To the Next World

A novel based on the life of the Italian saint, lover of the poor and friend of creation, St. Francis, includes this story:

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The closing vision of the book of Revelation, our text for this Sunday, is also the final image that our entire canon leaves us with, in the meandering, holy and human library that is the Bible – with its Hebrew scriptures and Greek New Testament. This big arc began with God’s spirit hovering over creation and speaking light into the universe, and with a garden where humans were to be its caretakers and stewards… and today we just heard a vision of this big story’s final chapter – an end that has no end – where we’re invited to glimpse God’s holy city, a new Jerusalem, an eternally redeemed and saved world.

Our text’s vision was first heard in the 1st century by reader’s who knew well what city, and which empire concentrated all things valuable and glorious. To 1st century ears in the Mediterranean – all things wise and wonderful emanated from and flowed to Rome. With its mighty army, with its constellation of vassal states, with its vast trade network bringing wine and grain and precious metals and works of artisans, it enriched itself through taxation and slavery, through brutality and war, and blessed its excesses with the approval of its own gods.

The entire book of Revelation is a coded graphic novel of imperial resistance, urging followers of Jesus, scattered in small communities to give their allegiance to the strange Lamb of God, who has conquered this beastly empire through the nonviolent power of Resurrection, triumphing over death and terror. And so in Revelation’s closing vision, that we heard a part of read today – when the new Jerusalem, the city of God descends to earth, it promises a redemption of the earth’s political reality.

First of all, this city is described in massive, geography defying-terms. It’s a perfect square –  roughly 1500 miles on each side – the distance from New York City to Houston, Texas as the crow flies.² To glimpse this huge square city descending, a city so big that it would cover not just the ancient city of Rome but cover the whole Roman empire, is to imagine the unimaginable, a common civic life in the light of God’s justice that has triumphed over imperial control. 

It is a wild vision of city planning – where God is at the center, rather than mechanisms of domination.

This city has a wall around it adorned with every sort of colorful jewel – jasper and sapphire and emerald and topaz and amethyst – but the defining feature of city’s wall is that it has twelve huge gates – each  made of a single pearl – and these gates always remain open. They remain open because it is never nighttime in the city, there is no need to lock doors or erect razor wire in fear or exclusion. This city has not been built to accumulate personal wealth or redline certain neighborhoods…but instead has streets built of pure gold for all to walk on in peace.

The city of God is a kaleidoscopic reality where the love of God shines and is reflected by all who dwell within it. It has boundaries to restrain any chaos contrary to God, but its design remains eternally open to all hungry and thirsty for the love of God. Speaking of structures in this new Jerusalem – there is no temple at its center – because Godself – and Jesus the Lamb are the temple themselves. God’s glory and light and love personally illumine all things.

Even for all of the sharp anti-imperial rhetoric of Revelation – here at its ultimate vision – we’re told that even the Nations will walk by the Lamb of God’s light and the kings of the earth will bring their glory to the city of God. In the earlier chapters of Revelation – kings and nations were condemned as forces of greed and persecution – but in the end even they are now welcomed in, redeemed by the light of God.³

This city of God is not merely a political ideal – but its an earthy ecological reality as well. It’s not a vision of a distant heaven we might hope to fly away to – but it’s a vision of God’s dream descending down to earth.

And at the center of the city flows a river, full of bright clear life-giving water, flowing from the throne of God. The tree of life lines this river – and is abundant in all seasons – giving fruit for nourishment and leaves for the healing of the nations. We’re invited into a vibrant urban garden, where God dwells in closeness with God’s people, humanity has all it needs to thrive.

If that vision sounds familiar that’s because it’s a remix of the old old story of the garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, where God made humanity, placing them in a garden filled with all they needed to thrive.

But as I like to retell that story – our big heads got the better of us. Our human quest for knowledge and wisdom and curiosity – has come with difficult to bear consequences. Genesis describes the first human couple – Adam and Eve – leaving the garden with the consequences of painful childbirth and hard agricultural labor. 

The story of human evolution describes how the brains of our pre-human ancestors grew larger and larger as we acquired the ability to walk on two legs and utilize language and tools. These brains for all their gifts have shadow sides. We humans – made in the image of God and called good by God – for all of our intelligence and developments and fancy words – still continue on the long journey to reject violence and cultivate love in harmony with creation and one another. 

And for all of us to live in the urban garden of the city of God, for us to return to a new Eden – will require not just a transformation of our political structures or a reconstruction of the ecological web that sustains life – but also a transformation of each of us. Humanity – each one of us and our families and social networks – are a key part of God’s redemption project.

In that renewed city of God – humanity in our linguistic and cultural and geographic diversity worships God, seeing God face-to-face. One of our deepest needs and longings is to be seen and known and loved. And in this ultimate vision of shalom and wholeness and worship – the face of God in Jesus Christ shines on God’s beloved people.

I am not a biblical literalist. I read the garden of Eden and the vision of the city of God in Revelation as symbolic, pointing us to the unimaginable majesty and love of God who creates and redeems all things. Our text is not a set of building plans to submit to the zoning office…it’s a vision of encouragement to keep our eyes fixed on what God in Christ has done and is doing and will do in our world and our lives.

So if you feel stuck in the week in week out limitations of work and care-giving, or of illness or worry, may your you remember the God of Revelation who welcomes the weary and wipes away every last tear. If you carry the stress of hard to bear headlines, where repression and death, threats and violence seem to win the day, remember that the green canopy of the leaves of the tree life, placed there to oxygenate the world and heal the nations.

If you live in a “I wish” world or the land of “somedays” or place the shameful squeeze of “shoulds” upon your life, then trust in the God of this unveiling vision, who somehow brings about flourishing, brings about streams of living water, bringing about the redemption of all things, even though it seemed unimaginable. This God of wild visions meets you when you are feeling trapped or stuck in your own limited vision. This God of love longs to look at you face-to-face. This God promises to light your way.

So may the strange and wild vision of Revelation keep us focused on the ultimate power of God’s redeeming love. And like St. Francis – may we keep singing as we walk in faithfulness the way of Jesus.

Where are you coming from? From the next world. And where are you going? To the next world. And why are you singing? To keep from losing my way.

So remember to keep singing and walking and looking for the next world here in this world, this beautiful broken, redeemed, beloved world of God where wide open gates and streams of clean water and fruit and leaves of healing are growing even now.

1. Niko Kazantzakis, St. Francis, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962), 89, quoted in John R. Yeatts, Revelation, Believers Church Bible Commentary, (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2003), 465. ↩︎
2. John R. Yeatts, Revelation, Believers Church Bible Commentary, (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2003), 407-408. ↩︎
3. J. Nelson Kraybill, Introduction and Biblical Contest Notes, Anabaptist Community Bible, (Harrisonburg, VA: MennoMedia, 2025), 1532-33. ↩︎