Acts 16:9-15; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; John 14:23-29

The Reverend Paul D. Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, May 9, 2010

This is that time of year when the trees begin to resurrect. In the fall we watch them lose their leaves and through the winter they stand bare and desolate. But the trees are not dead, they only appear dead. It’s a simple thing but it always fascinates and surprises me. Driving along the roads I watch how much the trees are sprouting. The more they come out the more hopeful I get. Pretty soon I will be spending evenings sitting in my back yard.

 The Church in her wisdom makes this the season of Easter. The time of year when all that seemed lost and dead comes alive. It was never really lost we just thought that it was.

How many times in our lives do we lose our leaves and think that its all over? How many times do we get into situations and lose all hope? This Eastertide we are taught, again, that this is not how our lives will be when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. God in Christ will always surprise us and do something new. In fact, it is in those very times of suffering loss and confusion, anxiety and depression, that we can bet that God is up to something.

In the Gospel today, Jesus tells us that he is going to the Father, that is, he is about to be arrested, tortured and executed. He tells us not to be troubled by all of this but rejoice. Our job is not to explain all the things that happen along the way but to keep his word. And how do we keep his word? We keep loving. We keep loving no matter what. And when we do that God and Christ will come and make their home with us.

Then we will be sent a Counselor in Christ’s name. The Spirit will be sent to us to teach all things. The Spirit is always there available to us. When we get into those terrible times we need to remember to call upon the Spirit. We call upon the Spirit for the strength and wisdom to keep on loving until it all turns around.

In the Revelation we hear how St. John got to see how it was all going to turn around. John and his community were suffering under great persecution. Just like Jesus they were being arrested, tortured and executed. John was in imprisoned in exile when he received all of these glorious visions.

The Spirit carries him to a high mountain to see the holy city coming down out of heaven. In that city there is no need for a temple because the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. In other words we won’t need any institutional Churches because we will finally be the Church in our hearts and minds. We won’t need any light because everything will be light. The gates are wide open to this city but not all will come in. Not out of cruelty on the part of the Almighty and the Lamb but out of the free will of those who choose not to love; those who choose in those moments of pain and anxiety to react instead of wait upon the Lord.

There will be the river of the water of life. Along the banks of that river will be the Tree of Life bearing fruit which will keep us alive forever. We won’t have to scratch and struggle anymore. This is the Tree of Life which Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden. It wasn’t the Tree of Knowledge which got them in trouble but the one next to it that provided eternal life.

So this new Holy City is just like that Garden of Eden where we began. The place we walked away from when we refused to trust God and instead trusted in our selves.

In the Eastern Orthodox Christian Tradition the Tree of Life is seen as a prefigure of the Cross. Humanity can partake of its fruit after the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ is completed. They often portray Jesus as a “divine cluster” of grapes hanging from the Cross, the Tree of Life, that we partake of in the Holy Eucharist.

See there it is again: a symbol of what we think is death and loss turned into a sign of Life. God in Christ is counterintuitive. In the face of death and hate we live and love.

When we learn to love and to listen, to see death where others see only death, then we open ourselves to the Spirit. In the Spirit we are going to receive visions, nudges, and insights which will lead us to find healing and reconciliation. This will be our mission: to bring this healing and vision to others.

St. Paul received his vision to go to Macedonia. A man appears to him pleading for him to come to Macedonia and help the people there. Help do what? Help them find Christ in their hearts so that they can live and love instead of die and hate. Paul finds Lydia and her people. The Lord opened their hearts through the Spirit; the Spirit was  strong with Paul. She and her whole household are baptized. They plead with Paul to stay for a while. They want more teaching, more catechism, so that they can grow more and more. So that they can see in life where others see only death; so that they can learn how to love; so that they can learn how to tap into the Holy Spirit.

Just like Paul, we receive our catechism and are baptized so that we can bring others back to the Tree of Life. It’s a full circle: we foolishly walk away from the Tree of Life thinking that we know better, thinking that we know what we see. When that fails and we fall we learn how to get back to that Tree and start living and loving again.