Claimed, gathered and sent

Here are some thoughts on this Sunday's text. This is our last Sunday of the Season of Creation, Mountain Sunday. This was sent electronically to the people of St.Timothy Lutheran Church. Isaiah 65:17-25 1 7 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. 20 No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies  at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. 21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall no

This is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy and St. Mark Lutheran Churches on Sunday, 11/1, All Saints' Day. The text was Rev. 21:1-6a. Our reading from Revelation is one of the last chapters in Revelation. It is like the unexpected twist at the end of a good mystery story. After all our talk and concern about "getting to heaven," in the end, heaven comes to us. Should that really surprise us? After all, in Christ "the Word became flesh and lived among us" (John 1:14). God is the God who always comes down. The book of Revelation uses apocalyptic or end time imagery to express the terrifying situation of the early churches at the time when the Roman Empire required the worship of the emperors as gods. It also conveys the faith that God is their ultimate salvation. God's action of renewal includes 3 aspects: Location--the new Jerusalem, the presence of God with God's people and the demise of death itself. The first aspect of God&#