“The Holy City” Colchester Federated Church, May 25, 2025, Sixth Sunday of Easter (Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5)

On the Sixth Sunday of Easter, we are engaging with a vision found within the book of Revelation.  John of Patmos tells us that he was “in the spirit” and carried away by an angel to a great, high mountain to see the holy city of Jerusalem “coming down out of heaven from God.”[1]  In Seminary at Andover Newton, I took a semester long class called Revelation: Ministry as Resistance to Empire.  Our Professor, Dr. Herzog, taught us that Revelation has been tragically misinterpreted.  Mainline Protestants like us have often left the book to fundamentalists to interpret as they will.  It seems like we’ve been left with folks who love Revelation because they are all about the rapture and wondering who will be left behind, trying to identify who is the anti-Christ, and all sorts of science-fiction horror story interpretations.

Though New Testament scholars (the one who taught me anyway) believe that John of Patmos wrote Revelation toward the end of Roman Emperor Domitian’s reign while exiled on the island of Patmos.  John of Patmos wrote this book to help his Christian community weather the storm of Roman persecution.  John could have been on the island because he traveled there to preach.  Yet he also could have been there because Domitian had launched a systematic persecution of Christians. 

At this time, Christians were being charged with a variety of crimes including (ironically) atheism.  In this historical context that meant that they failed to worship the Roman Emperor.  Some Christians stood up for their beliefs by saying that they had no Lord but Jesus.  Jesus is Lord, not Caesar.  It is rather mind-boggling for anyone who proclaims themselves “Christian” to worship any politician.  Why?  Because for Christians Jesus alone is Lord and worthy of our devotion.  In the history of our faith, people died for this belief—Jesus is Lord.

In the early days of Christianity, there were periodic episodes of persecution.  When this happened, Christians would write to one another in coded language.  We can comb through Revelation and see how John of Patmos is shoring up his community.  Though he can’t say that the Roman Empire is evil.  Instead, John is preaching through his apocalyptic visions that evil will not ultimately triumph over good.  God and God’s heavenly forces will ultimately prevail.  This is part of the reason we hear this text during Eastertide—we just witnessed Jesus’ triumph over political persecution and death itself on Easter Sunday. 

So Revelation is apocalyptic literature (an unveiling) where a visionary (John of Patmos) shared visions filled with symbolic language that were intended to inspire courage for a community enduring persecution.  It served as a reminder that God is always faithful and still with us.  The book has a glorious conclusion—this glorious vision of the new heaven and new earth we heard this morning.  This is the seventh vision shared by John, and it is deeply hopeful still today. 

In this vision found in Chapters 21 and 22, John sees the holy city—the New Jerusalem.  The New Jerusalem is coming down out of heaven from God “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”[2]  A voice cries out from the throne, explaining that God’s dwelling place is here with humanity.  God will dwell with us.  Those present will be God’s people and God will be their God.  God 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.  God is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.

This final vision in Revelation has this hopeful image of the holy city.  John shares,
“I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”[3]  Considering the importance of the Temple in Jerusalem, it was quite a statement that there is no temple in the New Jerusalem because God and the Lamb (Jesus) are the temple.  Who needs a building when God is dwelling with you in such a profound way?  Plus, not everything will be the same as it was on earth because the first things have passed away.  John sees that there is not even a need for the sun or the moon.  The glory of God is the light source of the holy city.  The gates of the city never need to be shut to keep out enemies.  We have peace at last.  John says, “People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.”[4]  It is an image of peace and glory and a great homecoming.

What’s fascinating is that John of Patmos shifts here from more urban imagery of the holy city with its gate and the nations of the earth walking by God’s light to a pastoral setting.  In the vision, we move to a garden-like setting that reminds us of the Garden of Eden in Genesis.  Because remember that God is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.  Time marches on.  It was the Psalmist who wrote, “Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.  For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past or like a watch in the night.”[5]  God was there before the beginning and is everlasting past the end.  God is eternal and we mortals do not live on this good earth forever.  The angel shows John the river of the water of life and the tree of life.  John envisions the tree of life producing twelve kinds of fruit and the “leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”[6]  From everlasting to everlasting, God is with us.

The tree of life is an image that can inspire us.  UCC Minister Daniel Cooperrider wrote a lovely book we read in Bible Study called Speak with the Earth and It Will Teach You: A Field Guide to the Bible.  Cooperrider reflected on the place of trees in the Bible by writing, “The Bible begins with the Tree of Knowledge and ends with the Tree of Life, and with more references to trees than to any other aspect of creation besides humans, trees loom like an old growth forest over the tangled undergrowth of scripture. . . Perhaps this is because we’ve long understood that trees have what we long for: patience, longevity, generativity, abundance, community and kinship, resilience.  Trees give glory to God by being fully themselves, and by being fully present to whatever season of life they find themselves in.”[7]  You don’t have to love trees as much as I do to appreciate the presence of a sacred tree in the holy city.  Even the leaves of the tree of life are a symbol of peace. 

What makes this final vision in Revelation all the more compelling is knowing that the tree of life has meaning for many religious traditions and cultures throughout the world.  For the ancient Celts, oak trees were considered sacred and the origin of all knowledge.  Druid priests would undergo twenty years of learning “within and from the ancient oak forests.”[8]  Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment while meditating under the Bodhi tree and became the Buddha.  There is a tree in Sri Lanka that was grown from a branch of the original Bodhi tree under which the Buddha gained enlightenment, and that tree is over 2,000 years old.[9]  In Hinduism the Ashvattha (Sacred Fig Tree) is associated with Brahman—Ultimate Reality (and funny enough, it’s the same species as the Bodhi tree). 

We could go on.  The point is that the book of Revelation ending with this vision of the holy city with the tree of life is meaningful even beyond Christianity.  The Tree of Life or World Tree or Cosmic Tree or Sacred Tree means something to people the world over!  Even and especially on the hard days, we are invited to remember this vision of the holy city that John of Patmos shared to help his Christian community when times were tough.  Remember God dwelling with humanity forever—wiping tears from our eyes, allowing the first things to pass away.  God will be our light and the river of the water of life and the tree of life will be for the healing of the nations.  May it be so, and thanks be to God.  Amen.  

[1] Revelation 21:10, NRSVUE.
[2] Revelation 21:2.
[3] Revelation 21:22.
[4] Revelation 21:26.
[5] Psalm 90:2 and 4.
[6] Revelation 22:2.
[7] Daniel Cooperrider, Speak with the Earth and It Will Teach You: A Field Guide to the Bible, pg. 98.
[8] Beth Norcross and Leah Rampy, Discovering the Spiritual Wisdom of Trees, pgs. 12-13.
[9] Amy-Jane Beer, A Tree a Day: 365 of the World’s Most Majestic Trees, pg. 318.

Photo by Rev. Lauren Ostrout.