Revelation and indeed the whole bible finishes at Chapter 21 and 22 with a vision of a new heaven and new earth. God says in a loud voice from the throne that tears, sorrow, death, pain and crying will be “gone forever”. Then we see this glorious picture of what the holy city, the new Jerusalem will look like. I remember when our oldest son Jake was about to be born, people kept telling Nicole and me that “when kids come, everything changes”. Aside from a bit of lack of sleep, I couldn’t see then how EVERYTHING would change. Surely not! Besides no-one could explain to me exactly how everything would change. Then when Jake was born… everything changed. New life and a new family, the old life BC (before children) had passed away. It was wonderful and new and it was very different. In some ways I see these chapters about the life to come a bit like trying to explain to my BC self, just how different everything will be. I could try but I wouldn’t really understand until I got there. As with much of the other chapters of Revelation there are layers and layers of imagery and symbolism and wonderful connections to the rest of scripture. It’s like all the loose threads of ideas in the bible from the previous 65 books finally come together to make a truly glorious picture. You finally realise that the main story of the bible that began in Genesis and has been played out through every book since is unchanged, there is remarkable consistency, despite the constant change in author. “I will be their God, and they will be my people”. It’s about God dwelling with us, loving us, wanting to be close. It has always been about relationship not religion. In the end there is a beautiful picture of this finally happening, God with us.As we get to the end of Revelation, I wonder what new things have you learnt about God, about Jesus (remember this is the revelation of Jesus the Messiah) about the world and yourself? What has God been saying to you? Why not spend some time in reflection thinking about these questions.I look forward to seeing you this Sunday, we will have Holy Communion also.Your brother in Christ,Benji
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