Skip to main content

Building the New Jerusalem

Isaiah 26.1-9
Revelation 21.1-4
This is a picture of what God’s perfect world order would be like. Of course, for the Prophet, it would be centered on Jerusalem. For Christians it would be centered on the New Jerusalem, which could be anywhere. When I was at college in Manchester there was a giant tapestry on the wall. It depicted the New Jerusalem, but if you looked closely many of its buildings were actually famous local landmarks. The artist was saying that Manchester could be the New Jerusalem if its people obeyed God’s will.
And that message comes straight out of Isaiah’s prophecy. The gates of the New Jerusalem will be opened to welcome in those who keep faith with God, who are unwaivering in their pursuit of peace.
The Prophet sets up a stark contrast with another mountain city, which thought it was better than Jerusalem, which has been brought low because of its disobedience. ‘The poor and the needy, or the abused, stomp all over that city!’ he says.
But although Jerusalem is on a mountain it’s not clear where this rival city was, nor even if it’s meant to be an actual place, because in any case the Prophet says that God will makes the path straight or smooth for those who trust him to bring about justice, who are earnestly seeking to know his will and are ready to obey him.
Verse 9 might mean that God ‘wants to teach everyone on this earth how to live right,’ and - in order to bring that about - we just need to make people more aware of God’s way. Or it might mean that when God’s judgements or decisions start to be enacted on the earth then its inhabitants will learn the right way to live.
I think it’s this latter meaning which is more appropriate to Christian Aid Week. There’s a place within Christian Aid, and similar organisations with the same charitable purposes, for education, for telling people how we can  all have better lives, and how the way can be made smoother for those facing the greatest challenges, if everyone just learns to live right. This is one approach to ‘making the ask’, challenging people to donate to the cause.
But in the end our primary purpose has to be enacting God’s decisions, smoothing the way ourselves, so that the earth’s inhabitants will learn the right way to live not by what we say but by seeing our example. That’s the other way of ‘making the ask’, inspiring people by showing them what the New Jerusalem could be like if we all started keeping faith with God’s will.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I don't believe in an interventionist God

Matthew 28.1-10, 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 I like Nick Cave’s song because of its audacious first line: ‘I don’t believe in an interventionist God’. What an unlikely way to begin a love song! He once explained that he wrote the song while sitting at the back of an Anglican church where he had gone with his wife Susie, who presumably does believe in an interventionist God - at least that’s what the song says. Actually Cave has always been very interested in religion. Sometimes he calls himself a Christian, sometimes he doesn’t, depending on how the mood takes him. He once said, ‘I believe in God in spite of religion, not because of it.’ But his lyrics often include religious themes and he has also said that any true love song is a song for God. So maybe it’s no coincidence that he began this song in such an unlikely way, although he says the inspiration came to him during the sermon. The vicar was droning on about something when the first line of the song just popped into his ...
14 comments
Read more

Giotto’s Nativity and Adoration of the Shepherds

John 1.10-18 In the week before Christmas the BBC broadcast a modern version of The Nativity which attempted to retell the story with as much psychological realism as possible. So, for instance, viewers saw how Mary, and Joseph especially, struggled with their feelings. But telling the story of Jesus with psychological realism is not a new idea. It has a long tradition going back seven hundred years to the time of the Italian artist Giotto di Bondone. This nativity scene was painted in a church in Padua in about 1305. Much imitated it is one of the first attempts at psychological realism in Christian art. And what a wonderful first attempt it is - a work of genius, in fact! Whereas previously Mary and the Baby Jesus had been depicted facing outwards, or looking at their visitors, with beatific expressions fixed on their faces, Giotto dares to show them staring intently into one another’s eyes, bonding like any mother and newborn baby. Joseph, in contrast, is not looking on with quiet a...
1 comment
Read more

Luther and Loyola

James 1:17-27 Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Within Christianity there has always been a tension between two poles. At one end of the spectrum stands Martin Luther, who said that Christian faith is about trusting in God to put us right - or make us righteous - through the saving death of Jesus. Luther came to this conclusion when he was a professor of New Testament studies in a little town in Germany called Wittenberg. One year he decided to teach his students about Paul’s letter to the Romans and that’s when it suddenly dawned upon him that Christian faith is all about trust. At the other end of the spectrum , stands someone like Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Society of Jesus. He spent a lot of his later life in crisis, first struggling to overcome severe wounds that he had suffered when he was a soldier and then during two short periods locked up in a cell by the Spanish Inquisition. He came to believe that the Christian life is a similar sort of struggle, a lifelon...
Post a Comment
Read more