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I will be at work for two more weeks,
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and so I will not say goodbye yet.
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Thank you Deborah, for those kind words.
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As our ship approached the sun-baked isle of Patmos,
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the scene was charged with the air of expectancy.
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We would see the place where a man named John
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wrote the most unusual book in the New Testament.
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The contrast of ancient Greek Orthodox monastery,
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contemporary church and world somewhat distorted our view.
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We were surrounded by an assortment of people.
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Tourists on holiday, scholars and pastors
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on study or religious pilgrimages,
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and a beautiful TV evangelist from Texas
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with her entourage who profaned the holy places
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with their glaring camera lights,
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and her smooth, easy comments.
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Yet even for the early church,
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it was a time of contrast between the old and the new,
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between believers and non-believers,
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between the political intrigues and loyalties,
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among the Roman government, the Jewish authority,
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and the ever-growing church who was hammering out
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its mission and message, and differing theologies.
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The writer in his solitary confinement
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on that remote prison island seemed to have let
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his imagination run away to the margins of sanity.
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Or was it that coupled with his deep Christian conviction,
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his literary and religious genius gave birth
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to the most awesome of revelations
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concerning the mysteries of God's kingdom,
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of what had been, what was, and what was to come.
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Was it the intensity of the light of the sun
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reflecting on the blue Aegean Sea
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that played mind tricks on his thinking,
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which formed his visionary shapes, and nightmarish images?
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Was it partly illusory hopefulness
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that stirred John to write as he did?
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Or was it sheer madness, as some have concluded,
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stating that his writings make little or no sense at all.
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Even some of the greats in church history
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failed to value what is there.
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Luther states, "My spirit cannot accommodate
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"itself to this book."
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And Jerome admits that the book
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has as many secrets as it has words.
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In a place like Duke Chapel, or in most Protestant churches,
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we find it hard to appreciate a book
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with references to a horned, seven-headed dragon,
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and creatures covered with eyes.
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Were it not for a few good scholars,
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and the fact that the new heaven and new Earth language
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seems appropriate for graduation,
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and for this politically uneasy time,
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I would not have attempted
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to preach on a text from Revelation.
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Politics and religion had put John where he was,
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separating him from his Christian friends,
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who were under siege by the powers
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of the Roman state, and civil religion.
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The colliding of church and state
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can be dangerous, even deadly.
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Paul the Apostle on more than one occasion
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was thrown into prison because of his strong conviction
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that Christ was the God who met him
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on a lonely road one day, and to whom
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he thereafter gave his complete allegiance.
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The early church father, Athanasius, five times was hounded
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into exile by three different emperors.
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Augustine as a pastor found himself
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in the midst of the chaotic breakup of Roman order,
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and following the charge that Christianity
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had set the strength of Rome, he wrote a defense
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of Christianity called, "City of God."
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Joan of Arc, after her conversion,
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plunged into the 15th century
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French political religious arena,
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and at the early age of 20, died a martyr's death.
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Bonhoeffer, before he was executed, at the age of 39,
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led a fugitive existence in Nazi Germany.
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Bishop Romero battled with the El Salvadorian government
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and the church hierarchy for reforms which would
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save his people from cruel persecution and death,
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and ended up one day riddled by an assassin's bullets.
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Virtually unknown, American missionaries
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named Becky McKinley, David Jean Dickman, and Ann Neal
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made a place among the people of Yemen, Gaza, Nigeria,
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and Zimbabwe, often being caught in the crossfire
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of political revolution, religious conflict,
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and church reform.
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Without these, and countless other men and women,
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we would be far less able to understand our faith,
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and our life, and our role in the ongoing saga
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of the Christian church.
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The task of these, and any of us who are brave enough
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to do so, was and is to
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demonstrate a gospel which orders
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a new heaven and a new Earth in the chaos of evil.
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Sin, defeat, suffering, persecution,
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and politics are thrust into our worlds
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over against the realities of God and Christ,
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holiness and healing, heaven and hell,
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victory and judgment, beginning and ending.
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Recently there have appeared in our newspapers and journals,
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articles about the disintegration of our society.
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Corruption in politics, loss of values,
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and the low morale which has swept across our land.
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Hear the voices of the people.
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We're experiencing a floating anxiety,
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a nameless, shapeless dread.
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Washington shares the disgust with Washington.
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We have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy.
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Our writers and artists help us see our pain,
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and our defeat, our heaven, our Earth, our hell.
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Gail Godwin, one of our current Southern novelists,
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shows us a picture of the state of things.
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In "Father Melancholy's Daughter",
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Margaret, a senior at the University of Virginia,
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is described as being absent of all energy and desire.
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Unable to go back to her studies to her final exams,
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to puzzle out a few more pages of Chaucer,
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she ponders. The man who had written it had perished,
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so had Shakespeare, and Thomas Jefferson, and Jesus,
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yet she continues, these great ones had perished,
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and the sun went on rising and setting without them.
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And the current crop of living bodies
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shuffled through the shopping malls of their lives,
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coveting, and spending, and wasting,
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and always wanting more.
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The more powerful and greedy among them
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tearing down whole mountains, and causing landslides
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and traffic jams because they wanted more.
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More, more.
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"What good was it to try to do anything?" she said.
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Christ had died to prove that his kingdom was not
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of this world, and the world had taken him at his word.
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The hopeful pictures from our text of the new heaven
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coming down to Earth, of the new creation,
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of the old passing away, of the ministry of reconciliation
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given to us are not visions of a fanatic
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or a madman.
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The message here is true.
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God's salvific power will be in our future,
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and is in our present.
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The new Earth mentioned here is one we all long for.
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A world of no more human brutalities,
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a world of no more miscarriages of justice,
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a world of no more war in the Middle East,
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in Ireland, in Eastern Europe.
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A world of no more riots in Los Angeles, or Atlanta.
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A world of no more hatred, cruelty, and murderers.
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A world of no more greed,
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of no more bloated stomachs of starving children,
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of no more paralyzing and debilitating drugs,
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of no more separation from the saving power of God.
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A renewed Earth, a renewed heaven,
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renewed cities, the reality of God with us.
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How is that accomplished?
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In this life we enter heaven
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not by escaping what we don't like,
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but by the sanctification of a place
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in which God has placed us.
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Heaven is formed out of our dirty streets,
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our murderous alleys, our adulterous and embattled bedrooms,
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our corrupt courts, our greedy politicians,
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our ruthless managers and CEOs,
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our lukewarm and divided churches.
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Christ's blood makes it possible.
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Our blood makes it possible.
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In a recent book, Dominique Lapierre
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tells a remarkable story, recently made into a movie.
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It's a true story taking place in a wretched,
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overcrowded slum in Calcutta, called the "City of Joy".
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This place is a microcosm of the worst
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and the best in all cities.
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Dispossessed persons from city and countryside,
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undesirables, the mentally and physically ill,
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criminals grinding what little life there is
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out of desperate people by their thievery and manipulation.
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Yet in the midst of all of the filth, the murder,
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and corruption, something eternal is happening.
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The new heaven is breaking in to renew the Earth.
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A small number of doctors, priests, pastors,
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and nurses have come to live among the sea of humanity.
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A community of love, in that most unhabitable place,
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has been and is being formed.
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The response to this story two years
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in the writing has been overwhelming.
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Mr. Lapierre writes that one day as he was leaving
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his apartment in Paris, the doorbell rang,
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and standing at the door was an old woman with a travel bag
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who said, "I've just arrived buy train from Toulouse."
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"I've come to write my will
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"in favor of your heroes of light."
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The vision of John breaks the barriers of time.
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It speaks a word of hope to all people in all times.
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It's message has to do not only with God's eternal kingdom
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in the great beyond, it has to do with a renewed Earth.
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In a slum in Calcutta, a ghetto in New York,
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a gangland in Los Angeles,
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a decaying inner city in Durham.
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Thank God for visionaries.
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For writers, for prophets, for artists,
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for old women who support our heroes of light.
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Thank God for churches, whose musicians,
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organs, stringed instruments, soloists, and choirs
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stir our spirits to the grand and glorious things
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which God has spoken through a man named John,
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through a savior named Jesus.
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The riddle of the present, over against eternity,
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is the deepest of all the riddles of time.
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Every moment reaches into the eternal.
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Eternity is part of the air we breathe.
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It breaks powerfully into our consciousness,
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and gives us a certainty that God is alive,
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that resurrection is real, that Christ's blood
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and our blood, shed for the world, makes all the difference.
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Within history, we live in an ambiguous world.
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The forces of evil spread their nets
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to enslave and to entrap us, but there are time warps,
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where redemption and hope light up a city,
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light up a despairing heart.
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There is transformation in our time and space world,
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when members of our graduating class go out into the world
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with impossible dreams that become realities.
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When politicians care enough to risk losing votes
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and party favor to offer moral leadership
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for the task of building a new future
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for our nation and world.
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When churches preach and live the gospel.
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The new heaven and the new Earth
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is a vision where there is no vision,
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but people perish.
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The new heaven and the new Earth
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is also a reality.
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Thanks be to God.
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(organ music)
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(audience members singing softly)
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The Lord be with you.
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And also with you.
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Let us pray.
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Oh God, we come before you this morning
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with hearts full of hope and longing,
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for a new heaven and a new Earth.
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The theme of life for so many of us
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has been fear of the future.
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Fear that we would be inadequate to the demands.
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Fear of ill health, loss of independence, or death.
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Fear that there will be no place for us.
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Fear that we will not have enough.
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Fear that the mess that we've created
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has stolen our children's future.
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Fear of a world spinning out of control
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with corruption, violence, and greed.
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Truly we have been in the grips of a floating anxiety,
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overwhelmed with the pain and suffering we see in the world,
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but not sure how to handle even our own
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pain and suffering, much less that of others.
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God of the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,
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remind us that no part of our past, our present,
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or our future is separate from you.
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You break into our lives to sanctify them.
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You call us into the future that you have
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envisioned for us, by transforming our present.
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There is no need to fear the future
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when we live with the sure knowledge that you are with us.
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Give us the courage, oh God, to follow the example
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your disciples have set in every age, of faithful living.
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Give us the faith to believe in the transforming power
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of your love and grace, manifested in the lives
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of committed men and women.
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Give us the vision of a new Earth invaded by your heaven,
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where all places become cities of joy.
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A world where the unhappy, discouraged, ill clad, ill fed,
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thirsty and desperate multitudes
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will have their hunger satisfied, their tears wiped away,
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their thirst quenched, and their longings fulfilled.
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Give us the compassion, the will,
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and the grace to work for such a world.
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Remind us Lord, that in reaching out to others in love,
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we too are transformed by love, and we become
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new persons who have been touched by the divine.
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Remind us that we do not reach out alone,
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that you work through us as we open ourselves to your power,
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and that you fill us and those we serve with living waters.
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It is in your power and your love
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that we hope for a new heaven and a new Earth.
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In the name of Jesus Christ,
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who made the eternal visible among us, amen.