All of Us All Along--May 27, 2025

All of Us All Along--May 27, 2025

"And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it." (Revelation 21:23-24)

This moment is the pay-off of countless generations of waiting.  At the last, God's powerful love will draw people from every nation, every language, and every culture into the light of God's presence. And when it does, we'll see that it was God's design all along.  The writer of the book of Revelation is tipping us off to it now, in these verses that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, but even John of Patmos will admit that this isn't his new bright idea.  John only affirms what the ancient prophets and poets of Israel once put into words long before him: that God's intention has always been to gather all of us, all along.

One of my favorite things about reading the Bible is just how often I'll find that one verse or passage calls to mind another, and how often the biblical writers intentionally riff on each other's ideas and visions.  Here's a case in point.  The scene that John describes, of God's new holy city being a place of welcome for all peoples, turns out to echo numerous passages from many centuries before John's time.  In the opening few chapters of Isaiah, the prophet offers us this picture: 

"In days to come the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, Come let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths...nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come let us walk in the light of the LORD!" (See Isaiah 2:1-5.)

Micah, another prophet of ancient Judah, will quote almost word for word that same picture of nations being gathered together into the presence of God to learn God's ways and to beat their weapons into farm tools. (See Micah 4:1-3.) And then, by the end of the book we call Isaiah, we get this vision, which fleshes out the same idea:

"The LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you..." (See Isaiah 60:2-4.)

We could go on all day with this, but you can see a pattern emerging, right?  What John describes in the final scenes of the New Testament isn't a shocking plot-twist right before the last chapter of the Bible, but rather it is a continuation of the picture God had been painting all along.  John seems to be saying, "Don't forget--this is what God has been aiming for with all of creation!  God intends to bring all nations into God's own presence and light!" And as John tells it, it is not simply a long-held wish or pipe dream--before all is said and done, it will at last happen.  God's new creation is for every nation, every language, every culture, and every tribe.  Nobody gets to claim God or God's blessings as their private possessions, and nobody gets to say, "We are God's favored; tough luck for you all."  All throughout the Scriptures, God has been guiding the story in such a way that nobody ultimately gets to say, "Me and My Group First!" God has been telling us all along that the goal was always gather all of us, all along.

That is a countercultural position to take, honestly, since there are a lot of loud voices around who would have us believe that God intends for us to love our immediate circle of kinfolk first, and then to rank our care for other people based on how much they are "like" us, with the people from other groups, nations, and cultures down at the bottom of the list.  But here we have the Old and New Testament both insisting that's not how God operates, and it never has been.  The vision John of Patmos describes is simply a reaffirmation of what the ancient prophets from centuries before him had been saying, too.  If we are going to take the Scriptures seriously, then even now we will not let ourselves fall into the trap of "Me and My Group First" thinking.  We will seek the good of all people, and we will see God's light being extended in all directions, rather than just what is immediately good for me and my little clique or clan.  And when we do, in some small way, the people around us will get a glimpse of just how wide and deep and broad God's goodness really is.  They will see the ways we actively work for the common good of all people, not just "our own," and they'll see what God has been trying to tell us across the generations: God has been seeking all of us, all along.

Lord God, let us be a part today of how you gather all peoples to yourself.