In the year 1483 in the city of Nuremberg, the leaders of the renowned Saint Lawrence Church were seeking to redesign their altar, and above the table where the priests presided over the eucharist, they wanted new art installed above the prestigious Krell altar. What they decided on took everyone by surprise. It was a decision that was audacious, it was subversive, it was prophetic, and in a way, deeply Biblical.
They didn’t hang a portrait of Christ’s crucifixion, or of the ascended Christ in glory, or Christ in the garden like my church’s altar piece, or the feeding of the five thousand, or a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus, or any scene found anywhere in all of Scripture, but instead, what they put above the altar was a portrait of the city of Nuremberg itself.
A picture of their city on an ordinary day nestled into the surrounding hills, with shops, and houses huddled together, and rising up out of the midst of the city, two spires of the Saint Lawrence Church pointing toward heaven. In the heart of this landscape, a city; in the heart of the city, a church; in the heart of the church, an altar; and over that altar, hung this picture of their very city.
Hanging in what was arguably the most extraordinary, exceptional, holy setting in all of Nuremberg — above the altar — was the most ordinary, familiar, earthly sight. And that was the point. There at the altar, where heaven and earth kissed in the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood, hung this painting to remind the people of Nuremberg that their earthly city was to be concerned with the business of heaven.
As the lectionary readings from the Book of Common Prayer have been showing us throughout Advent, our primary attention is not focused on looking back on the coming of Christ as the enfleshed God as an infant, but forward to reflect on the coming of Christ at the end of the ages when he comes to judge the living and the dead.
One such Advent reading that goes even further is from Isaiah 65; pointing us to the furthest horizon conceivable, beyond even the judgment that comes at the end of the ages; it point us to the actual renewal of the entire cosmos. “For behold,” Isaiah writes, “I create a new heavens and a new earth.”
As the Krell altar was seeking to highlight in the 15th century, the union between heaven and earth is to be the church’s ultimate vision and hope; the heavenly city of God resurrects the cities of men. And it is only to the extent that we actually have a vision for that heavenly city that we can rightly do our work here on earth in our cities. If we do not know what heaven is like, we cannot imitate it on earth.
This vision here in Isaiah of the new heavens and the new earth is the true blueprint of where everything is headed. And as people of Advent, what we are waiting for, above all else, is not escape from this world but God’s promise to us of his renewal of this world. The hope of Jesus Christ isn’t about somewhere else; it’s about right here, on this planet that God created and called good all those years ago, that has been ruined by the fall, that has been subject to death and decay; this creation God will one day make perfectly new again.
Imagine seeing the city of Seattle, the city where I currently minister, held over an altar, not as a sign that we believe all is well, or that we agree with everything in our city, but as a sign that we believe heaven will one day colonize this city. For those of us who keep a close eye on this city, it probably sounds bitterly ironic to imagine this city colonized by heaven while it feels as if the powers of hell are the real occupants. But if we are to be faithful to our calling here as Advent people, we need this vision from Isaiah. Now, the discerning reader may note immediately the implication of this vision and ask the question, “should we not then hang an art piece of our national landscape? The US Captiol? The White House? The American Flag? If we are to be consistent, shouldn’t we apply this heaven-colonizing-the-city vision to the national level?”
Political theology cuts its teeth on these kinds of questions and they are important questions to wrestle with, but it is beyond the scope of this piece to seek to provide an adequate anwer; I am merely seeking to stimulate the imagination.
Bishop Leslie Newbigin was once asked, as he looked to the future, whether he was an optimist or pessimist. And his reply was simple and characteristic. “I am”, he said, “neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!” You and I are to believe that what has been done for Jesus in his resurrection, God will do for the whole cosmos. And this is Isaiah’s vision. Here we see in Isaiah 65, Isaiah summoned into the presence of God to hear the divine counsel and to bring a vision to people who had lost vision. And we see this description of life that goes far beyond anything that the world has ever seen: no death, no crying, no toilsome labor, no fighting, all creatures living in perfect harmony, simply because God is dwelling with man.
And this vision, while so far from anything we can imagine, it invites us, the believing reader, to yearn for the fulfillment of this vision and to pray as we are taught, may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is heaven. The church in St. Lawrence, that portrait of their city above their altar, it exhibited a deeply Biblical vision. And it’s that sort of a vision Isaiah is pointing out to us.
But let’s interrogate some of the dysfunctional visions that occupy many of our imaginations right now. In contrast to Isaiah’s vision, what occupies most of Western Christianity are two visions that on the surface look radically opposed to each other but in reality are very similar.
The first vision is what has been seen as evacuation theology. This vision sees the world as going to hell in hand basket, so we give up on it. We hold our breath, we tribalize and bed down, and we wait to escape. We live with an evacuation theology where we are waiting to eject this miserable place and move onto our heavenly home. And underneath this vision is actually a form of religious nihilism.
What begins with skepticism and then leads to cynicism ultimately leads to nihilism. This is much of orthodox Christianity in the West today due to how fast the West is changing. What was once maligned as a fundamentalist vision has been revived in surprising corners. The temptation of this “old fundamentalist spirit” is that the Gospel is the good news that one day we get to leave behind this miserable place. And thus Jesus gets reduced to merely a human vile of blood that we if accept, he is our ticket to heaven. Functionally, we wait it out while consuming the goods of this world, rail against its problems, comfortably ignore confronting them, and just count day until judgment day. This is the first vision and it’s anemic because it’s gnostic and it’s nihilistic.
The other vision, equally as anemic, sees the world just as ruined and in need of repair but it lives with an overrealized optimism about what we can accomplish for this earth. Whereas the first vision is deeply cynical and nihilistic about the material world, this vision sees the solution to the worlds ruin and misery not as needing to be resurrected from the dead, but as just needing more human effort. And here lies the anemia; it’s an over confidence in what we can accomplish.
Whether that be a form of Christian nationalism on the far right or Christian socialism on the far left, this vision marries the church to the state, collapsing the eternal kingdom into the temporal kingdom. In accepting the responsibility for ruining the world, it also assumes we can also save the world.
But as John the Baptist said in our Gospel reading on the third Sunday of Advent, “I am not the Messiah, I am just a voice crying in the wilderness.” This vision fails to see that we too are simply voices crying in the wilderness. The solution for renewal comes not by pointing to ourselves, not by pointing to earthly solutions or leaders, but by pointing to the Messiah who was crucified by this world, whose Spirit currently hovers over this world, and whose resurrection is proof that death and decay will ultimately work in reverse.
The vision that Isaiah is given is both too earthly for the first vision and too heavenly for the second vision. And this is why Isaiah’s vision begins like a second creation narrative. So radical is this transformation that Isaiah refers to it as a creating of new heavens and a new earth. This language is not to suggest that God throws away the old and begins with something entirely new, but it is to suggest that God will take the old and remake it to be like new.
Think of remodeling an old car or an old house. When you finish working on something old, what you are looking at is not entirely new, but it is like new. God loves the stuff of his creation, he called it good, and for this reason he wants to keep it and renew it. And this means we are going to see both continuity and discontinuity.
There will be continuity with this world and the world to come which means we should celebrate the goodness of this life. God’s benediction is not just pronounced on the world of the future, it is pronounced on the world now. But this continuity also means that for those of us who have experienced incredible loss in this life, those who have missed out on opportunities in this life, this vision says, we will get back what was lost.
As our appointed Psalm from Psalm 126 reminds us, God will restore our fortunes. Dreams will come true. We will laugh so loud at divine reparations in the new heavens and new earth, that we will think to ourselves, “I didn’t even know this loss was taken notice of.”
But there will also be discontinuity as well. There are things we never want back. And this is the promise of the new heavens and new earth too. The former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. All of our faithlessness; all of our failures; all the pain we received and even inflicted; all of the heart ache, we will not be able to bring them into our consciousness. The tears we sowed on earth will reap joy in heaven so intensively and extensively that we will not even remember the tears we sowed on earth.
So what do we do with this kind of vision?
Well again, we do well to remember that the hope of Jesus isn’t about somewhere else; it’s about right here. Our eschatology is to shape our ethics. So, two implications.
First implication is we need rest. This vision here in Isaiah actually shows us that we don’t have to get it all done now, fit it all in now, do it all now. Too many of my millennial generation have capitulated to a YOLO life — “you only live once” and a FOMO life — “fear of missing out”, and you can see it in the way we think about our homes, our vacationing, our time, our jobs, our religious habits; it’s as if, if we don’t get to do it all now, we are being robbed. But don’t you see Isaiah’s vision? There we are just getting started! And there — there is no sin, no curse, no crying, no death, it’s just endless culture making and enjoyment of God in it all.
How do you know if you are really taken with this vision from Isaiah? If you really understand the hope of Christianity, you will rest. “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest”, Jesus says. You cannot bring heaven to this earth, that burden is impossible for you. That is Jesus’ burden alone. There is a reason Jesus says, “seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and then all these things will be added to you.” To rest is not merely to cease doing stuff, but it is to accept our limitations in this life, not as fate, not as bad luck, but as God’s gift to us to learn to wait, to trust, and to long and yearn for what is really real.
The second implication is how we think of our work. This vision here in Isaiah actually shows us something about our work. Notice all the language about working in this passage. When Isaiah sees the future, he sees us building and farming and eating and drinking and bursting with joy. But let’s admit it, this is a far cry from how a lot of us think about the future. Most people I know see the future in heaven as nothing more than leisure. A combination of eternal church service and eternal vacation.
But notice the seamless integration of worship and work, labor and rest, rebuiding and living in cities, planting and reeping, eating and drinking with no scarcity. We will be doing the stuff we have always done but it won’t be toilsome. The ground won’t fight back. Our bodies won’t fail. The system won’t crush us. St. John says in Revelation 14 that our deeds will follow us into the new heavens and new earth. The word “deeds” there that John uses can also be translated as work. Thus, we could say our work will follow us.
This vision is calling us to see that right now we are just seeing the tiniest tip of the iceberg of what you will one day get to do. Here in this life, we are not just making money to pay bills, or to get the stuff we want, or even just learn the skills of character, but we’re learning the skills of a craft. A craft that will one day be following us into the new heavens and new earth. A craft that will be the actual place where we are delighted in by God and where we delight in God. A craft, if you can believe it, that will actually be more relevant in the new heavens and new earth than it is today.
So we see in this vision, it gives us a particular vision of rest and of work. Of this age and the age to come. Of loss in this life and gain in the life to come. But as we began, this vision brings us back to the city and the altar.
Here at the altar, at the Lords’s table, the meal we share every week, it is just as central to our mission in this city as it is to our worship now. And how so?
Here at the table, we ascend by the Spirit to feast on Christ in the city of God, we receive his body and blood, new wine and new food, forgiveness and grace, new life, new vision, hope restored. But from this table, we descend in mission to the city of man, and we are to share these gifts to the world.
Here at the table, we ascend to fulfill the greatest commandment, to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength, but from this table in mission we are to descend to love our neighbors as ourselves, looking across our own tables, socially distanced of course, and we are to love them with Christ’s self-giving love.
Here at the table, we ascend to the Lord’s Holy Mountain to commune with YHWH, to delight in the one who is our true joy, who is our peace, but we are to descend from this table in mission and we are called to carry the joy and peace of the Heavenly Jerusalem back into the earthly city of Seattle.
As people of Advent, we do all of this — our worship and mission — in waiting. Waiting between the altar and the city, and so we say in this time, “Come quickly Lord, Jesus.”
Casey Bedell is rector and church-planter of Saint Ambrose Anglican Church in Seattle, WA.