Easter 6, Year C | Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
May 25, 2025
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
Please note that the livestream failed partway through the sermon so we have only partial audio and video available. If you’d still like to watch the first part of the service, please visit this page.
“…he…showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.” – Revelation 21:10[1]
Today’s Epistle reading opens with an image of a massive city, described as a “holy” or “purified” Jerusalem, descending from the sky. The Lectionary skips over the famous description of foundations built on gigantic jewels, gateways fashioned from giant pearls, and streets paved with gold in this more than 1,000 mile[2] long, wide, and tall town, taking us straight to the description of God and the Lamb’s presence within the city, how they’ve become the source of light for all humanity. We then encounter an idyllic scene with mysterious trees set along a perfectly transparent river, people basking in God’s presence, and endless joy and peace.
As Modern American Christians, the question immediately rises, is John describing an actual, physical location? Is this what Heaven is going to look like? And the answer to that is, “I don’t know—maybe?” Churches in the United States have a rich, though relatively brief, tradition of reading this as a literal description.[3] I would say if John’s images help you to faithfully follow Jesus along a path expressing God’s generous and loving nature, it’s perfectly fine to hang on to them that way. However, knowing that the apocalyptic genre John was using in his letter generally describes events of the author’s time and that the language is highly symbolic or stylized, I suspect that this simplest and most popular of interpretations probably misses the point.
If we do go in a somewhat “literal” direction, similarly to how Bishop Hunn challenged us to think about resurrection last week, my guess is that John is trying to push our minds beyond what we’ve ever considered, urging us to imagine something so far beyond our conception of reality that no words can describe it. The precious gems and metals and pearls are likely hyperbole meant to stoke the ancient mind. The materials themselves wouldn’t be the point; it’s what applying those kinds of materials in such a mundane way reveals about the society using them. Luxury items people still kill each other to obtain don’t appear particularly valuable in the fullness of God’s Kingdom. It may be that they’re so commonplace no one really cares about them anymore, but I find it more likely that their significance has fallen because people recognize and celebrate something far more valuable than what ultimately amounts to shiny rocks.
It’s the same with the river and trees. What might these things mean to an ancient mind? A constant source of perfectly safe drinking water, an abundance of food available to anyone—and a variety, at that!—trees that not only provide shade and fruit but even leaves that are useful to humans? Those things might not mean much to us with tap water and freezers and grocery stores and over-the-counter medicine, but for people in the 1st and 2nd Centuries, having a safe and reliable source of “enough” in any of those areas would have been a dream come true.
Before exploring further in that direction, however, we should probably address the few “darker” moments John presents in our passage. We read that “nothing unclean will enter [the city], nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood,”[4] and that “nothing accursed will be found there any more.”[5] I’ve always taken those statements as threats or warnings, but I now doubt that John meant to cast shadows on this scene of light and joy. That’s because these actually appear to be simple observations.
“One who practices abomination” is an ancient Judean colloquialism for people who craft idols. Idols are physical stand-ins for concepts or entities that people use to focus their worship or prayer. Seeing that anyone in this city has direct and immediate access to the One True God any time they please, that particular job would be useless. Lying would be equally pointless, what with being in the presence of the Source of All Truth and Wisdom.
The other terms are nonbinary, meaning that “unclean” and “accursed” would be describing objects, not people. In most religious and cultural traditions, defilement spreads, corrupting things previously considered “clean” or holy. It’s sort of a metaphysical play on our concept of infection control. By itself, a bag of flour is “clean,” perfectly fine and safe to use. However, if you open the bag one day and discover mouse droppings in it, everything in (and including) the bag is ruined and needs to be thrown away.[6] Or consider medical professionals scrubbing in for surgery. They’re careful to wash their hands and don their protective gear in a certain fashion and order. If they make the slightest mistake, they dump everything in the trash and start over, just in case some germs accidentally transferred onto what’s supposed to be a sterile surface. Under this mode of thinking, if something unclean or cursed were to enter the city, its defilement couldn’t help but spread, possibly corrupting everything—and everyone—inside.
However, there’s a subtheme sprinkled throughout the Hebrew Bible about a point when all this reverses.[7] At that time, “cleanness” becomes dominant and begins pushing out defilement. Wastelands become lush fields. Fresh water somehow completely desalinates the Dead Sea.[8] Even plates and utensils purify whatever touches them. All of this flows out from God’s presence, overturning our human expectations and eventually sanctifying the entire world. We see hints of this beginning in the Gospels, where Jesus touches someone with leprosy and says, “Be made clean,”[9] or where he forgives sin.
By the end of Revelation, this new standard appears to be in full force. That being the case, the idea of preventing something from entering the city because of defilement becomes a moot point. “Nothing unclean will enter it” because everything automatically purifies itself before it even reaches the gates. And no one is excluding cursed items; they can’t be found there because as they approach the city and draw near to God, any curse simply burns away!
These kinds of things—a remade society, access to “enough,” and purity so strong it cleanses anything that approaches—these are what Revelation is trying to get us not simply to imagine but to comprehend and embrace. That’s because, as I’ve mentioned, John isn’t talking about future possibilities. He’s addressing present realities.
In the sentence before our reading began, the divine messenger tells John, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”[10] That means we don’t even have to speculate about what this scene is describing:
the bride adorned for her husband, carrying the Celestial Reign into the Earthly Realm;
the presence of God Almighty shining from within and enlightening the world;
the society founded on twelve jewels—one that can look beyond the cost of physical substances to see the deeper value of human life and thriving;
the living, adaptive tree that bears a variety of fruit on different branches throughout the changing seasons and whose leaves spread peace and healing throughout the nations;
this city which houses the source of Transformative Reversal, with water that carries life and vitality, holiness that cleanses and refreshes everything—and everyone—with which it comes in contact;
these servants who worship God and the Lamb and see God’s face for themselves…
John has explicitly stated the intent for these images. He’s told us exactly what this scene of Second Coming represents. This isn’t some future reality or extra-dimensional location.
John is talking about us.
Everything he’s written in this passage addresses the reality of the Church, the gathered unity of all those who follow Jesus. Despite whatever our present circumstances may be, this scene exists to remind us of who we actually are and who we truly ought to be!
Within Revelation’s greater theme of “God overcomes,” John is using this passage to call out to our best selves, to clarify the how and who of Christian life and to emphasize a reality we often hide even from ourselves. We are people not of desolation or domination or abuse; we embody “a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered.”[11] There’s no need for us walk in darkness or confusion, “for the glory of God is [our] light, and [our] lamp is the Lamb.”[12] We need not distract ourselves with division or fear or exclusion, for among us, “any cursed thing will not be able to exist again.”[13] God overcomes, even within the flaws of the Church! So with John I urge us, look to the Lamb! Walk in God’s light! Live the reality of who we truly are—Divine Presence incarnate, the Reign of God within this Earthly Realm, this vision of
“the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.”
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.
[2] 12,000 stadia = somewhere between 1,175 and 1,400 miles, depending on the standard
[3] It’s important to note that the concept of literalism is inherently nonsensical when dealing with Apocalyptic literature. However, this description certainly gives us more to chew on than our disembodied cartoon version set amongst fluffy clouds with chubby, tiny-winged cherubs playing old-school harps.
[4] Revelation 21:27
[5] Revelation 22:3
[6] You may even throw away stuff you’ve already made with it!
[7] The most prominent example being Zechariah 14:20-21
[8] Ezekiel 27:8-10
[9] Matthew 8:3; Mark 1:41; Luke 5:13
[10] Revelation 21:9
[11] Revelation 5:6
[12] Revelation 21:23
[13] Revelation 22:3 |My (rough) translation | The verb and negative allow for two readings: both “will not exist” and “will not be able to exist.”