Easter 5C (Revelation 21:1-6)

Last Sunday we spoke of heaven, and today, once again, the vision returns—carried to us through the words of the Book of Revelation.​
St. John writes: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth... I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”

As we listen to his vision, it’s easy—almost inevitable—to imagine a distant, shining place, set somewhere beyond our reach. It sounds like something out there, somewhere else, waiting for us.
I can’t help but think of Plato’s Idea—the true reality, the perfect world beyond this one, where shadows fall short and nothing here is ever quite enough.
And so, quietly, Dissatisfaction creeps in: the sense that this place is never enough, that we are trapped in a cave of lesser things, forever longing for a sky beyond our reach.

But again and again, our faith insists otherwise.
Christian hope is not a hope for another world alone—it is a hope for this one, made new.
In this season of Easter, we remember: the scandal of resurrection is not absence, but presence disguised in absence.
Christ stands in the garden—and his friends do not recognize him.
He walks on the road to Emmaus—and they do not see.
He appears in the locked room—and yet their hearts are slow.
Resurrection is not what we expect; it never was.
Without new eyes, even angels will ask us, as they asked at the empty tomb,
"Why do you seek the living among the dead?"

So, let’s be even bolder:
St. John’s vision is not a map to somewhere else.
It is a call to see, here and now, a new heaven, a new earth, a new city descending into this life.
But to see it, we must first lose the eyes we have.

Like Paul on the Damascus road, we must let the old vision fall away, like scales slipping from our sight.
We close our eyes in stillness, so that when they open again, they are new.
Through silent prayer, through the slow work of contemplation, we let the mind settle, the waters clear.
Only then, as the noise quiets, can we begin to see: both the mind itself and the world shimmering through it.

This seeing, this change, is not sudden.
It is not a blaze of light, but the steady turning of a seed in the soil.
And here I must thank Amy A., who reminds us: change is not a leap but a growth.
Deeper, wider, unfolding in ways we do not always notice, but which, in time, remake the heart.

In this way, St. John’s vision becomes not a promise for later, but a horizon we walk toward now.
As we grow, as we open our eyes, as we love and labor and pray,
we hear even now the voice from the throne saying:
"See, I am making all things new."