning, for example. Everything
feels new and bright as the sunlight twinkles like glitter off the new
flakes of snow blanketing everything.
It’s not a complete restart, but it feels new enough to be one.
Maybe
that’s the real truth of all of these readings—that beginnings and endings are
never only one or the other, but instead encompass so much more. While we frequently think about the
world in binaries—beginning and end, dark and light, dog and cat—that has not
always been the worldview.
My
favorite Hebrew poetry technique, called a merism, actually shows up all over
the place in our readings, especially the reading from Revelation. A merism names two things typically
understood as being at opposite ends of a spectrum or idea, like heaven and
earth or male and female, dark and light, as a kind of shorthand to include
everything in between.
So
when we hear or read about God creating the heavens and the earth, we can think
about the creation of the whole cosmos.
And when the One on the throne in Revelation says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and
the end,” we know it means not only the alpha and the omega, but also the
beta, gamma, delta, epsilon—the beginning, middle,
end, and every new beginning.
The
God who comes to us as the Word made flesh isn’t just with us at the beginnings
of birth and baptism and the endings of funerals, but instead the Word made
flesh is with us in every moment of our fleshy lives.
The
incarnation, which we celebrate particularly at Christmas, is God choosing
humanity with so much enthusiasm that God takes it all on—the joy and the
sorrow. God takes on our
graduations, new jobs, relationships, sobriety and recovery, as well as the
layoffs, failed tests, broken relationships, and royal mess-ups.
God
is with us in all of that and each week as we celebrate communion, we receive a
tangible reminder of that love and grace that chooses to be with us for it
all. In the bread and wine, which
are the body and blood of Christ, Jesus, the Word made flesh, joins in our
flesh and journeys with us throughout the week—at every Table, bedside, and
bus stop.
Jesus sticks with us
no matter what, so that at the end of all things, we are not surprised to find
God with us for what may not be an ending, but just the middle or even another
beginning.
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