Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth … I saw the New Jerusalem … (Revelation 21:1-3).

Ah, the sights and sounds of Christmas!  And the smells, too!  Shimmering, sparkling lights; music and carols; cookies, fruit breads, and other such deliciousnesses!  A feast for the senses and stomachs!

But Christmas poses some questions, too: What do you see?  Only lights and tinsel?  What do you hear?  Just the songs you already know by heart?

In this week of our Home for Christmas series, we’re listening in the Book of Revelation, a book of seeing and hearing.  The word revelation means to uncover, to unveil: to make visible.  And audible.  Revelation is God’s gracious act and gift by which he gives us eyes to see, ears to hear.

What John sees is a new heaven and earth … the City of Heaven descending to Earth … a City that needs neither sun nor moon nor stars, because it is lit by Glory, a city without a temple because God himself is the temple.  A City that is very much like a Garden.  John hears a voice proclaiming the end of suffering and tears, the end of death and mourning, of crying and pain, a voice proclaiming homecoming at last, because “now the dwelling of God is with man.  He will be their God, they will be his people, God himself will dwell with them” (verse 3).

This is where Christmas is pointing, is heading, to Heaven and Earth reconciled and restored at last, to the final defeat and elimination of everything that will not align itself with Love.

We are not there yet.  We were not there when John wrote Revelation, and we are not there now.  Our every Christmas is a bright light in a very dark world.  Even if all is well in our little world, we know that there is so much, too much, injustice, suffering, pain, tears and death. As in all of the world’s greatest and truest stories, we are in the sometimes miserable middle.  So much is muddled and unclear.  “How can this go on any longer?  Will we, will I, even make it?  When will God act – and why hasn’t God already acted?  How long, how long, how long?”

Many years ago, a preacher named Bob Mumford was preaching to a crowd of tens of thousands in Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.  Holding up his Bible, he declared in the loudest voice he had, “I’ve read the end of the book – Jesus wins!” 

Jesus wins.  It’s okay to read the end of this story, even while we’re still in the middle of its plot.  Maybe especially while we’re still in the middle.

What are you ‘in the middle of’ that is difficult, perplexing or painful?  As you read Revelation 21:1-5, 22-27, which words and phrases jump out to you: how do they speak courage, faith, strength and hope to you?