New Heavens and a New Earth

Since I am older than dirt, I actually studied the classics of English poetry in high school. I think it must have been sometime during my sophomore year that I read Shelley’s haunting poem, “Ozymandias.” The poem was written in 1818, in response, some think, to the recent arrival in London of a colossal statue of Ramses II, the great pharaoh of ancient Egypt. How many of you remember it?

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I was reminded of Shelley’s poem, and of so many other great deserted statues and monuments, as I tried to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” today’s Scripture readings. In our Gospel lesson in particular, Jesus, now just days away from his own death, reminds his disciples and us that one of the greatest buildings of the ancient world, the great second temple in Jerusalem, is about to suffer the same fate as the statue of Ramses: “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” And we know that in 70 AD, that vast temple complex, and indeed all of Jerusalem, was reduced to rubble by the Roman armies. Four centuries later the great monuments of ancient Rome suffered the same fate. Despite our pride, despite our trust in earthly power, nothing lasts. All eventually is lost – that is certain.

Actually as we think about the world and our place in it, there are, as Daniel Clendenin reminds us, four different kinds of sure and certain losses.1 The first loss is the one we know best, that of our own bodies. Whether you’re a Haitian male, whose life expectancy at birth is now about 30, or a Japanese female, whose life expectancy is over 85, “mortality rates are 100% certain.” Secondly, we know that civilizations die. The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Incas, the Aztecs – all are gone with scarcely a trace. And more: with the climate changes, overpopulation, famine, and wars that coming centuries will surely see, many, if not most, of the cultures in today’s world will also vanish without a trace. The end of the earth as we know it is also sure and certain. Indeed, many scientists believe that the earth is now about middle-aged, and will be incinerated by the sun in about 5 billion years. As particle physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne warns, “humanity and all forms of carbon-based life will prove a transient episode in the history of the cosmos.” Finally, the universe itself may disappear. Astronomers tell us that our expanding universe will at some point collapse in on itself.

And what comes after that? Here is the good news! Christians believe that the end of humanity and of the cosmos as we know it is not the final end. We believe in God’s promises to us. There is more to God’s plan. In today’s lections, we hear God’s promise clearly in the prophecy of Isaiah. Using a restored Jerusalem as the symbol for an entirely new creation, God promises us that “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.” God promises us a restored creation in which there will be no more lives cut short, no more weeping, no more loss or plunder. God promises us a peaceable kingdom, in which all the animals and human beings will live together in harmony. God promises an earth in which “they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.” In the same way, Jesus acknowledges the disruption and pain that the disciples will face in the coming days. Nevertheless, in a passage following today’s Gospel reading, he commands them to “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” And again, Paul reminds the Christians in Thessaloniki to continue valiantly doing the Lord’s work, even as they wait for the fulfillment of God’s promises.

Do we believe any of this? Do we believe God’s promises of a restored creation? Whenever you read Morning or Evening Prayer or witness a baptism or confirmation, you repeat in the words of the Apostles Creed, that Jesus “will come again to judge the living and the dead.” Sunday by Sunday, we affirm in the words of the Nicene Creed that Jesus “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” And in all times and places we pray in the words of the Lord’s Prayer that God’s kingdom will come, that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Every time we say any of these words, we affirm our belief in God’s promises that justice will be done, that wrongs will be righted, that all will live in peace and health, and that creation will be restored and renewed. Blessed hope, blessed assurance!

How and when will all this happen? We have no idea. The psalmist reminds us that “a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.” Truly we are in the realm of mystery here. What should we do as we wait for the unfolding of God’s plan, as we continue to hope for the fulfillment of God’s promises? Here, my brothers and sisters, we are on firmer ground. As Paul told the Thessalonian Christians, we are to pursue conscientiously the work God has given us to do, and we are never to “weary in doing what is right,” as we ourselves partner with God in the bringing in of God’s kingdom.

What does that mean for us here in Gallipolis? Today we give especial thanks for what we have inherited in this region. We are grateful to God for the beautiful land with which God has gifted us, for the mountains, the rivers, the fertile land. We are grateful for the history of the people here, for the music, crafts, language, literature, and arts of this place. We are grateful for the strong communities of faith in this region. At the same time, we know that we also have a responsibility to care for this land and its people. While we wait for the fulfillment of God’s promises to us, we are called to be good stewards of the resources of this region. We pray that God will guide us and our leaders in decisions to be made about energy, mining, and agriculture. We are also called to be mindful of the needs of God’s people. Perhaps we in this parish, as relatively well educated, middle class people, are called to be “bridges,” as one speaker put it, for those who are still mired in the poverty of this region. In our Loaves and Fishes dinners and in our diaper distributions, we provide material help to some of those in need. To what else is God calling us? What else does our community ask of us?

And above all that, we are called to remember that even as we are “placed among things that are passing away,” we are to trust in God’s promises. We may not know how and when they will be fulfilled, nor do we know what we may have to give up in order for God’s will to be done. In a lovely essay in a collection entitled Heaven, Barbara Brown Taylor tells of the death of her father. He was having a hard time dying. As she lay next to him one Sunday, she whispered, “You’re having to let it all go, aren’t you? All the places you haven’t traveled yet, all the places you’ve been. Your first girlfriend, your favorite chair, your prize students, your grandsons…. Everything that makes you you, you’re having to let go now. Oh, Poppa…. It has to be so hard.” After her father’s death, Taylor began to cultivate what she called a “radical trust in God.” Though less attached to specific beliefs about heaven, she nevertheless has an “enduring sense” that “everything will be revealed in the hereafter.” She now hopes that God’s judgment will reveal not only all her shortcomings but also what she may have done right in her lifetime. Most important, she tells us, “in the end my highest hope … is simply to be rescued when my time comes – plucked from the roadside where I have fallen, struck dumb by all there is to love and grieve in this world – and gathered into God’s own safety, whatever that turns out to mean. I am willing to forego the details, as long as I know whose lap I am in.”2

As we confront the mystery of the end of all things, including ourselves, and as we embrace the hope of God’s restoration of creation, of new heavens and a new earth, we continue to trust that God is working out God’s purposes, and that, in God’s good time, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

1. In “Heaven: Our ‘Enduring Fascination,’” The Journey with Jesus – Notes to Myself," http://www.journeywithjesus.net, accessed November 11, 2010.

2. Barbara Brown Taylor, “Leaving Myself Behind,” in Heaven, Roger Ferlo, ed. (New York: Seabury, 2007), 11-12