+Points to ponder

1. What gets in your way of seeing who you really are – [a member of] – the Bride of Christ.
2. The sermon suggests that what lies at the heart of John’s vision is the foolish intimacy of God. What do you make of that? How does this idea shape your idea of the Church and you being a part of the Church?
3. Prayer Challenge for Advent (1): Pray that the one who says, “Behold, I am making all things new,” would renew our passion for Him and for His Bride, the Church.

+Sermon Transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto each of you from God our Father and our Lord and King, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Let us pray: Stir up your power, Lord, and come, that, with you as our protector, we may be rescued from our sins; and with you as our deliverer, we may be set free; for you live and reign with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

What we see in the sky has a way of shaping how we live on earth. Go to almost any major American city and you can find yourself in a neighborhood where you drive over streets pitted with potholes and littered with garbage. You pass by burned out buildings and boarded up tenements, vacant lots and liquor stores and storefront groceries and, every now and then, a daycare center - with bars on the windows. People struggle in such an environment. Children struggle, just to imagine the dreams that their parents have for them. And all the while, people drive through the neighborhood without seeing the suffering. Why? Because there, in the sky, hovering high above you, are billboards, advertising the pleasures of life. Floating in the air, larger than life, you see the latest Lexus. Far off in the distance, you see Eternity - by Calvin Klein. A man with chiseled abs walks the beach with a beautiful woman, inviting you to believe that if you smell like this, you can look like this – and have this – for eternity. The neighborhood fades into the background as your needs and desires loom larger than life. Advertising distracts you, you see, not from driving, but from living. You physically drive through the needs of others, but mentally you are filled with dreams of your own. Hair care products and cellular phones, fast food and fine jewelry become your field of vision.

Over time, we become accustomed to driving through cities without seeing people. Eating in restaurants, standing in line at the grocery, working in office buildings, even coming to church, and not seeing people. Our needs and desires are written large in the sky. They overshadow the people who live closer to the ground. What you see in the sky shapes the way you live on earth. As we lift our eyes to the Lord, He becomes a servant in our self-help program, a higher power to fix our lives, a heavenly leader who helps us accomplish our dreams. The private fulfilling of personal dreams becomes our religion and overshadows the public work of creation’s God through His church in the world.

Which is why it is such a blessing for us this morning to pause for a moment and have John paint a picture in our mental sky. Today, as we enter the season of Advent, God comes to renew us as His church. And, surprisingly, He doesn’t need the latest book on church planting. He doesn’t need some long-forgotten quote from Martin Chemnitz. He doesn’t even need a profound insight from the emerging church. No. All He does is take one small patch of empty sky within your imagination. And he tears it open and fills it with a vision that will leave your head reeling and change your life on earth – or so it was with John.

This is the end of John’s visions in the book of Revelation. He has seen God’s throne in heaven, the angels, the saints, and the victorious lamb. He has seen the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven censors and all that these have poured out upon the earth. He has seen demonic hosts gathered in the depths of hell and angelic warriors gathered in heaven. He has seen Armageddon, the second coming of Christ, the final resurrection, and the judgment of the human race. The book of life has been opened and now, for a moment, God gives John one last vision. The city of God, descending from heaven, dressed as a bride adorned for her bridegroom. At this point, John’s visions cease, and we find him with his face buried in the earth, bowing in worship. And when he finally does speak, all he can say is “Come. Come Lord Jesus. Come.” That’s how this vision affects its first witness, John. That’s the cry of the church in Advent through the ages. “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come.” This vision certainly turns our eyes toward the future and makes us cry out for the Christ to come – but does it – could it do anything more?

A pastor once saw a nursing home come to life. It was Saturday afternoon, and he was visiting a parishioner at the nursing home. This wasn’t a place of life. Linoleum floors, white hospital walls, and a woman in a wheelchair in the common area, constantly crying out “whoop, whoop, whoop,” the whole time you visited. It made him never want to be there, dying in a place like this. And that made him only want to be there all the more for his parishioner, whose life was ending in this home. She was lying on her bed, and he was standing alongside her, when suddenly, they heard a commotion out in the hall. There was laughter and clapping and people shouting things. He wasn’t sure what was going on. Lola asked him what was happening and, as he turned to go over to the door, he saw them. A bride and groom coming down the hall. The bride was beautiful. Her dark black skin against a brilliant white dress was breathtaking. By the time he made it to the hallway, she was entering into a room. She was visiting her grandmother. Her grandmother couldn’t make it to the wedding and so on the way from the church to the reception she brought the wedding to her. And that one short visit brought this nursing home to life. As the pastor looked up and down the hall, he saw people sticking their heads out the doors and smiling and shouting, yes shouting – shouting about what they saw back into the room. Even that woman’s incessant whooping on this day sounded absolutely glorious.

When he returned to his parishioner, and described what he had seen, it changed their conversation. This vision of a bride opened the books of memory. Lola began to talk with him about her own wedding. No white dress. No pastor. No church. Nothing fancy. She was a war bride with a simple civil service before a justice of the peace. But it was still a wedding and she, for a moment in this place of dying, remembered who she was. A bride.

In some ways, that’s how I see this fragment of John’s vision serving the church today. John is a voice from the edge. An Advent encounter that opens the book of memory. Of course, he prompts us to long for the future, but he also asks us to remember our past. To remember who we are: not individuals serving our needs through the church; but the bride of Christ, God’s creation, not yet seen in all our glory in this world. And that’s the difficulty, isn’t it? The “not yet seen” part. When you can’t see the glory of being the Bride of Christ, you forget who you are.

For John, it could be his exile upon the island of Patmos. That exilic suffering could cause him to forget about the Bride of Christ. Listening to the letters to the churches at the beginning of Revelation, we get a glimpse of what it might have been like for other churches. Some had abandoned their first love. Others were listening to false teaching. Some had fallen into sexual immorality. Others into idleness. They were lukewarm and God was about to spit them out of his mouth – Sound familiar? These conversations echo down the corridors of history and are still being talked about today, among us, in the little rooms where we have taken the church because we are afraid that she is dying. And we debate about how we can save the church. As if we could save her. In fear and frustration, we begin to forget who we are – the Bride of Christ, God’s own creation. We raise our voices. Our face gets red as we wrangle over what will save the church. Declining membership fuels despair as anything and everything is suggested and debated about as a way of getting people in the doors and keeping the church alive. As the bride of Christ, we become pensive, pedantic, and positively ugly.

It brings to mind an episode of Bridezillas. You know the show. It chronicles the way brides become monsters before their wedding. Among the shows is one about a bride named Courtney. Courtney and her soon-to-be husband Dan. Courtney wanted to have a murder-mystery themed wedding. They were going to have a murder at her wedding and then the guests would play a game of Clue. She sat there on the floor with a board and place cards in front of her, planning her wedding, when her future husband Dan foolishly critiqued her changing the rules of the game. She had a complete meltdown. She threw the place cards and the board into the air. Her face became red. Her voice was raised. And she started shouting and began destroying her wedding. She launched into a full assault on Dan and his family. She screamed about how she hated him and his stupid family. The bride became Bridezilla, argumentative, acrimonious, and ugly.

Watching these shows, you realize that all these brides have one thing in common. They all have forgotten one fundamental thing. You can’t make yourself a bride. They try to orchestrate their weddings, and they forget that no amount of clothing or cake or flowers or fancy invitations is going to make you a bride. You can’t make yourself a bride. You are a bride because someone loves you. Some fool promises to be with you for the rest of his life. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, he will forsake all others and love you, even laying down his life for you.

Unfortunately, no one ever says that on Bridezillas, which is why we need to turn off the TV and open the Scriptures. That’s what lies at the heart of John’s vision. The foolish intimacy of God. John’s vision is not just about a bride but about a bride and a bridegroom and the intimacy of God. John’s vision starts with a large landscape, a new heaven, and a new earth. Then he takes us in closer to see the new Jerusalem, the holy city, descending as a bride from heaven. Then we get closer still, before the very throne of God, and we hear God the Father speak for the second time in Revelation. And he says, “Behold the dwelling of God is with His people.” God is dwelling with His people. God has chosen to spend eternity with you. In Christ, God’s love is eternally wrapped up with the lives of his people – for better for worse. Though we try to turn Him into a servant in our self-help programs. Though we become frustrated and unhappy in our mission to save the church. Though the bride of Christ becomes Bridezilla, fighting against Him and His family, and though she does everything she can to destroy her own wedding, even to the point of killing her bridegroom, still, He loves. He comes, He dies, and in that murder is the mystery of our marriage. You are a bride – drop-dead gorgeous – because Christ died for you.

Nothing you do could ever make you into a bride. Everything He’s ever done has been done in love for you. His life, His death, His resurrection – for you. You stand here in the righteousness of Christ, beautiful in His baptism, glorious in His grace, and He promises to come and reveal this to the world. Until that time, he has given you this little vision in your mental sky. It’s there so that you will always remember who you are. The bride of Christ, God’s own creation. And what we see in the sky shapes how we live on the earth.

Now, you may not see this bride come down from heaven in her glory in your lifetime. But this Advent encounter asks us to open our eyes. To see that she is here. Right next to you. You can see her out in the places you serve in the world. I know a pastor who once saw a vision of this bride. She didn’t pass by the door of a room. She was actually in it. He had gone to the hospital to visit a parishioner and when he rounded the corner, he was surprised by what he saw. His parishioner’s daughter was there at the foot of the bed of her unresponsive mother. She had taken the sheets and thrown them back and was putting lotion on her mother’s body, starting at the feet. This was some expensive lotion. More than the daughter could afford. As he walked into the room, the room smelled beautiful. The daughter gave him a mischievous smile and made him promise not to tell her children. Her kids had given her this lotion for Mother’s Day. “Because you never do anything for yourself,” they said. And here she was, putting that very lotion on her mother’s feet. Her mother was unresponsive. She wouldn’t know the difference. But the pastor did. That day, he saw a vision of the Lord’s bride. Breathtaking in her beauty. She wasn’t immersed in marketing and using God for herself. She wasn’t immersed in wrangling over how she could save the church. No, she was immersed in suffering, and yet she was alive in love. Mother and daughter. Giving mercy. Receiving mercy. Aware that all around her is death and dying, she pauses for a moment to live in an act of selfless love. There in that room was the bride of Christ, dying and living, in an eternal moment of selfless love.

Behold, our Lord says, in this voice from the edge of a new creation. Open your eyes. Wherever you are called. Wherever you are serving. Open your eyes. Behold. I make all things new. Amen.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

Background and Study notes from Rev. Dr. David R. Schmitt, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis: Voices from the Edge – Advent Encounters Preparing the Way