The Tree Of Life Regained

By: Paul DeVries

Scripture Reading: Revelation 21:1-15

December 20th, 2009

They will see his face! What a line; what a dream! "They will reign forever and ever"! Again, what a line; what a dream! These are my two favorite lines in this passage. I love the line about seeing the face of God because it is Christmastime. We see the face of God when we look at the babe in the manger. If we are paying attention this Christmas, we will see the face of God—even in the midst of all the hubbub of Christmas busyness. We see Jesus, the Christ child, our Savior and Messiah, born in Bethlehem this Christmas. How exciting to see the face of God! Moreover, the idea of reigning forever and ever also reminds me of Christmas. After all, Handel’s Messiah has the wonderful "Halleluiah" chorus that we often hear at Christmastime. I can hear the voices of the choir singing those powerful words, "forever, and ever, and ever ….He will reign forever and ever…" And now, in our text today, we read the words that we will be a part of that "forever and ever" as we see God’s face. We could use some "forever" in this world, couldn’t we? We need to see God’s face, don’t we? I think we do. Perhaps especially at Christmastime I think we do. Even with all the beautiful sights and wonderful sounds of Christmas—even with the all the tinsel and lights—God’s face is often missing and the word forever rings hollow. We pastors are especially busy around Christmastime, and not just with special holiday services and programs. We are often busy with those who are depressed during the holidays. We are busy with those who are missing loved ones, with those who are unemployed, with those who have far less under the tree and in the home this year than last. We are also busy with those who have forgotten or simply don’t care about the birth of Jesus Christ—the real reason for the season. Yes, it would be good to see God’s face and to experience his everlasting presence. The simple truth is that when I look in the mirror I don’t see the face of God. I look at my neighborhood and the world, and I usually don’t see the face of God. Even at Christmastime, bad news continues. Brokenness, wars, crime, deaths and difficulties go on, unabated by the Christmas holiday. There seems to be very little "forever and ever" in the air, and way too much death. Instead, of seeing God’s face, the ugly face of death, sin and despair sticks out even in the midst of the Hallelujah Choruses of Christmastime. Even Christmastime can seem like a very dark time. What we sometimes forget—what I sometimes forget—when I read a wonderful passage like Revelation 22 and hear the beautiful lines about seeing God’s face a reigning forever and ever, is that those beautiful lines where first written in the midst of great darkness. Think for a moment of John who wrote this letter that we call the book of Revelation. Think also of the recipients who first read or heard the letter. John was very old when he wrote the letter. Death would be coming soon. He was a political prisoner, exiled to the Island of Patmos by a hostile and repressive government because of his Christian faith. John was one of the original 12 disciples. He had seen the face God in the person of Jesus, but not now. It had been years since Jesus had left the earth. Where was the face of God now in John’s life?—he was in exile! The original recipients of John’s letter really don’t have it any better. They too were living in the midst of constant threat of the hostile Roman government and populace. So they had all sorts of external pressures and fears. It was a dark time. But they also had internal problems as well. We specifically know that seven key churches who received this letter were filled with difficult issues and weakness. John describes them in the early pages of his letter. The churches were beset with sexual sin and unfaithfulness to the truth of God’s word. They had forsaken their first love. John warns that they will suffer—even to the point of death. He refers to them as lukewarm people who have soiled their clothes. At one point he says they are like dead people who are in danger of hell fire. In another verse, John, speaking in the Lord’s voice, even says that the children will be struck dead if there is not repentance. John warns that the light of Christ—the lamp stand that represents the churches of Jesus in the world—will go out if they do not repent. There was a lot of darkness in those churches. Clearly, the external pressures and internal sin and weakness of the recipients of John’s letter are overwhelming. I suspect that the face of God seemed pretty far away to many of John’s original readers. They were in the dark. In the midst of ancient brokenness and in the midst of our own struggles and darkness today, we face the question about seeing the face of God. Can we really see it? Is all this talk about "forever and ever" all just a fantasy? Has the light already gone out? Are we simply living in too much darkness? Well, I think it is preciously because God himself knows how hard it is for both his ancient people and his people today to see his face that he gives us this vision in Revelation 21. God himself plants this powerful image before the eyes of John and before our eyes today preciously so that we can come out of our darkness and draw some comfort and hope in the midst of our struggles. The vision that we are given is pretty clear in our text. It begins with the image of a river and a street and a tree. The river is the river of life flowing from the great throne room of God. Remember Jesus said, "I am the Living Water." The river of life flows forth from the presence of God himself giving life to all those who are near it. And many people are able to be near it because the river flows right down the center of the main boulevard in the new, heavenly Jerusalem. It is a wide, central street located in the renewed holy and heavenly city of Jerusalem which, along with the river is connected directly to the very throne room of God. And then there is the tree—but not just any tree, notice, but the tree of life. This is same tree that once was located in the Garden of Eden, which once was removed from humanity’s presence because of sin. We have not been given an image of this same tree since the first sin of Adam and Eve. But now the tree of life reappears in the new heaven and earth, in the New Jerusalem, available to all of God’s redeemed people. The picture that John paints of this tree is a picture of a huge tree, so expansive that it is on both sides of the river at once. Perhaps its roots or trunk provide a sort of tunnel through which the river runs. But however you picture it in your mind, the point is that everyone has access to the same tree. It doesn’t matter what side of the river or street you are on, you can reach the tree. The tree is for all those in the new heaven and earth. But hold on just a moment. The image is not yet complete. There’s more. The Tree of Life bears fruit during every season! In fact, it bears fruit all twelve months of the year. And not only that—it bears 12 different types of fruit! Do you see what this means?! It means that there is always fruit on this tree, ripe for the picking, ready to eat and to be satisfied with. But the power of the image just keeps getting better! Not only does the fruit satisfy, 12 months out of the year—but the leaves too are effective for the healing of the nations. People of every nation, tribe and tongue—all those gathered in the new heaven and earth——shall have access to this tree and to its fruit and to its healing leaves. So please make sure that you understand this powerful image. What the Lord, speaking through John, is saying to us today is that we can have direct access to the healing life of God through of the Tree of Life. The tree that was once forbidden—sealed behind a gate and guarded by an angel with a flaming sword back in Adam and Eve’s day, is now available to all those who are God’s people. No longer are we barred from it. Moreover the text tells us that there will no longer be a curse nor any darkness. All of humanity has dwelt under the curse of sin and the darkness of evil since the time of Adam and Eve’s first sin. But now, the tree of life, the river flowing from God’s throne and the wide boulevard of the New Jerusalem all point us toward the face of God and his eternal life. What a powerful image this is! If your Christmas is a bit gloomy, this is just the sort of positive image that you need, don’t you think? But is it real and is it for us? In other words, who is there—who gets to live in the reality of this image? Well, the text tells us that the tree of life is on both sides of the river, the leaves give healing to the nations, the road is a wide boulevard. Everything speaks of accessibility, but who gets into the city. Who can see God’s face? Who gets to live forever and ever? In fact, perhaps you are not even asking these questions any more. Maybe as you look around at all the lights and excitement of Christmas you dismiss it all as just so much dreaming. Christians and other religious saps may talk about this idea of paradise or heaven or Nirvana—of angels singing, shepherds believing, Wiseman visiting—and all of that stuff, but none of that sounds very real to you. And if, by chance, any of it is real, you’re not sure that you could ever meet the standards that are required. So, maybe you’ve decided to just get the most out of the world’s Christmas celebration and forget about the whole idea of ever seeing God’s face, of ever reaching eternal life. Isn’t John just dreaming here in Revelation. None of it is real, is it? Perhaps the best way to approach these questions is to remember how it was that John got to see God’s face. Remember that John had seen God’s face regularly throughout Jesus’ life on earth. John was probably the closest disciple to Jesus. He is often identified simply as the disciple that Jesus loved. But now he is exiled. It has been decades since he has seen God’s face. Likewise, the churches to which John writes have increasingly been persecuted and are filled with internal sins and weaknesses. How is God going to reach them in the midst of all of this? Well, notice verse one of our text. "Then the angel showed me …" is how verse one begins. This reminds us that everything John is seeing is being showed to him in a vision by an angel God has sent to him. This is not just some manmade dream that John has, it is a vision—a revelation—right from God! John sees God face because God reveals it to him. Now, let’s follow the logic here. Many of us do not see God’s face and we are not sure that we will reign forever and ever preciously because we are trying to see the future on our own. That is, we think the future is up to us. Therefore, if the darkness is closing around us this Christmas we try to create some way out of that darkness from within ourselves. Perhaps that will work for a little while, but sooner or later our own light will start to give way and we will find ourselves right back in the darkness unable to see God’s face or anyone else’s. I remember as a teenager being in the depth of one of the caves of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky. The park ranger, who was giving us a guided tour of just a small portion of this mammoth underground system of caverns and caves, suddenly turned out all the lights in the cave. It was pitch black. I literally could not see the hand in front of my face. Perhaps you have been out on a dark night, far away from the lights of home or any neighbors home, far away from any city or community, and you have felt such total darkness. It is overwhelming isn’t it? My point is simply this, neither John and the churches of his day, nor I and the churches of my day can ever hope to find the Tree of Life in the midst of the total darkness, brokenness, and sin of our lives. Our only hope is to have the light of God’s revelation in our lives to show us the way. And so, look at the final part of the image in our text for today. John writes, "They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever." Notice: God gives the light. It is this light to which John points us in his vision. God himself, through the writings of the Apostle John is lighting up the cavern of human history and our own individual histories. He is showing us where he wants to bring the world and us individually if only we are willing and ready to believe in him. All throughout Scripture God is at work to bring us back to the Tree of Life that we lost in the sin of the Garden of Eden. Remember the Biblical history with me, the history that we have been looking at these last couple of weeks in my messages. First, the Tree of Life is lost when Adam and Eve and all of Humanity is forever barred from the Garden of Eden because of sin. Then, as we saw in the book of Isaiah, God promises to bring forth of new shoot from the stump of our human brokenness and sin. "A Shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse," God promises. We know that shoot to be Jesus Christ whose birth we celebrate this season. Then, as we saw last week in the book of Romans, God grafts us into the tree of Life through our faith in Jesus Christ. Do you see where God has brought us? He has not only brought the tree of life back to us, he has made us a part of it in Jesus Christ. That’s the vision that John sees. So the question for us this Christmas is not if the vision is real—it is real because it is from God—it is real because all of us who are honest must admit that we have only darkness in ourselves—so the question is: are we going to be a part of the John’s vision. As you will notice in the text John makes it clear that only a certain type of individual is a part of his vision. In verse 3 he says that it is the servants of God who are a part of the vision. In verse 4 he says that they, namely the servants, will see his face. In verse 5 he makes clear that the light is for the servants, and it is the servants who reign forever and ever. So the question is, are you a servant of God? There is only one qualification for being a servant: giving your life to your master. Have you given your life to Jesus—to the tree of life, to the living water? The tree of life has been regained for us by God. He offers it to us, are you ready to take from the Tree and live? Let’s pray together, right now, asking God to make us his servants in Jesus Christ, asking God for the fruit from his tree of life.
Prayer

Pray with me. Dear Heavenly Father, Some of us are in great darkness today; all of us by ourselves are in darkness. We know we need your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ; we know we need that tree of life, and so God, make us your servants. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask for your forgiveness and wholeness, we ask for your light. Bring us the healing of Jesus Christ, so that we can see your face and reign with you forever and ever. This is our prayer, Lord. In Jesus name, amen.

About the Author

Paul DeVries

Rev. Paul DeVries, most commonly referred to as “Pastor Paul”, is the Sr. Pastor of Brookside Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is married to Diane (nee Vanden Akker) and the father of four children. He graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary in 1989 and served for 12 years as the pastor of Unity Christian Reformed Church in Prospect Park, New Jersey. As a pastor his first love and greatest joy comes in the honor of bringing God’‘s Word to his congregation on a weekly basis through his preaching. He enjoys reading, camping with his family, watching his children’‘s sporting events, and working on home improvement projects - inside and outside his home.

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