A New Covenant and A New Creation

Glory.  Our culture is saturated in people seeking glory.  Every TV show or movie is full of actors seeking glory.  Athletes seek fame, fortune and glory.  Politicians and business leaders all are chasing after power and glory.   Mass murderers seek glory, terrorists and bombers seek notoriety and glory.  We are a culture and world clawing for glory, it seems.

Glory is defined in our culture as great praise, honor, distinction, or renown.  In our passage from the Gospel of John, Jesus also talks about glory.  Jesus said, “The Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.”  Jesus was not talking about our cultural glory, instead, he spoke of the glory of a new creation.  Jesus was talking about another kind of glory altogether!  Jesus was seeking something very different, something that led him to surrender his life in non-violent protest against the political and religious powers of his day—the very opposite of earthly glory.  What kind of glory is Jesus talking about in our passage?  How is being falsely accused and then being crucified for political and religious crimes being glorified?

Will you join your hearts in prayer with me?  “Dear God of a new heaven, a new earth and a new creation, reveal your divine glory in us.  Help us distinguish the difference between divine glory and human glory.  Teach us to follow you in humble divine glory, as we become new glorious creations in you.  Amen.”

In our passage today in the Gospel of John, Jesus completely redefines glory.  But we need to understand the context where Jesus reveals this new glory.  Jesus first introduces glory, then he quickly shifts to a new subject—did you catch it?  Jesus quickly says, “Little children I am with you only a little longer… where I am going you cannot come.”  And then, Jesus shifts subject again.  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  How are glory, Jesus leaving this earth and Jesus loving us, all related?  What thread ties these seemingly separate concepts in this paragraph all together?

Well, let’s start with the commandment of love.  This is not a new commandment, but we are invited to hear it in new ways.  The Hebrew Scripture in Leviticus 19:18 commands love, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  But the very source of love is now newly revealed through Christ’s life.  Our verse in John might be better translated as Jesus says, “I have loved you in order that you love one another.”  Jesus’ love shows us the way.  Jesus does not just talk about love—he lives it unto death on the cross.  So, this dense paragraph in John unfolds this way:  Jesus says that he and God are glorified in the coming events.  And then Jesus proceeds to redefine glory.  Glory is not the triumphant military victory that Israel was looking for—the glory of the world.  Instead, Jesus redefines a new glory.  I am not going to be here much longer, Jesus says, because I am going to redefine glory.  And here is how this new glory for a new heaven and a new earth is re-defined.  Instead of fame and renown, this new glory comes from serving and loving.  Jesus says I will show you the ultimate love, I will demonstrate a new glory for a new creation.  This new glory is humble service and love for one another.  This new glory is love that sacrifices human glory and lives divine glory of humble loving service. 

Israel was expecting a victorious Messiah coming down in earthly kingly glory.  Instead, Jesus came as a humble, suffering-servant Messiah who lifted up a new heaven and new creation.  Jesus redefined glory, heaven, love, and the very concept of being Messiah.  Talk about a new heaven and a new earth!  Jesus rejected earthly glory, and completely redefined heaven and earth based on love, not power or earthly glory.

The final verse of this complicated paragraph is a personal message from Jesus to each one of us.  “I have loved you,” Jesus says, “in order that you love one another.  By my demonstrated love, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you follow my example and show love for one another.”  Jesus clearly lays out the mission of the church as simply following Jesus in love.

Now, all of us understand that following Jesus in servant love is a difficult path, and not simple at all.  Jesus showed us that this kind of self-less love is very difficult to live.  Jesus’ love was not shown by him being nice and a smiling push-over.  Jesus offended many, and constantly ruffled feathers.  Jesus lived and demonstrated very tough love, a love based on truth and not putting up with bad behavior.  He scolded Peter, he spoke very hard truth to the religious and political authorities.  Jesus condemned the self-righteous religious leaders—he called them vipers—lowly snakes, and they certainly did not think Jesus was nice at all.  Jesus lambasted the Pharisees and berated those who did not listen to him because they failed to be open to the truth.  Jesus was loving but not nice.  Jesus embodied a profound truthful honest love for the world and his disciples—a love so powerful that he non-violently showed the world a humble way to serve and love one another even unto death.  And Easter shows us Jesus’ love transcends even death.  Jesus’ love reaches over the horizon of physical death that separates this earth and this creation from a new heaven and a new earth.  In this new creation, glory is not fame and fortune, but instead, glory is service, and love for God and one another.  Jesus’ love is so powerful and profound that it is embodied in each one of us.  Christ’s love is resurrected in each of us.  We are Easter people, always being raised in Christ’s love and service.  We, as the church, are a new vision of the resurrection as the new earth and the new creation of God’s love.

And so, this vision of love leads us to our passage in Revelation.  A new Jerusalem.  A new heaven.  A new earth for a new creation.  Do not be afraid of the dreams that are opened up in Revelation.  The visions there are a lens, a new way of seeing.  Do not look at the various visions in revelation—the dragons and many-headed monsters.  Instead, look through these exotic visions, use them as a lens to see the new heaven and new earth, and re-imagine what being a new creation might look like.  The Bible opens with humanity in the garden—in the pristine countryside, and it closes here with these biblical visions of the end in a city—the new Jerusalem.  In the city we depend on one another, we live together in symbiotic inter-relationships.  Together in peace and good will in this new Jerusalem, humanity is more than the sum of our separate individual parts.  And did you notice, in this new vision there is no sea?  The sea is the very ancient symbol of chaos, and chaos is now gone—bad things no longer happen to good people in the new Jerusalem!  And in this vision there is focus on the common good, and at the center, with nothing else competing for attention, there is Jesus in glory.  This is Jesus in the new glory we have been talking about—not fame and accolades and victory—but Jesus centered in God in humility and servitude and mutual love.  The Book of Revelation loses its power if we think of these visions belonging to other people, other times and other places.  But if we claim these visions as our own, then Jesus is dwelling in the center of us, right now.  This is a vision about our church here today.  Jesus is making all things new right here.  Jesus is our alpha and omega in this place, the beginning and the end of our new creation!  Jesus is here, making all things new; a new definition of glory; a new love centered in service and compassion; a new invitation to become new creatures in Christ, glorified in humility and love. 

And so, when we baptize Rylynn, or covenant with a new member, we become a new church, a new heaven and a new earth all together.  They do not join us as a static and unchanging church, but together, we all now become a new church, a new vision, with Christ at the glorious center.  We are new creations today because of baptism and new members in Christ.  We are the renewing church, made new in Christ, in each and every moment.

We are always-renewing Easter people.  New creations in a new earth, redefined in Christ-centered love, re-glorified in service to God, one another and the world, re-created in God’s image of love everlasting.  Christ’s new glory, a new baptism and new members renew us again.  Greetings to the new Spring Glen Church, birthed anew in Christ’s glorious love today.  Thanks be to God.  And Amen.