God with us finally, completely | Dec. 26
Revelation 21:22-27
Jon Pasiuk | Care Pastor
Sometime around the age of two, each of our kids got to experience unwrapping a Christmas present for the first time. It can be a very confusing experience for toddlers who are constantly told not destroy things, only to suddenly be handed a very colourfully decorated box and told to rip it open. It is both counterintuitive and exhilarating all at the same time.
The book of Revelation says something that would have been shocking and counterintuitive, and yet unimaginably exhilarating to its original readers: when Jesus’s kingdom reaches its culmination, there will be no temple.
“22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations.
27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
– Revelation 21:22–27
For a Jewish person like the apostle John this is a profound statement. For almost a thousand years the temple had been the one place on earth where God and man could meet. Only one man from a particular tribe and a particular family could enter into the Holy of Holies, and even then, only one day each year. But that was the point of connection between the God of the universe and humanity. Now John says that the temple will be gone.
Counterintuitively, this is not a problem at all. In fact, it is the most amazing thing ever, because its purpose, like the wrapping paper on a present, was always temporary. When the kingdom of Jesus reaches its fullness, the connection point between the God who rules the universe and human beings, you and me, is everywhere we are. No separation. No shame. No guilt. No distance. The right to stand in the presence of God, which belonged only to one priest one day a year, belongs to every single citizen of the new creation.
PRAYER: Lord, thank you for the assurance that though heaven and earth pass away, you have invited me into eternity in your presence where I will finally be home. Thank you for the promise that the best is yet to come.