Our readings today are all about the ‘new.’ Our second reading, from St. John’s Book of Revelation, speaks of “a new heaven and a new earth,” “a new Jerusalem,” and a voice from heaven that declares, “behold I make all things new.”
Our Gospel, too, speaks of the new, as St. John records Jesus speaking to His Apostles on the night of the Last Supper: “I give you a new commandment,” He says, “Love one another.”
So there are lots of ‘new’ things in tonight’s readings. And, if you think about it, we are constantly searching and longing for the new thing, aren’t we? For one, we can’t wait for the end of the school year and for the newness of whatever we’ll be doing when classes and tests are over. Or we can’t wait to graduate, to move on to new experiences and new opportunities.
And we absolutely have to have the latest, hottest piece of technology or style of clothing. Of course, our advertising culture plays upon this longing for the ‘new’ and constantly tries to tempt us with promises of things being ‘new and improved.’
But sadly, more often than not, once we have that new thing, or once we’ve arrived at the new place we thought we wanted to be, we quickly become anxious once again for the next ‘new thing.’ We’re rarely satisfied with where we are, or what we have, here and now.
So then, what’s so special about the ‘new’ things proclaimed in tonight’s readings?
How are they any different, and why should we feel differently about them?
Well, first, we have to understand some of the symbolic imagery found in St. John’s Book of Revelation. St. John records that he sees a vision of a city – a holy city, a New Jerusalem – coming down from heaven . . . and it is prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. So the complimentary images we must understand are the City of God, and the Bride of Christ.
Unless you’re from New York, as I am, most people don’t think of cities today the way the Israelites did. Today when most people think of cities they think of traffic and pollution and crime – or maybe, just maybe, on a good day they think of the good things a city offers, like the symphony, or great restaurants.
But for the faithful Jew of Jesus’ time, and even of today, the city was so much more: it was the House of the Lord, His dwelling place among His people and proof of His love and protection. The Psalms are simply packed with references to the Holy City – and in Psalm 48 the Psalmist goes so far as to tell the reader: “Go to the city of Zion, walk all around it, count its towers, review its ramparts, that you may tell the next generation that such is our God.”
The city, in its strength and beauty, is itself an image of God, of God’s holy people, and of God’s constant dwelling in the midst of His people.
But that’s not all. In John’s vision, the new heavenly Jerusalem that comes down from God is not only a city, it is a bride beautifully adorned to greet her husband.
As members of the Church, the Body of Christ, we are not only citizens of this holy city – we are also the spouse of Christ. The intimacy and love that marks the relationship between a husband and a wife, marks the relationship between Christ the Bridegroom, and His bride, the Church.
So you and I are Christ’s beloved – and just as the Israelites knew that God dwelt in the Temple at the heart of Jerusalem, so too we know that “God’s dwelling is with the human race;” that He dwells in the Temple of our bodies, in our hearts and in our minds. That’s how intimately our God dwells with us, here and now.
I think that’s what makes the new things promised in today’s readings so much different from the other material new things we long for, and ultimately find to be so unsatisfying. The restlessness that marks our culture’s constant scramble for the newest and latest is ultimately an inability to be comfortable with the here and now which is always where God – the great I AM – comes to meet us.
We have an inability to sit in silence, and in poverty, waiting for God to fill us. We seem incapable, or unwilling to realize that our identity is not found in things, but in the fact that we are the beloved spouse of God, and citizens of His eternal city.
Brothers and sisters, we must realize that the vision St. John records is not just a vision of some distant future from the end of time. It is a statement about how things are for us even here and now, in the light of Christ’s Resurrection.
How can we come to this realization? How can we live our life in the newness that never fades? The answer is found in tonight’s Gospel, in the new commandment Christ gives his Apostles.
Like every city, the new holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem needs a law to govern it. And the law of the holy city is the new commandment . . . the law of love: “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”
Of course it could be no other way. Just as self-sacrificing love marks Jesus’ relationship to the Church, and marks the relationship between a husband and wife, so too self-sacrificing love must mark the relationship we all share as citizens of the New Jerusalem.
And just as a bride and groom are joined in a love that reproduces itself and thus creates even more new life, so too, the spousal relationship between Christ and the Church brings to new birth those born again in Baptism. And so we disciples go out and spread the good news of this city, and others become citizens with us, and the glory of the city spreads.
Friends, the paradoxical truth that we must constantly be reminded of, is that in order to experience the newness and fullness of life, we must imitate Christ in laying ourselves down in love. All these other ‘new things’ we chase after fail to satisfy precisely because they are about us, and our egos, and our comfort.
It’s when we put all those other things aside – it’s when we love others selflessly, that we discover our citizenship in the new and eternal Jerusalem, and find joy in the God who has made all things new.
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