Sermon for May 22, 2022
First Communion Sunday
Readings:
You know, when you wake up from a dream or a vision, it is often very difficult to explain to others what you saw or what you experienced, because dreams are full of images and symbols and they don’t always make sense. That is part of the struggle that people have with the book of Revelation. John has a miraculous vision, and in that vision God speaks to John about some things that are going on in his own day, so many of the symbols have to do with the persecution that Christians were experiencing in the Roman empire, but God also speaks to John and shows him visions of the distant future, so we get these glimpses of the heavenly kingdom.
You know, the Bible doesn’t give us a detailed explanation of heaven. What we get are images here and there that reveal little bits of heaven to us. I guess God knows that we could never comprehend or appreciate the true beauty of God’s kingdom, so what we get are postcards from the other side. Maybe postcards isn’t the best analogy, since I’m not sure people actually send postcards anymore. Maybe we will call them Instagram shots. Pictures that are sent to us from someone far away. But pictures, no matter how good, never fully capture just how beautiful something is in real life. So while the images in John’s book about his vision do reveal glimpses of heaven to us, that’s why we call his book the book of Revelation, it doesn’t show us everything; heaven will always be more glorious than we can imagine and we won’t truly know it until we see it ourselves.
But John’s vision is very important, not just because of what it reveals about heaven, but because of what it reveals about the God of heaven. We are going to be giving the kids that are graduating from their communion class today a Bible later. Now kids, you might think: “well, why is this old book important? What difference is this going to make to my life?” Here is why it is important: because the God of this book is still God. The God who interacts with people in all of the stories in this book is the God that is still alive and active in the world today. So if we want to understand the God who is at work in our lives right now, it helps to understand who God is, and how God acts, and the best way to do that is to study the record of how God has revealed himself to people in history. That is why studying the bible is so important to us. It doesn’t just tell us what God did in the past; it helps us to understand what God is doing now.
This morning we just heard a reading from the Book of Revelation; John’s vision that I was just talking about. In that reading John talks about the heavenly Jerusalem, the Holy City. And what does he see? Well, he sees a river that flows from the throne where people can drink from the water of life; God quenches their thirst. What else does John see? He sees a tree of life that produces fruit that feeds people. Right in the middle of heaven people eat and drink; they are given food from God. There is another place in the Bible where we find a tree of life. It is all the way on the other end. Revelation is the last book in the Bible, but all the way back in Genesis, in the first book of the Bible, in the Garden of Eden when God first created the world there was another tree of life. God always planned to feed us. But in Genesis we learn that humans, boys and girls, men and women just like us, we disobeyed God, we turned away from God, we hid ourselves from God, so we couldn’t eat from the tree of life anymore. But God still wants to feed us. So God sends us his son, who is a human who does not disobey God, that’s Jesus. And he invites us to be a part of his life, first by being baptized like he was, and then he feeds us by offering us his body and blood, his life, in Holy Communion.
In John’s vision of heaven, what is one of the most prominent images that he sees in the middle of the city? It is a tree that feeds people AND that offers them healing. John says that the leaves of this tree heal people’s wounds and hurts. I want you all to take a moment and look around this church. Symbols are very important in scripture, and symbols are very important in church as well. Symbols tell us things about God. What is everything in this church directed towards? What is right in the center? Some might say this big candle, which we call a paschal candle, but this is only here during Easter season. What is always the highest place and most prominent symbol in the church? It isn’t this pulpit, I’m tucked off to the side over here. The most important thing in this church is the altar. Where we celebrate Holy Communion. We remember Jesus’s last supper there and we pray special prayers over the bread and the wine. Then what happens? People come forward and eat. People are fed, and you know what, people are also healed.
That is what you will do today. You will come forward and you will be fed, not by me, but by God. I will hand you a little wafer of bread, but it isn’t really me that gives it to you; it is God. Holy Communion is NOT just about remembering something that God did a long time ago. I will say that again: Holy Communion is NOT just about remembering something that God did a long time ago. It is about what God is doing for us now. He feeds us, and he heals us. Likewise, the Bible is NOT just about what God did for people a long time ago. It helps us to see what God is doing for us now. John saw a glimpse of heaven and what he saw was God feeding his children. When you come to church what you see is God feeding his children. This is a glimpse of heaven too. This is a vision and it is a vision that you are invited to share in and to participate in. Remember that. Every time you come forward for communion, I want you to remember that what we are doing around the altar is never as important as what God is doing. God feeds us here and now with spiritual food. God is present with us, and offers us his life in the bread and the wine. Even when we have turned away from God, even when we have disobeyed him, God keeps feeding us.
You will see this throughout the Bible and you will see it again when you come into church: we worship a God who feeds us…not just in the past, not just now, but forever.
Inwardly Digest 