Pastor's Corner: For the healing of nations

"What's heaven like?"

As a pastor, that's not an uncommon question to receive. My answer tends to veer toward Isaiah and his vision of the mountain of the Lord, where the Lord will swallow up death forever and when he will wipe away the tears from all faces. That's what John of Patmos clings to, as well, when he writes in Revelation: "God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more" (Revelation 21:4). Heaven is where God wipes away our tears. Where God wipes away the source of our tears.

In this Easter season, some of our Sunday readings come from Revelation. It's been a good reminder that much of the words that we say or sing on a Sunday morning in worship every week come straight from Revelation. The Lutheran liturgy is steeped in the language of Revelation, and I imagine that the same could be said about the Catholic liturgy (Deacon Tim or Father Dan are welcome to correct me if I'm wrong!).

The final book of the Bible has so much to offer, but Revelation gets a bad rap in our culture, that it's all about the destruction of the world and the Rapture or the saving of a select few. But that misses the point of Revelation. Barbara Rossing, a leading scholar on Revelation, writes, "There is no rapture in the story of Revelation, no snatching of people off the earth up to heaven. [Instead,] it is God who is Raptured down to earth to take up residence and dwell with us - a Rapture in reverse."

In Revelation 21:2-3, John of Patmos describes seeing the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming to earth, and he hears a loud voice announcing, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them." In Revelation, God comes to us. John of Patmos gets a tour of this new reality.

Some of the most beautiful and hopeful images in all of Scripture come from this tour of the new heaven and the new earth. But it can be hard to grasp the beauty of this vision, since throughout Revelation, John uses the symbols of first century Palestine to communicate larger truths, and those symbols don't always translate easily into our 21st century world.

One of my favorite symbols from this tour of the new heaven and new earth is the tree of life that flourishes on both banks of God's river, with succulent fruit growing every month of the year. Unlike the tree in the Garden of Eden, whose fruit we were forbidden to touch, this fruit is meant to fill our deepest hunger. We are meant to reach out, take, and eat. And the leaves on the tree, Revelation says, are "for the healing of the nations." The heart of Revelation is not the destruction of the world, but the healing of the world. The healing of women who are scared for the future. The healing of families ripped apart by dysfunction. The healing of our addictions. The healing of nations manipulated into war. The healing of our planet and our politics.

The new heaven and new earth are not far off, future realities; they are paths we can travel right now. Hopes that we can build toward today. John of Patmos offers us a vision of heaven and earth. God isn't waiting for us to die to wipe away our tears. God comes to us, in forms familiar and foreign, to lead us into a new day and a new dawn. A new heaven and a renewed earth. Come, Lord Jesus.

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Megan Hoewisch is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Havre