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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