Life Between The Trees: New Jerusalem (Easter Sunday) - Revelation 22:1-7

We’ve been journeying through the trees for eleven weeks now.  It is only fitting that we reach the conclusion of our journey in New Jerusalem on Easter Sunday. 

We began exploring life between the trees in Eden.  There we encountered the twin trees of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life.  With those trees we were given the gift of Free Will, the ability to choose God’s Way, which leads to life, or our own way, which is sin and leads to death.

From there we considered the Olive Tree…with the olive branch the dove brought to Noah we are reminded that God will sustain us and save us from the floods of this life, even the flood of sin that seeks to drown us…the olive tree also becoming the symbol that Paul uses to describe how we are grafted into the people of God through Christ.

With the prophet Ezekiel we found the Cedar Tree, the Cedar tree reminding us that God’s promises will not be made null and void, not even by our sin.  God will keep His promises, among them, making His people be a blessing to the entire world, providing rest and relief from the difficulties of this world for all.

Abraham’s hospitality to three strangers under the Oaks of Mamre revealed to us a glimpse of God’s radical hospitality.  Not only the hospitality that God offers us through Christ, but the hospitality that we are called to share, not simply with those we know, but with all—understanding that as we offer that hospitality to those around it, we are offering it to God as well.

The Palm of Deborah reminded us to trust in God to bring the victory.  If God sends us into battle, we are to enter in, knowing that He goes with us, and that the victory does not depend upon us, but upon Him.

The unusual Broom Tree under which Elijah sought refuge as depression filled his heart and mind, reminds us that even in those days where everything seems dark and hopeless, God is with us, God will come alongside us, provide for us, strengthen us, and encourage us.

When we came with Jesus to the Fig Tree, we heard his call, alongside John the Baptizer and Paul, to repent from our barren, self-centered, dead-end lives to live lives that focus on allowing the fruit of God’s Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control).

The Sycamore Tree is where Jesus encountered Zacchaeus.  In their exchange we see in Jesus, God’s response to the sinner.  God loves the sinner, loves each of us, right where we are…accepts us as we are…desires to spend time with us…and as we spend time with God, we find within us the desire to allow God to transform our lives that we may become who He designed us to be.  Jesus’ response to the sinner should be or response as well.

The Mustard Seed/Plant/Tree reminded us of our call to allow God to use us, our gifts, our ability, our efforts, to reveal His Kingdom, here in this community and throughout the world.  We realize that nothing we do for the Kingdom of God is insignificant and that God can grow our little efforts into the beauty of His Kingdom.

Finally, in The Cross, last week, as Jesus hung upon the tree, we saw God’s answer to our sin…God’s love poured out as God Himself paid the penalty for our sin, dying our death, that we might live.  God’s plan to restore us from our choices in Eden were realized on Calvary.

On Friday Night, we recalled that death, we recalled Jesus being laid in the cold stone tomb.  Had that been the end of the story, our journey through the trees would have ended there…and though the price for our sin had been paid, death would still have reigned, having the final word in Jesus’ life, having the final word in our lives.

However, we gathered earlier this morning out in front of the empty crosses on the lawn to declare as the sun rose that the Son has Risen.  We declared and we gather here to declare that death has been defeated, that Jesus has risen, and that God has been, is, and always will be victorious over the grave.  He is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!

The good news is, my brothers and sisters, that because Christ is Risen, our lives between the trees does not end at the cross.   They do not end in the grave.  Our lives, journeying between the trees, journeys forward…all the way to New Jerusalem.  What is New Jerusalem?  Where will we find it?  When will we encounter it?  New Jerusalem is God’s renewed Creation…it is the point at which Heaven and Earth as they now stand dissolve away and God does something new.  God will bring Heaven and Earth together and will dwell in its midst.  That will be New Jerusalem.  It will fully be made manifest when the Risen Christ returns…not for thirty-three years, but for eternity.  It is there that we will find God’s final tree…the final tree, being the restoration of one of the first trees—the Tree of Life, planted and rooted in the river of the water of life, flowing from the throne of God, flowing from Christ Himself. 

Why not the dual trees of Eden?  Why not the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  Has God taken free will from us as He restores Creation?  No…it is because those who find themselves standing beneath the Tree of Life, enjoying its fruit in the very presence of its Creator, our Creator, are those who have already exercised the gift of Free Will and have surrendered their lives and their wills, freely, in allegiance to God…the choice has already been made…and those in relationship with God find themselves in His very presence, seeing Him face to face, will find our only desire, because of the amazing and overwhelming love being poured out from the throne, is to offer our entire lives worshipping God.  We will find God’s name upon our foreheads, as God has claims us as His own.  There will be no night, no more darkness, no uncertainty or need to fear…there will be no sickness, no pain, no sorrow, no death…only the joy of being in the presence of the Eternal and True Light, not just of the world, but of all Creation, the Risen Christ.

So what do we do until that day comes…what do we do until we experience the coming together of Heaven and Earth…what do we do while we wait for the Risen Christ to return…what do we do as we continue to live between the trees?  We live as those who are already living under the Tree of Life.  Filled with the fruit of the Spirit, we become the leaves of the Tree, offered for the healing of the nations.  We look for and offer glimpses of the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God, in the world.  We shine the light of the Resurrected Christ into the lives of those who find themselves in the darkness.  We reach out and touch those who have been shut out by society.  We offer hope to those who are ready to give up.  We walk alongside those who are sick or are grieving.  We provide for those who are lacking.  We speak up for those who are silenced.  We embrace the outcast.  We offer shelter to the refugee.  We feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty.  We love the world as God has loved it—allowing the Risen Christ and His Kingdom to be seen through us, and welcome others into this journey between the trees.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.