Promise and Presence

Well, good morning church. It's a pleasure to be with you in Victoria leading worship with so many gifted and talented people including our musicians. Thank you for your gift in worship today. If you've come in just after the beginning, I'm Ross Lockhart, your guest preacher today. My day job is as dean of St. Andrews Hall which is one of three Presbyterian Church in Canada colleges across the country and we're located on the main campus of UBC where we have a residential community of about 250 people every year called St. Andrew's home studying any number of programs at UBC and so we have a chaplain program to those students including 30 town homes so we have families I think we're the only Presbyterian college that has its own playground which always makes me very happy as well as ministries through the center for missional leadership reaching out to equip congregations across the country as well as working in partnership with Vancouver School of theology that sits across the street from us to prepare future ministers for our denomination. It's a pleasure to be in this beautiful city.

You live in a beautiful place or if you're visiting, you made a great choice on vacation coming to Victoria and to be in this historic place of worship as well.

Our first reading today was kind of a check-in of the Apostle Paul going up to see the most important leaders in Jerusalem. In your work life in your work life if you've ever been called into the boss's office. That was the reading from Galatians 2, right? A check-in with the senior leadership of the church where Paul was able to verify that what he was teaching was of sound doctrine. And it went by very quickly. But one of the names listed in Galatians 2 is the Apostle John. And the second reading today comes from the book of revelation and John of course is the author of that or perhaps we should say he conveyed to the wider church what was revealed to him. And in that Galatians 2 reading John is given a special title of honor. He is referred to as one of the pillars of the church. And I think every congregation I've served as a minister over the years and now visiting congregations as dean of the college I encounter modern-day pillars of the church those who are central um to the life the witness and the functioning of the church and John was one of those leaders and so John is given a revelation a few minutes in our teaching time we'll reflect on and the book of revelation comes to a conclusion with the second reading today, it's a beautiful vision of where this whole human experiment is moving.

A reading from Revelation 21. If you'd like to follow along on your Bible app on your phone or if the Pew Bible, it's New Testament page 259. This is what this is, what John records in the Revelation. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them. They will be his peoples and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. And the one who is seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty, I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God, and they will be my children. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

In May, I was back in Toronto at the University of Toronto. I was at a conference, a theology conference presenting a paper. And while I return to Toronto often whenever the three colleges rotate hosting ahead of Presbyterian schools, sometimes it's in Vancouver, sometimes at McGill, and Knox College often hosts us at the University of Toronto. But when I go, I have to admit I just fly in, I go to the meeting at Knox, and I leave. This was the most extended stay I had had on the University of Toronto campus in 25 years from when I was a master's student there. And it was a little bit of a trip down memory lane as I walked the campus daily. I recognized the chapel that I proposed to my wife who is also a master of divinity student; saw the other chapel where we were married and had fond memories of that day as my family came from across Canada and Northern Ireland to celebrate our wedding. And then I also visited a number of libraries that were on campus that I had worked at as a theology student trying to make a little extra cash.

One of my favorite libraries is in Emmanuel College, and it has a very Harry Potter kind of look to it. It has a beautiful heritage design much like this gorgeous sanctuary. But one of the things that struck me when I worked there so many years ago is I was taking my biblical studies at the time and I found that one particular library to be really in many ways a kind of a nice image or even a metaphor for the Bible itself. when you walk into this beautiful old library with kind of round church-like windows, dusty books on old shelves, very Harry Potterish again. You kind of walk in and the main floor takes up 23 of the library and then there is a gorgeous spiral staircase. I wish we had more of those these days. spiral staircase that goes up to about one third of the library that looks down on the rest of the space. Remember as I was doing my biblical studies thinking in terms of I had been raised in Sunday school in Winnipeg to think of the Bible as a book. Most of us do. If you go to, I was going to say Chapters or Indigo, but I'm in Victoria, so I'll say if you go to Monroe Books, by the way, you do have the best bookstore in BC. You realize that? I love Monroe Books so much. If you go into Monroe books, you go to the religion section, you can pull the Bible off the shelf, right? You have it here. It's a book. And yet, as I got deeper into my biblical studies, I began to think, well, it's actually more of a library than a book, right? It contains 66 books, two thirds of which are the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, the main floor if you work with that image I gave you of the library. And of course, there's different books. If you were to walk into your local public library here or Monroe Books, it's all laid out in sections, right?

And so to the Bible, we have the creation stories. You could kind of have a mythical section there. You have the poetry of the Psalms set to music. You'd have a poetry section. You have history. If you've worked your way through First or Second Kings, kind of a history section for the history buffs. Um there's wisdom literature. you can pull the book of Proverbs off the shelf and you have wisdom there. , for those who maybe like to treat themselves to a Harllean romance novel from time to time, there's the Song of Songs. I dare you to read it and not blush. It's kind of fun, right? , and then we take the spiral staircase to that next level, the smaller section, only 27 books there of the New Testament. And where do we begin? We begin with biographies. I hope you like reading biographies. I love reading biographies. We have four biographies of Jesus. You can take your pick off the shelf. Mark is the smallest one, sometimes the easiest one to begin with. And then we get into um how to plant a church. Maybe you remember in the 80s and the 90s there were those books, the dummies guides, right? Like the dummies guide to plumbing or whatever. It's kind of the dummy's guide to church planting is the book of Acts written by the Apostle Luke that tells us about how the Holy Spirit helped plant the early witnessing communities throughout the Roman Empire. And then we get into the testimony, the witness, the letters of the various apostles, mostly Paul connecting the tissue of all these little churches, mostly house churches across the Roman emperor empire.

And then if you're brave enough and if you go into the dusty corner, there is one book left. You know what that book is? The book of Revelation. A book you don't actually hear preached on very much in mainline Protestant churches. And there's some reasons for that. It can be a difficult book to understand. It's not one if you take it out and you look at it, it probably is not well worn, right? This is not the 25th copy of the latest Louise Penny novel that you've waited for from the library, right? The book of Revelation does not always get picked up and read very often. Martin Luther, the great reformer, was not so keen on the book of revelation. Zwing Lee the great reformer for whom Menanites and various Baptists look to for their heritage. He actually called it unbiblical. And in our own tradition, John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian expression of the Christian church; he did us no favors. And I'm a big fan of John Calvin. I used to have a John Calvin bumper sticker on my Fiat, but it mysteriously fell off. Don't know what happened there. I like John Calvin very much, but he offered a commentary for every book of the Bible while he led in Geneva except one. Can you guess which one? Yeah. He didn't write a commentary on the book of Revelation.

And it's not like he ran out of time. He just decided to take a pass on that one. So, there's a reason that the book of Revelation is problematic for many Christians. It has vivid imagery in it. Sometimes it can be hard to kind of decipher, but it's a very important book of the Bible. And knowing a bit of the humanity behind it may help you appreciate it just a little bit more. that pillar of the early church that's mentioned in our reading from Galatians today, the Apostle John. He was, as you recall, at the cross when our Lord and Savior was crucified. And Jesus said what to him? He entrusted the care of his earthly mother Mary into John's hands. A really beautiful, grace filled action. And John responds. John takes Mary into his household, into his care, and then moves eventually to Ephesus. If any of you have done a Mediterranean cruise, guaranteed there was a day that you stopped in Ephesus, right? It's a it's an amazing place to visit. And while he's in Ephesus, he is organizing all of the little churches throughout what we now call Turkey.

At the time it was Asia Minor. That's why if you do read, if you're brave enough this afternoon as you relax in a beautiful sunny day to read through the book of Revelation, you'll find the first part has these letters to the seven churches.

And those seven churches are all in the country of Turkey today. And John was kind of like the bishop over those churches. And there are very specific messages in the revelation that he receives that he delivers to those seven churches. And it's clear when you read the text that those churches are well known. One example would be Leodysia is known as the lukewarm church. And the reason it's given that title, everyone around there would understand the reference was Haropoulos above it, north of it, was a hot springs town. It's Pamukalii in Turkey today. You can literally go and bubble away in the hot water. Doesn't that sound lovely? And Colassi was further south. By the time the river reached there, the water was ice cold. Leodysia was in the middle. It was indeed lukewarm. So these messages that are conveyed sometimes sound strange but they are rich in meaning.

John was bishop over these churches and he ran a fowl of the Roman emperor. The Roman emperor dimmission had a widespread campaign of terror against the church and early Christian leaders in particular. And in the year 95 AD, John was scooped up and he was taken and he was placed in prison in exile in another country. Now that may sound like ancient history, but the notion of those in power scooping up others and sending them to prisons and foreign places sounds like the latest news cycle today. And where was John sent? He was sent to the little island of Patmos. And when you visit Patmos, as I did last month, I led a study tour of 40 people throughout some of these biblical sites. And we stopped at the island of Patmos. About two thirds of the island to this day is still owned by the Greek Orthodox Church. As you go up one of the mountains, there is a cave where tradition says John was given the revelation that is recorded in this last book of the Bible. And the revelation is one of how things will come to an end. That's often what scares people off from reading this book. But when you look at Revelation 21 that was shared today, it ends in a beautiful and hopeful way and talks about a new heaven and a new earth.

And one of the clues in figuring that out is I think we could probably agree a new earth is a good idea. It could use renewal. That the world we live in is not as we trust God intended it. But a new heaven often led me to wonder, well, what was wrong with the old one? I thought the old one was okay. But the clue in that opening line is it says, "And the sea will be no more." Now, for someone who lives on an island, as you live on an island, I live on a little tiny island of Bowen. The idea of the sea drying up is both terrifying from an environmental perspective, and actually quite pleasing because then I could just walk to work and not take a ferry. But that's not what is meant here. In the biblical tradition, the sea is a terrifying place where creatures can emerge from. Even in the book of Revelation, there are creatures that emerge from the sea. That's why on those old maps, they'd say things like, "There be dragons right at the edge of the map." It was a terrifying thing. So the idea that it was gone and there was nothing separating God in heaven from creatures on earth is a beautiful liberating vision that this scripture gives us.

And then there is the promise that death itself will be no more suffering sorrow removed. that the future that God is out ahead of us making and inviting the world into is one where there will be no pain and no suffering. That's the promise that is given in this passage. And what a beautiful promise it has been generation after generation for those of us who follow Jesus Christ. But I think there's more than just the promise that is given here. I think in addition to the revelation and the important promise that's given, I'd like you to stop and consider for a moment how important God's presence was to John in that place. He's not only exiled from those that he loves, those that he cares for, and lonely on this island, uncertain of his future. As it turns out, the next year, 96, the Roman emperor dies, and the next one says, "You can all go home." So, in that case, it turned out okay. He didn't know that at the time. He wasn't sure how long he was going to be there.

But not only that, the Apostle John, you may know this, it's believed the Apostle John is the only apostle, the only early follower of Jesus who lived a full life and died a natural death. The only one. All other contemporaries of John who followed Jesus as disciples were martyred, they were murdered for their faith. By the time John is exiled, for example, on Patmos, 30 full years have gone by since Peter and the Apostle Paul that we heard of in our first reading were martyred for their faith. I don't want to read too much into it, but did he have some kind of survivor guilt? Why was he still there when all of those that he had shared life with Jesus with had gone to be with Jesus because of their faith? He longed for the assurance of God's presence. Yes, he claimed this promise and wrote it down so future generations would know. He circulated this throughout all those churches under his care.

But there's something about the presence alone in that cave wondering where God was. That must have been such a gift. I wonder about you today. You've come to church. You're wrestling with your own things in your life. What do you need more? Do you need the promise that the future belongs to God? That you are in God's care. Or do you need God's presence right here, right now as you sit in the beautiful silence and warmth of this worship space? God provides both depending on what we need.

Many years ago, I had a colleague who described his own time of preparation for ministry. This is a doctoral colleague of mine. So, we didn't study at U of T together. He was down at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. And as a young man, he would often go after class with his classmates to the seminary gymnasium. And they would shoot some hoops and just have some fun, blow off some steam. And he described to me the the janitor who was in this seminary gymnasium, a very quiet, godly gentleman who would be sweeping up and emptying garbages while the young guys were joking around and shooting hoops and having each other on and so forth, just kind of having having a good end of day play. And they were very friendly to him and he was friendly to them and to have a chat every now and then. My friend said years later he realized I think the guy stayed much longer than the hours just to let us play. It was very kind of him to do. My friend described sitting one day taking a break from the basketball court sitting beside this janitor because when all of his duties were done what he would do is he would just sit in the stands and read his Bible. And my friend sat beside him and noticed that he was reading through the book of Revelation, and he had actually come to the passage that we heard today, Revelation 21.

Now, my friend who I admire very much indeed is a humble man. And when he asked this question, he wasn't being arrogant or rude, but he had just finished an advanced New Testament Greek course looking at some of those passages. So, he had all this head knowledge around what this gentleman was reading who is the custodian. And he asked him, "What do you make of what you're reading?" He said, "That's a difficult book for many Christians to understand." The janitor thought for a while and he smiled and he said, "Well, I get to this part, Revelation 21, and I guess in the end, God wins." He said, "And more than that," the older gentleman said, "God's presence is always with us. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.