Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is both the Light of this world and the light of the world to come, amen. Our text for this morning’s message is our second reading taken from the 21st chapter of the book of Revelation, and continuing on to verse 14 as follows.
Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, "Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,and having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed, on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. So far our text.
Fellow redeemed in Christ. Some time ago, I recall hearing about a wonderful article, entitled Heaven’s Camera, which appeared somewhere in a Christian periodical. The article told the story about a family who, while ministering to their dying mother, found an old camera of hers that still had film in it from forty years earlier. Well, the film was quickly developed and the dying woman soon found herself looking at pictures that had been taken on her daughter's confirmation day way back then. But here's the truly amazing thing! On almost every picture of that film, the woman appeared with her daughter, and her husband, and her parents, all of whom had already gone on to heaven before her. Cherishing their find, the woman and her family began referring to that old camera as "heaven's camera", because the images it had captured so long ago brought joy to this believer, as she pictured herself soon standing in the company of those very same people in heaven above.
Well today, the Apostle John does something very similar for us. For the verses of our text serve as our very own heaven's camera, and capture for us a gorgeous photograph of heaven to gaze upon in our minds eye. So as we give thought to John's words today, I want you to picture YOURSELF in heaven, in God's Holy City and in God's glorious company.
Our picture tour will be conducted today by one of the Lord's angels. Our vantage point for the tour will be the same as that of John, a mountain great and high from which we will be seeing, not an exact and detailed representation of heaven, but a symbolic portrait of what life will be like for us there. The first image caught by our heaven's camera is that of a bride. John tells us: "One of the seven angels...said to me, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb" (v.9). But no sooner does this image come into focus, than it suddenly shifts. John says that the angel "...showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God....It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west" (vv. 10, 12-13).
In this last book of the Bible and in all Jewish apocalyptic writings as well, the number twelve is used as a symbolic reference to God's church. A church that was, in Old Testament times, associated with the twelve tribes of Israel, and a church that is, in these New Testament days, built on the God-inspired teaching of the twelve apostles. So the number twelve is used here repeatedly to let us know that we're looking at a picture of God's church. Now this is not the church militant mind you. This is not the church here on earth, engaged in spiritual warfare. The church that is presently doing battle with an unbelieving world and its supreme commander, Satan. This is, instead, a picture of the church triumphant in heaven. This is a picture of our heavenly future, a picture showing us what things will be like when our current existence is nothing more than a dim memory.
The picture of us as the bride of the Lamb is, in part, a picture of the eternal celebration we're going to enjoy in heaven. Now the word bride that is used to describe us is very carefully chosen. In fact, it is chosen in order to give us the assurance that our honeymoon with Christ is never going to end. Our marriage to the Lamb will be forever new and exciting.
But now the picture quickly changes to that of the Holy City, and it let’s us know that invitations to this eternal celebration go out only to holy people. You see, contrary to popular worldly thinking, scripture is very clear that not everyone who lives on earth is going to end up in heaven. Sadly, many who consider themselves here and now to be very good people are going to be in for a shock when they discover that though they were good in their own eyes, and perhaps good before the eyes of men, they were not holy in God's eyes. You see, good comes in degrees. But Holy does not. And how is heaven pictured here? It is shown to us as a walled-fortress with gates, above which are written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. And posted at those gates are angel sentries who will grant entrance only to those individuals who on earth were a part of God's holy people, the true and perfect Israel.
So can you see yourself in this picture? Or having heard these things are you too afraid to even look at it? How could we, sinners that we are, expect to end up in a photograph of heaven? It would seem that few of us have any ties with the true and perfect Israel and none of us can claim that we have lived a holy life. Rather than picturing ourselves in heaven, it seems much easier to picture ourselves among the people John describes in the verse at the beginning of our text where he says: "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death" (Revelation 21:8).
So, if just once, you have ever told a lie. If God has ever taken a back seat in your life to your work, or your money, or the things your money can buy. If you have ever relied on a horoscope. If in the private thoughts of your mind you have ever starred in your own personal fantasy. If you have ever hated someone. If you have ever doubted even one of God's promises. If you have ever failed to stand up for God's Word and God’s Will because others might ridicule you for doing so, than you, like me, deserve to die that second death, the death that comes after the first death of the body. That is, the death that separates a person from God forever, and delivers that person to the unending torments of the enemy. Holiness, does not come in degrees.
And that is the punishment we would all suffer, were it not for our heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus of whom Paul says in Ephesians 5, "...Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant bride, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless" (Vv.25-27). Our lives were a collage of sin, but then God's grace put Jesus in the picture. He became our double, standing in for us, giving us cleansing credit for his perfect life, removing the stain of our sin by taking all the blame for it upon himself and then, suffering its curse on our behalf in the burning lake of sulfur.
Jesus has made us his holy bride by pledging himself to be our Savior from sin. He makes this pledge in the gospel that he gave to his twelve apostles to proclaim and record. This is why in verse 14 of our text; John pictures those men, and more specifically their message, as the foundation of heaven's walls. You see, Jesus has used their message, that very same message first proclaimed to us, and over us, at our baptisms, to make you and I part of the true and perfect Israel, that is the people of the church of God. Now the term Israel here is not a reference to an earthly nation of people connected by a physical bloodline. It is used as a reference to a group of people, connected to God, and connected to each other, through the faith God has given them in Christ. And with this very thought in mind, Paul says to all of us Gentile believers in Ephesians 2, "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."
You and I were not born holy, but Christ declares us holy on account of his saving work. We were not born into the true and perfect Israel by reason of our physical birth, but all of us are now the true and perfect Israel of God through the rebirth of our baptism. In fact, the congregation of all who believe in Jesus as their Savior from sin is that true and perfect Israel. So thanks to Jesus alone, and to his saving work and his saving Word, heaven's doors are wide open to us pardoned sinners. And for this reason brothers and sisters, every one of you can picture yourself in heaven, standing there in God's Holy City. You can personally picture yourself dwelling in God's glorious company forever.
Now, while I have you thinking about such things, I want you to do one more thing. Imagine you’re visiting a land that has not one single church building in it. We might even call such a place “God-forsaken”. But as strange as it sounds, for a brief second John might have had this thought about heaven. For he says, "I did not see a temple in the city..." (v.22). Now this would have seemed very odd to John. For to him and all Jews of his day, the temple had been that special place in which God made his presence known to his Old Testament people. It was there on the annual Day of Atonement that God's forgiveness was pronounced, and God's peace was experienced. And it's not all that different for us Christians either. The church building remains an important part of our worship as well. It’s here at the baptismal font that our children come into the family of God. It's here that God's servants proclaim our sins forgiven. It’s here that our faith is nourished and strengthened by God's Word. It is here that our burdens are lightened and our hopes are renewed by God's promises. Ant it is here that we commune with our Savior, receiving on our lips the very body and blood he gave and shed to free us from Satan's clutches and his eternal punishment. And when we are away from this place it means that we are out in the world where Satan still rules, where temptation is powerful, where sin's guilt weighs us down and where doubt plagues our faith. And so, we long to come back to this place, week after week, a part of us wishing we could stay here, just like those disciples who wished to remain in the presence of their transfigured Lord forever and ever. But it is not possible for us to do so - not here and not yet. For we have a divine mission to be about. One that does not allow us to remain secluded, but sends us back out into the world. But it soon will be so in heaven. There will be no temple or church there, but then, again, there will be no need for such a structure there, for as John goes on to tell us, "...the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp" (vv.22-23).
In heaven we will live in constant communion with our God. There, we will experience, the peace and presence of God that Old Testament Israel experienced at Jerusalem's Temple. And the peace and presence of God that we experience here in this house of worship will fill every square inch of heaven, because God's glory will fill every square inch of heaven. This is the glory that brightened the skies around Bethlehem on the night of our Savior's birth. The shepherds basked in that glory for only a few moments and then it was gone. But in heaven that glory will never fade. Instead, that glory, which shines and sparkles like an indescribable gem, will dispel sin's night once and for all and we will live there in the eternal light of God's Son, spending a never-ending day in the comfort and security of God's glorious company where sin and the sorrow it causes will never, ever touch our lives again.
Picture yourself in heaven, my friends and keep that picture in your minds for all too often we can become discouraged by losing sight of what awaits us. Soldiers fighting in a war like to keep the pictures of their loved ones with them at all times to remind them of what their fighting for. Today, like the lady in the heaven’s camera article, you and I have received a picture of us and of our loved ones, standing together in heaven. May this picture serve as a powerful and lasting reminder of the war against sin and Satan. A war that has already been fought and already been won on our behalf by Jesus Christ our Lord. Blessed indeed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and that they may go through the gates into the Holy city of Jerusalem, and stand there, in the very presence of God Almighty Amen.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.