{"id":215,"date":"2021-11-05T11:40:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T15:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/?p=215"},"modified":"2021-11-07T06:58:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-07T11:58:38","slug":"all-saints-b-revelation-21-1-6-john-11-32-44","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/2021\/11\/05\/all-saints-b-revelation-21-1-6-john-11-32-44\/","title":{"rendered":"All Saints (B) – Revelation 21: 1-6; John 11: 32-44"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All Saints Sunday is one of those too rare Sundays where we read at church from the Book of Revelation<\/strong>, so I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about it before we have a look at our Gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book of Revelation is actually quite a wonderful book when we do not use it to push an agenda<\/strong>, to terrorize people or just to try to determine when the end of the world will occur\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book of Revelation was not written to terrorize Christians<\/strong> \u2013 it was actually quite the opposite. It is believed that this book is the latest (=most recent) book of the New Testament and was written at a time where Christians were terrorized<\/strong> (= persecuted). This book is the telling of a vision meant to bring courage and consolation<\/strong> as Christians await the final victory of Christ against the forces of evil and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes the Book of Revelation a bit terrifying is that it does not mean to bring courage and strength by denying how bad reality is \u2013 rather it dives deeply in the violence that tears our world apart and the sorrow that breaks our hearts<\/strong>. In this it is certainly not a self help book that motivates us to \u201cfeel better\u201d by \u201clooking on the bright side\u201d. We certainly need self help at times and to not focus on the negative \u2013 yet we know it\u2019s not enough in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Book of Revelation talks about the way in which \u2013 no matter how bad reality is \u2013 God will have the final word. God will bring consolation<\/strong> (wipe away all the tears) not just by bringing us temporary comfort, but by having the final victory against evil<\/strong> and putting an end to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The promise of the Book of Revelation does not describe a blissful reality, but it does not make a faint promise either: \u201cDeath will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more\u201d. That\u2019s the promise of promises, the promise above anything else that can be promised and hoped for.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is really what the Book of Revelation is about: It\u2019s about Hope<\/strong>. The Book of Revelation brings us a vision<\/strong> (indeed a \u201crevelation\u201d) that brings a new light on this, at times, terrifying reality and the book invites us to live this life believing that the best is yet to come, instead of thinking of reality as just a series of loss and tragedies<\/strong>. This world is passing away, yes, but not just to disappear. The world is passing away because God is bringing something new, something that will endure for ever.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s interesting if you think about it, because what makes life so hard is mostly because this world is passing away. We get older, we lose our friends, we lose our abilities, we cling to people or things that in the end let us down and deceive us, maybe we try to make a name for ourselves, or to surround us with material comfort \u2013 only to find out that nothing last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Book of Revelation puts this understanding upside down. This world is passing away but the author shows us that, in a sense, it\u2019s good that it is passing away<\/strong>, it\u2019s passing away because God can bring something good, something that will last forever, and also something we will be a part of (because otherwise, what\u2019s the point for us?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this vision \u2013 we find hope. And we know how much hope is important in everyday life. We all need to have some kind of hope to get up in the morning. To make it through difficult times, we need to have a vision that brings hope<\/strong>: that we will find a job, that we will recover from this disease, or maybe just that we will learn something trough our trials. If we don\u2019t have a vision that brings hope, we die inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what the Book of Revelation does it that it does not bring us hope only for what\u2019s next in this life, the book of Revelation brings us hope to what\u2019s beyond life. The \u201chope for what\u2019s next in this life\u201d is important because it also points to the hope we should have for what\u2019s \u201cbeyond life\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now you may know that it is believed (or was believed for a long time) that the author of The Book of Revelation is the author of John\u2019s Gospel \u2013 John the Apostle, maybe. There is no certainty about that, but we can find in both book a common thread. In John\u2019s Gospel too, we are given a vision \u2013 the author of the Gospel calls them \u201csigns\u201d<\/strong>, signs that point to a reality that hidden, not directly accessible to our eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you remember, I told you that Mark\u2019s Gospel is much more concise than John\u2019s. True \u2013 but in away, John goes more directly to what\u2019s essential. Mark is interested in showing Jesus as a teacher, a healer, a miracle worker, and the divinity of Christ is kept a secret for a long time. But, on the other way around, what John is interested in doing is to show us the divinity of Christ at every turn<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Resurrection of Lazarus is the last \u201csign\u201d Jesus gives to the people before he is arrested and put to death. If Jesus weeps and dies with and like all the people, he is also the one who brings ultimate consolation and new life. It\u2019s interesting to notice that people wonder aloud if Jesus, who had \u201copened the eyes of the blind\u201d (and we talked about that recently) \u201ccouldn\u2019t have kept the man from dying\u201d \u2013 because actually the miracle will be even greater than opening the eyes of preventing someone from dying. Jesus does not makes life better just by healing people. Jesus brings hope when no hope is to be found, when all hope is lost.<\/strong> John tells us that the man had been dead for 4 days, when 3 days was believed by the Jews to be this lapse of time when the deceased was still hanging around, but after that, gone for good. Jesus can bring back Lazarus when he is already gone for good. We know that Lazarus will die again, but then, it\u2019s a sign so we believe that Jesus has complete mastery on life and death.<\/strong> It’s a sign to believe in Jesus’s divinity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we believe the signs we will \u201csee the glory of God\u201d, <\/strong>says John<\/strong>. Not just as spectator, <\/strong>but by participating in this glory.<\/strong> I told you before that Jesus\u2019s glory was to have his friends with him \u2013 and we can certainly see that in our story today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now what can we do with that, concretely?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Do not lose your vision. We are Christians for hope. A lot of people notice these days that you don\u2019t need to be Christian to be a good person and that\u2019s true, but it\u2019s also true that if we really believe the promises of the Bible, then we will probably become better persons<\/strong> too<\/strong>, because we will know what really matters, we won\u2019t feel like we have to cling to things we believe will make us happy, we won\u2019t feel we need to be in competition with one another to be acknowledged \u2013 all of that gives us a false sense of immortality, whereas Jesus promises us real life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Again, do not lose your vision. We are Christians for hope. Again, a lot of people notice these days that you don\u2019t need to be Christian to be a good person and that\u2019s true. What is unique to believing in God \u2013 and more specifically to believing in Christ \u2013 is that we have this hope beyond all hope, a hope that does not shed us from sorrow and pain but helps us not to be stuck in it, knowing that sorrow and pain are not the ultimate reality and do not have the last word. This hope we are invited to cultivate it for our own sake of course, but also to cultivate it for the sake of others in a world so often plunged in despair. This is really what us Christians have to offer, our gift to the world: Ultimate hope, because ultimate hope is nowhere to be found \u2013 nowhere to be found – except in Christ.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All Saints Sunday is one of those too rare Sundays where we read at church from the Book of Revelation, so I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about it before we have a look at our Gospel. The book of Revelation is actually quite a wonderful book when we do not use it … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “All Saints (B) – Revelation 21: 1-6; John 11: 32-44”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sermons-stm.belanger.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}