Living In God’s Embrace

John 14: 25-27 & Revelation 21: 10 & 22-26 & 22: 1-5

Roger Lynn

May 13, 2018

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In the movie “Men in Black” there is a secret government agency responsible for monitoring and regulating all of the extraterrestrial life-forms living on Earth. One of the agents has just revealed this secret to a potential recruit. In helping him reflect on the enormity of this new information, Agent K says, “1,500 years ago everyone knew the Earth was the center of the Universe. 500 years ago everyone knew the Earth was flat. 15 minutes ago you knew people were alone on this planet. Imagine what you will know tomorrow.” That is something like the ways we human beings experience God. We catch a glimpse of the edge of God’s big toe, and we think we have an understanding of who God is. We “know” that God must be like this. Then we have an insight with a little more perspective, and again we think we’ve got it all figured out. Each time we are doing the best we can with the information and experience we have available to us. Usually the problem is not that we get it wrong. We simply mistake partial understanding for complete knowledge. When we are at our best, we recognize that faith is always a matter of exploration and growing understanding. In the words of Paul, in his second letter to the church at Corinth, “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

In today’s reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus is saying goodbye to his disciples. And what he is offering them is a brighter, bolder, bigger faith when he is gone. He is not just going away. His presence with them will be replaced by the presence of the Advocate, God’s Holy Spirit, that will be with them always and forever. When I read this section of the Gospel, I hear Jesus telling them, “I need to get out of the way now, so you can begin to experience God in bigger, more comprehensive ways. As long as I’m with you, all you will see is as much of God as can be revealed in one person’s flesh and blood life. But when I’m gone, you will be able to broaden your perspective and begin to experience the God whom I have been trying to show you, the God who is always as close to you as your breathing.” 

And it within this context of experiencing God in ever fuller ways that Jesus then goes on to say, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27) It is when we are open to the ongoing presence of God in our lives that we begin to discover the peace which is always there waiting for us. This is God’s peace – shalom, healing, wholeness. It is not the peace we hear about on the news – the peace that means the absence of any major fighting in that particular moment. The peace Jesus is offering is not about the absence of something, but about the presence of God’s Spirit. It is there that we will find wholeness and fulfillment, not only for ourselves, but for the world.

Which brings us to the reading from Revelation – the vision of the new Jerusalem. This is a vision of what life can be like when we open ourselves fully and completely to the amazing presence of God. What we find is intimate relationship, abundance beyond measure, community without borders, and healing. God’s presence is all around us all of the time. And when we open the eyes of our hearts to see it, that presence lights up the world. No corner is deep enough for shadows to hide. No darkness remains to frighten or distress. Only light. Only life. The gates of the city are opened wide. The invitations have been extended. All the lights have been turned on. And everyone from everywhere gathers together to celebrate. This is no exclusive country club experience. This is God’s radical, all-inclusive, open-door policy. There is water enough for everyone, flowing down the middle of the street. And food in both abundance and variety. Even the leaves of the trees contain a soothing ointment which can be used to heal the brokenness of the world.

That’s what it means to live fully in the embrace of God’s love. Jesus points us to this reality. Revelation offers us a picture of what this reality is like. It is all around us all of the time. We have only to accept the gift and begin to unwrap it in our living. But how do we do that? How do we keep from getting trapped in our small and limited images of God? How do we keep from getting scared of life and the world and simply closing our eyes and hiding in a dark corner someplace? How do we truly open ourselves to God’s embrace that is filled with enough love to envelop the whole world? We begin by remembering that God is always bigger than what we can perceive at any given moment. No matter how full our understanding, no matter how well-thought out our theology, no matter how rich our faith, there is always more of God waiting to be experienced. And once we begin to live into the reality of a really big God, we might also begin living into an awareness that God can be trusted. The little glimpses we catch of God’s love, the small awarenesses we gain of God’s healing, the fleeting insights we experience of God’s presence, are not isolated and random. They reveal a larger pattern of God’s activity among us, of God’s brilliant light shining in our lives and our world. When we begin to watch for it we discover that it is everywhere – in the smile of a friend, in the song filled with wonder and joy, in the unexpected encounter with a stranger, in the prayers of the church. What we begin to recognize, if only slowly and falteringly, is that we are never outside of God’s embrace. We cannot be. We can only be outside of an awareness of that embrace. And when we open our eyes to it, when we really begin to live in that embrace, then there are no limits to what is possible.