Coming Love
June 1, 2025, Communion
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
“A janitor would wait patiently each week for a group of seminarians to finish their basketball game. While he waited, he would study his Bible. One day, as the seminarians were leaving the gym, they noticed the janitor carefully reading the text in his lap. One young man asked which biblical book was the subject of the janitor’s study. The old man answered, ‘The Book of Revelation.’ The ballplayer was surprised and asked the janitor if he understood the complicated book. ‘Oh, yes!’ the man answered. ‘I understand it. It means that Jesus is gonna win!’
And that is a most accurate analysis of the Book of Revelation!” (Sermons.com, Michael P. Green). Listen now to assorted verses from the final chapter of Revelation, the closing words of Scripture.
READ Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
12 “See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches.
I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
The one who testifies to these things says,
“Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!
“A couple decided to let their five-year-old son record the message for their home answering machine. The rehearsals went smoothly: Mommy and Daddy can’t come to the phone right now. If you’ll leave your name, number, and a brief message, they’ll get back to you as soon as possible.’
Then came the test. Mom pressed the record button, and her son said sweetly, ‘Mommy and Daddy can’t come to the phone right now. If you’ll leave your name, number, and a brief message, they’ll get back to you as soon as Jesus comes’ (Sermons.com John G. McFayden).
Jesus is coming. Jesus said, “Surely I am coming soon.” The Spirit and the Church say come. And yet we have been waiting a long time for Jesus to return. We might be tired of waiting and unsure if it will really happen. But today we just read Jesus final prayer for his disciples from the gospel and the final words of scripture and what I want to focus on is God’s coming love.
Most mornings I hear the children in the playground as the parents continue to drop their kids off at the Little Learners preschool. One of the lovely parts of having my window facing the parking lot is that I get to hear the many sweet parting words. A mom with warmth in her voice and a smile in her eyes saying “I love you” to her daughter. Or a dad, calling out, “Love you, I’ll see you later.” Or “Have a good day, I love you. Mom will pick you up soon.” When we part from someone we love, we often share our love with them and promise when we will see them again. Jesus’ words are really a closing prayer, first for his disciples, and then also for us. We, you and me, are the ones who believe because of the disciple’s words. For centuries because people have shared their faith, Jesus is still praying for us. “Jesus is praying like a mother who has adopted these children. They belonged to God, but God gave them to Jesus to care for, to teach, to nurture. Soon Jesus will go away, (he will be crucified) and he prays for these children with the love of a motherly heart” (Working Preacher, Barbara Lundblad).
And what is Jesus’ prayer for us? Unity and love.
Unity in Jesus’ prayer is expressed by the word “one” which he says 4 times. Yet it goes even deeper than that. Jesus says, “As you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, may they (meaning disciples, past and present) also be in us.” Our unity is bound up in each other and in the holy connection shared between Father and Son.
I love this image of God and Jesus in each one of us!
God and Jesus in you, in you, in you, and in me.
It offers comfort and strength and holy connection.
Yet we don’t always embrace this unity, rather focusing on the holy otherness of God. But let us remember “Jesus, prayed for his beloved, adopted children on the last night of his life. He prayed that (we) would be one, even as Jesus and his Father are one” (Working Preacher, Barbara Lundblad). We “become completely one” (23) so that the world will know God’s love, first God’s love of Jesus and then God’s love for us.
“The mystery of the incarnation is that God desired unity with us so much that God became one of us. And in that moment, we were drawn into the oneness of God, the Creator/Father/Mother, the Son, and the Spirit” (Working Preacher, Lucy Lind Hogan). God’s love that prevailed at the foundation of the world is made real, in the Word becoming flesh, in the divine person of Jesus becoming human. One commentator writes, “Jesus says that the purpose of all he has asked for is this: that all disciples of all time may be one in the specific sense in which Jesus and the Father are one, the mutual indwelling of love that has defined that relationship not only in the life of Jesus but also in the oneness of God and the creative Word from before the foundation of the world… The oneness of the Father and Jesus is synonymous with love, and what the world is to see in our display of that oneness is the love of God…. Our love for God and one another becomes then an offering in and for the world to experience the love through which all creation has come into being” (Working Preacher, Meda Stamper).
That oneness and love is expressed in Revelation. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, just like God declared “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (Rev. 1:8). Once that love and unity is established, the love between God and Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the bride,
meaning the Church, we are the bride,
The Spirit and the bride say Come!
The Spirit of God and the magnitude of God’s community invite us to Come!
Everyone who hears, Come!
Everyone who is thirsty Come!
Everyone Come! (table)
Jesus declares, “Surely I am coming soon” (20). Then John affirms this and proclaims,
“Come, Lord Jesus!” The bible ends with this last sentence, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.”
Yet “Revelation ends with a final surprise if you look at the footnote. Is grace declared to ‘all the saints’ (NRSV text), or ‘to all’ (NRSV footnote).
The shorter reading is probably the more original. Later scribes apparently found such grace problematically broad and so tried to limit it to the church. However, grace ‘to all’ is a fitting final declaration for this book: God reaches out not just to the church, but to all the world, graciously beckoning all into the New Jerusalem. Everything that John has seen and shown, in the end, is God’s grace. In this book, as in all our lives, God’s grace is both beginning (1:4) and ending (22:21)” (Working Preacher, Brian Peterson).
“Ben Kingsley starred as the main character in the motion picture, Gandhi. He spent months preparing for the role, visiting the various Indian locales Gandhi had frequented. He even learned to spin cotton thread on a wooden wheel while holding conversations as Gandhi did. The physical resemblance between Gandhi and Kingsley was almost startling. After filming a scene in a village south of Delhi, Kingsley stepped out of a car, and an elderly peasant knelt to touch his feet. Embarrassed, Kingsley explained that he was merely an actor playing Gandhi.
‘We know,’ replied the villager, ‘but through you he will surely live again.’
Let me ask you, ‘Does the Son of God live again through us?’” (Sermons.com, Billy D. Strayhorn).
Can the world see God and Jesus living inside of us? That’s Jesus’ prayer for us. That the world will see Christ in us; through our unity and through our love.
Today we will experience unity, love and grace through the Lord’s Supper. We taste community as we break bread together, united in this sacred meal. We know God’s love for us as we recall Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. And we breath in God’s grace as we know in our bones that we are forgiven.
We often call this meal a heavenly foretaste of our life with Jesus. This foretaste is really a humble and holy reminder that Jesus is coming. God’s love is real in Jesus and continues to come to us. And not just us, the ones sitting in the church, but to all. “The oneness Jesus asks for here among those who believe in him is not an exclusive club, but an invitation to the world—an invitation as open, loving, joyful, and fruitful as we can allow ourselves to be” (Working Preacher, Meda Stamper). That’s how Jesus wins. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with all! Amen.
