God, Our All in All

Here are some thoughts about this Sunday's second lesson that I shared with the St. Timothy Lutheran Church family.

Second Reading: Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5

¹⁰And in the spirit [one of the angels] carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.
  ²²I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. ²³And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. ²⁵Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. ²⁶People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. ²⁷But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
 ^22:1Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ²through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³Nothing accursed will be found there anymore. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; ⁴they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

In Psalm 27, the psalmist cries out, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1). The psalms are the prayer book of the Bible, the prayer book of the Jewish people and ours as well. These people prayed in hope. Here in Revelation, we see the answer to those prayers. God and the Lamb are the light of the holy city of Jerusalem. Not only is God the light, but God is the temple. God is all in all—everything God’s people need is in God.

We cannot live without water and so that is provided as well. “…the water of life,” which hearkens back to Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John’s gospel. It is far more than ordinary water, but symbolizes salvation itself, just as the baptismal waters usher us into God’s kingdom, making us his children.

And God feeds the residents of the city from the “tree of life.” In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from that tree. Here in the new Jerusalem, it is how people are fed. Not only are people fed, but the tree provides healing for the nations.

Oh, how we need such healing today! The needs of so many sometimes overwhelm us. Let us pray in hope, as did the psalmist, that healing will come to all—that we all enter into God’s presence, joining with the whole church in heaven and on earth.

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