Tag: chiastic structure

Begin With The End In Mind, Revelation 21:1-8 (Easter 5 Year C)

Revelation 21:1-8

Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Begin with the end in mind’? A novelist may have a beginning point and also know the end of the story but then has to work out how to get the characters from that beginning point to the end. We do something similar when planning a journey. Our sat-nav knows where we are, and we enter the place where we want to end up. It would be ludicrous just to set out on our travels with a vague hope that we will arrive at somewhere good. We begin with the end in mind.

But do we apply the same principle to the life of faith? I believe we should. A good, clear, healthy vision of the end of all things will guide us as we wonder how to live now.

And the book of Revelation does something like that for its readers. While I don’t believe it was written only to be decoded in our day with details that correspond to our world political situation, it does give a vision of the end that enables its readers to live faithfully now. I accept the common theory that Revelation was written for persecuted Christians, perhaps in the late first century. As they struggled to know how to live as Christians when under pressure and facing suffering, Revelation gave them a vision of the end, which enabled them to calibrate their lives right where they were.

We may not live our lives of faith in Jesus under the same level of stress that they did, but we too need to live with the end in mind. If we don’t, our lives will drift aimlessly, like heading out on that journey with no idea where we’re going.

Our passage today tells us about the end in verses 1 to 5 and then shows how we live with the end in mind in verses 6 to 8. So first of all we’re going to think about the end, and only then secondly are we going to think about how we begin.

Firstly, then, the end:

What is the end that we are to have in mind? As I said, it is described in verses 1 to 5, and to understand it I want us to think about a sandwich[1]. A sandwich has bread on the outside, top and bottom. Then just inside that, we have the butter on each slice of bread. Finally, in the middle, we have the filling.

Verses 1 to 5 are like that. The bread on the outside are the statements about things being made new. So on the top we have the new heaven and the new earth in verse 1 and on the bottom, we have God saying that he is making everything new in verse 5.

This bread of newness is buttered with the ‘No longer’ statements. The top slice is buttered with the statement at the end of verse 1 that ‘there was no longer any sea’ and the bottom slice is buttered with verse 4, where we hear

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

What, then, is the tasty filling? It is that God and his people will dwell together in the holy city, the New Jerusalem, as found in verses 2 to 3.

The making of all things new, eventually leading to the renewal of the entire heavens and the earth, began with the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and that’s why it’s appropriate to read this passage in the Easter season. When God raised Jesus from the dead, while he was recognisable, his resurrection body clearly had new powers, as we see from the times when he suddenly appears and disappears before the disciples. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul tells us the resurrection body will be animated by the Holy Spirit.

We, then, are anticipating living in a new creation where everything is recognisable but has new powers and does not decay.

The butter on the bread is the ‘no longer’ statements, which show that in this new creation, suffering will be ended. Imagine you are a persecuted Christian in the first century and you hear that in the world to come ‘there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain’ – all the things you have gone through as either you have been tortured or your friends and loved ones have suffered and even been killed at the hands of the authorities.

And add to that the mysterious – to us – vision that ‘there was no longer any sea’ in verse 1. I suspect this alludes to the fact that the sea was a place of terror for ancient people, and that also earlier in Revelation one of the evil beasts had arisen from the sea. So if there is no longer any sea it’s not that H2O has been abolished: it is that in the new creation, not only is suffering gone, but the cause of suffering is no more. Evil will no longer have its way.

So at the end we have all creation renewed. It is identifiable but now no longer subject to decay but exhibiting new power at animated by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, suffering and all that causes it has been given its marching orders.

But it gets better. Because the filling in the sandwich, the very centre and heart is the fact that we will dwell together with God. This is what everything is leading up to: creation – including us – is remade, suffering and its causes are banished, all so that the redeemed can live with God with no handicap. Such will be the new creation that, as Augustine of Hippo, the great thinker who inspired the new Pope, put it, everything will mediate the presence of God.

That is the great vision Revelation 21 gives us. That is the end. It is the end we keep in mind when we begin to live the Christian life now.

So secondly, let’s turn to the way we begin:

For now, by the vision we can see that both creation and new creation are accomplished. As God looked on his initial creation and said it was good or it was very good, so he has looked on his new creation and said, ‘It is done.’ (verse 6)

Now, we have a choice in the way we begin our journey with the end of the new creation, drained of evil but filled with the presence of God in mind.

God offers us the free gift of the water of life if we are thirsty (verse 6). Biblically, the water of life is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Our thirst will only truly be quenched by the Spirit of God. It is the Holy Spirit who leads us on in the direction of the end. I mentioned Augustine of Hippo earlier, and one of his prayers puts it neatly:

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work may be holy.
Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, to love what is holy.[2]

The way to get on the route from wherever we are beginning to God’s great end is to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, and to all the Spirit wants to do in our lives. Paul says in Galatians we are to ‘walk by the Spirit’, the Spirit leads us on the journey from where we are now to the destination God has for us in the new creation and in his presence. The Spirit prepares us for such an existence, purifying our motives and transforming our lives, making us more into people who will be in harmony with God’s new creation where suffering and evil are gone.

To set ourselves on this route from our starting place to the end is what will make us ‘victorious’ in the word of verse 7. In other words, we will not bow down to the evil forces of this world that seek to get us to deny our faith in Jesus and our allegiance to him. The Spirit of God is offered to us so that we may persevere in following Jesus. Or to put it another way, when my least favourite Christmas carol ‘Away in a manger’ ends with the words ‘And fit us for heaven to live with thee there,’ the way God fits us for our destiny is by the work of the Holy Spirit.

The other choice is to reject all this and say, actually, Lord, I don’t want to live in your beautiful new creation where evil has had its marching orders and we live close to you in your presence. For those who choose the lifestyles described in verse 8 – ‘the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars’ – are by their very lifestyle saying no to God’s new creation. These are examples of practices that will be extinguished there. Hence, there is nothing harsh and vindictive about the fate of the depraved being ‘the fiery lake of burning sulphur’ (verse 8). It is ‘the second death’ and this is the natural consequence of choosing against the beautiful end God has planned, designed, and promised.

That probably isn’t most or even all of us. But the tricky challenge we face is that sometimes we want the beautiful destination God has for us but we’d like to compromise – everything in moderation as it were, even sin. We can do a bit of cowardice, not always confessing our faith. We can be unbelieving if there are parts of the faith that don’t suit us. We can make concessions to the sexual standards of society. Magic arts? Well, I certainly think of those Christians who read their horoscopes. I see idolatry in the devotion of some Christians to Donald Trump or to the acquisition of wealth.

Some of us want it both ways, but Jesus doesn’t allow us that option.

Don’t get me wrong, I know we are all far from perfect, not least me. But there is a difference between on the one hand setting our sights on the presence of God in his new creation but slipping up from time to time, and on the other hand wanting to hoover up the blessings of God while not wanting to change our lives out of gratitude for all he has done for us.

So as we approach Ascension and then Pentecost, when God pours out his Spirit through the ascended Jesus, let us examine ourselves. Are we imperfect followers of Jesus who desire the ways of God as well as the blessings of God? Or do we simply want to have our cake and eat it?

Pentecost will be an ideal time to avail ourselves of the living water, the Holy Spirit, so that we can indeed live with the end in mind.

[1] This is my version of Ian Paul’s description of the chiastic structure of verses 1 to 5 in his TNTC on Revelation, p338f.

[2] Lectio 365 morning prayer, 16h May 2025, adapted and modernised from https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/saints-prayers/holy-spirit-prayer-of-saint-augustine

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Jesus Is Alive: The Sweet Centre Of Easter, Luke 24:13-35 (Easter 2, Low Sunday)

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/luke-24-13-35-the-resurrection-is-at-the-centre/278456462

(Please see the PowerPoint at the link above: for some reason WordPress wouldn’t let me embed it in the usual way.)

Luke 24:13-35

The Greek letter chi looks like our ‘x’ but the ‘ch’ takes the sound as if it were Scottish – so ‘loch, not ‘lock, as in places like the silver sands of Loch Morar, where I proposed to my wife.

And the letter chi with its ‘x’ shape gives name to a literary structure. We speak of some narratives having a ‘chiastic structure.’ This means that instead of the themes simply being linear, with one theme following the next, they are more ‘x’ shaped. The first theme is repeated at the end, the second theme is repeated one from the end, and so on until you find out what’s at the centre of the story. Put another way, the story proceeds from the beginning to the middle, but then the themes come again in reverse.

The famous story of the walk to Emmaus that we have just read is ‘chiastic’ or ‘x-shaped’. Let me show you how.

A1 Journey from Jerusalem (vv 14-15)
            B1 Jesus appears, but unable to recognise him (v 16)
                        C1 Interaction (vv 17-18)
                                    D1 Summary of ‘the things’ (vv 19-21)
                                                E1 Empty tomb and vision (vv 22-23a)
                                                            F Jesus is alive (v 23b)
                                                E2 Empty tomb but no vision (v 24)
                                    D2 Interpretation of ‘the things’ (vv 25-27)
                        C2 Interaction (vv 28-30)
            B2 Able to recognise Jesus,  but he disappears (vv 31-32)
A2 Journey back to Jerusalem (vv 33-35)[1]

At the centre – like the sweet soft centre of a chocolate – is the fact that Jesus is alive.

And what does this central theme, that Jesus is alive, tell us about the surrounding layers in the story?

Firstly, it transforms the journey:

I am showing an image on the screen of two people on a journey and if you look closely you’ll see they are a man and a woman. There is an ancient tradition that the companion of Cleopas was his wife. And that was one reason why the Anglican rector friend of mine who preached at our wedding chose this passage for his sermon that day.

But whether they are husband and wife or simply two fellow disciples, it’s striking to contrast their two journeys: the one from Jerusalem, and the one back there. Either way, they are clearly two of the disciples who have dismissed the testimony of the women who went to the tomb early that morning and who came back with that fantastic story that it was empty, but they had met two angels who told them that Jesus was alive.

What does this indicate?

Dismissal of the women’s witness points to a fissure in the company of disciples, just as the departures of these two persons from Jerusalem marks the beginnings of the drift away from high hopes and the community of discipleship.[2]

In other words, they are not just walking away from Jerusalem, they are walking away from faith in Jesus and the band of disciples. The disappointment and the collapse of their hopes is leading to the disintegration of their faith. Note how they say about Jesus, ‘we had hoped’ (verse 21).

How many people find that disappointment with God leads to the crushing of their hopes and the dissolving of their faith? Sometimes, of course, their hopes were wrong and naïve, they had almost a ‘Father Christmas’ concept of God, where if one particular prayer was not answered then that was the end.

Sometimes they had not grasped that to be a Christian and walk the way of the Cross was going to mean that you embraced disappointment on the way, because not everything was ever going to go right in this life, even with belief in a loving God. They have been taught badly by the church. We have far too often sugar-coated the cost of discipleship.

And sometimes it’s more complicated than any of this. It can be a long, slow build-up of things.

Yet Cleopas and his companion at the end of the story return to Jerusalem with a very different vibe. Full of hope and excitement, and having invited the stranger into their house because it’s late and about to get dark, they have no compunction in going out in the dark to return to the disciples. At normal walking pace, we’re talking two and a half hours to get back, and this at night, and when they’ve not long that day already completed the same distance the other way. What has transformed them is that Jesus is alive.

It is still what transforms people. To know Jesus is alive means that this world doesn’t end in despair, because God is making all things new. It means that hate doesn’t win in the end, but love. It means that what we do isn’t worthless but has eternal value.

We can argue and debate with people who don’t share our faith and there’s a place for that, because our faith makes truth claims, but in the end for someone to follow Jesus they need to experience the living Jesus revealing himself to them. So with those we are praying for to find faith, let us pray that the living, risen Jesus will make himself known to them.

Secondly, the fact that Jesus is alive transforms the hospitality:

I want you to picture me as a young Local Preacher. A little taller. More hair, and none of it grey. Much skinnier. I have come to preach on this passage at Eastertide one year, and my eyes have landed on verse 30:

 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.

Ah, I think, Jesus does the same four things with the bread here that he does at the Last Supper: he takes it, gives thanks, breaks it, and gives it to people. Surely in this episode Luke is preparing his readers to experience the risen Jesus at Holy Communion. And that’s what I preach. And that’s what many others have preached. Perhaps you’ve heard sermons on this passage where the preacher has said this.

But it ain’t necessarily so. Only later was I to learn that those four actions – taking, giving thanks, breaking, and giving – were what devout Jews did at every meal. If Luke’s language recalls any other part of his Gospel here, it’s more likely the feeding of the five thousand in chapter 9, which also acts as a revelation of Jesus[3].

The big thing here in Jesus performing those four actions is that he was invited into Cleopas’ home as a guest, but he doesn’t behave as a guest. He behaves as the host. The bread is his, for ultimately he created it. The home is his, for ultimately he as Creator is behind it. And the disciples are most certainly his, too.

And remember how central and almost sacred to Middle Eastern culture the act of hospitality is. Even today, you will be invited into homes if you mingle with the ordinary people rather than stay on your coach tour. They bring it with them to other countries, as I found out when in the last circuit the clothes bank one of my churches ran often served Syrian refugees. One man, profoundly deaf, always wanted to invite me to his flat, and told me I could turn up any time and he and his wife would feed me.

The story tells us that we invite the risen Jesus right into the centre of our lives, our homes, but that we cannot confine him to the guest room. He will take over. He has come to be in charge of our homes and our lives. It’s like the old gag that Jesus is a capitalist – he only believes in takeover bids.

Since Jesus is alive, we can welcome him into our lives. Let us do all we can to make sure he feels at home with us.

Thirdly and finally, the fact that Jesus is alive transforms the Scriptures:

One thing that comes up time and again in the Gospels and especially Luke at this time is about how you handle the Scriptures. Sometimes Christians, and especially Protestants, are prone to lifting proof-texts out from here and there to make a case for whatever it is we want to advocate. This has been called ‘Bible bingo’. I think of the story about the man who wondered what to do next in his life, so he opened up his Bible with his eyes closed and pointed his finger at a verse. It said, ‘Judas went out and hanged himself.’ Perturbed by this thought, he repeated the exercise, only to alight on the verse, ‘Go thou and do likewise.’

Cleopas and his companion evidently had their traditional Jewish way of doing so. It wasn’t quite like that, for the rabbis had developed particular ways of interpreting the holy texts. But it’s evident that by failing to take account of Jesus and his mission they had missed God’s revelation. As Joel Green puts it:

What has happened with Jesus can be understood only in light of the Scriptures, yet the Scriptures themselves can be understood only in light of what happened with Jesus. … And before the disciples will be able to recognise the risen Lord … they must grasp especially the nexus between suffering and messiahship.[4]

And so the fact that Jesus is alive now informs how we listen for what God is saying in Holy Scripture. As well as reading individual passages in their immediate context, we read everything in the light of God’s great story that comes to a climax in Jesus.

Therefore, when we read the Bible, we ask ourselves, where does this episode fit in God’s great story of salvation that leads to the Resurrection and the New Creation? What does it mean to read this, knowing that Jesus is alive?

To give a couple of quick examples from those difficult Old Testament laws: we no longer have to worry about the ritual laws prescribed for Temple worship, because Jesus has fulfilled everything to do with the Temple in his own body. He is the true Temple. Other laws may still hold, although we shall still need to interpret and apply them carefully.

And we don’t jump into making capital punishment such a widespread sentence as the Old Testament does, because it is given at a time when God had not yet revealed the Resurrection and life after death. We are free to come up with other punishments and leave open the possibility of repentance and faith before death, even for the worst of criminals.

Jesus, of course, reinterprets marriage in the light of eternal life, as I explained in my Holy Week meditations.

There is so much more to say here, but no time to do so. It is the Scriptures that give us the framework for understanding the suffering Messiah who was raised from the dead, but equally it is the risen Lord whose resurrection points to the climax of the chronicles of God, and we interpret the Bible in that light.

Conclusion

The truth that Jesus is alive is at the centre of the Emmaus Road story. It transforms the two disciples’ journeys, their hospitality, and their reading of the Scriptures.

But isn’t it also true that the presence of the risen Lord transforms everything? Is it not the case that every day we can ask what light the presence of the risen Jesus shines on whatever we are encountering?

[1] Adapted from Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT), p842.

[2] Op. cit., p844.

[3] Op. cit., p843.

[4] Op. cit., p844.

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