I<\/em>\u00a0saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,<\/em><\/p>\n „See, the home of God is among mortals. Almost always at funerals I like read the opening verses of John 14, which follow right on the heels of this morning\u2019s gospel. Today we heard Jesus saying, \u201cWhere I am going you cannot come,\u201d but then immediately in John 14 he will say that he goes to prepare a place for us in his Father\u2019s house, a house with many rooms. Often, of course, we speak of death as \u201cgoing home.\u201d It is a comforting image, and an important one.<\/p>\n And yet it is equally important to realize that for us being \u201chome with Christ\u201d is not merely a future promise. In today\u2019s passage from Revelation, there are these words: \u201cAnd I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, \u2018See, the home of God is among mortals.\u2019\u201d I\u2019d like to think with you for a few minutes about what it means that the home of God is among mortals\u2014that is to say, among you and me. God makes his home with us, God dwells with us\u2014not just in heaven, not just in some future state, but now, today, here\u2014God makes his home with us.<\/p>\n What is home?<\/strong><\/p>\n One of Robert Frost\u2019s most beloved poems is \u201cThe Death of the Hired Man.\u201d It tells the rather lengthy story of Warren and Mary, a farm couple, and Silas, their longtime hired man. Some months ago, Silas left the farm where he had worked for so many years. Times were tough, and he thought Warren didn\u2019t pay him enough. Warren told him at the time that if he left, he would not be welcomed back. But now Silas has returned, and it is obvious that he is very seriously ill. Silas has one brother to whom he is not close, and he has not had his own home really since childhood. Now, weak and tired, he returns to Warren and Mary\u2019s farm, really the only home he knows\u2014returns, as it turns out, to die.<\/p>\n Warren and Mary sit quietly that evening by lamplight and reflect on what it means that their house is this hired man\u2019s home. Warren mocks the idea that their home is the hired man\u2019s home. \u201cYes,\u201d Mary muses. \u201cWhat else but home?<\/p>\n It all depends on what you mean by home.<\/p>\n Of course he\u2019s nothing to us, any more<\/p>\n Than was the hound that came a stranger to us<\/p>\n Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.\u201d<\/p>\n Warren replies,<\/p>\n \u201cHome is the place where, when you have to go there,<\/p>\n They have to take you in.\u201d<\/p>\n And Mary:<\/p>\n \u201cI should have called it<\/p>\n Something you somehow haven\u2019t to deserve.\u201d [https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/44261\/the-death-of-the-hired-man]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Their definitions are haunting. \u201cHome is the place where, when you have to go there\/ They have to take you in.\u201d It is a rather troubling phrase, isn\u2019t it?\u2014full of obligation and duty\u2014and yet we know just what Warren means. Sociologists tell us that in these difficult times, more and more adult children who have left home have come back to live with their parents for economic reasons. A recent study showed that some 30% of college graduates in 2021 moved back home because they just couldn\u2019t make it on their own. Of course, the pandemic had something to do with this, but the percentage of young adults returning home to live has been rising consistently over the past several years. Home has always been the place of last resort, the place the prodigal comes when all the money is gone and he can\u2019t stand the pigs anymore.<\/p>\n There are people who think of God in that way. God is the last resort! When everything fails, we can depend on God; when we have to go to God, he has to take us in. It\u2019s his duty!<\/p>\n The home God makes with us<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, it isn\u2019t really like that at all! The home that God makes with us\u2014well, it\u2019s more like the joyous and wonderful home of a newly married couple. That\u2019s in our text too, you know. \u201cI saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.\u201d Oh, the excitement and thrill of newlyweds moving into their first home, making their first home with one another! What a sense of delight! That\u2019s<\/em> what it\u2019s like to be at home with God, to have God dwelling with you! God delights in us! It is as Luther\u2019s Small Catechism <\/em>says so eloquently: Christ has done all this for me so that I may be his own! He has chosen me! He has chosen to dwell with me!<\/p>\n One of my favorite Garrison Keillor stories is called \u201cThe Storm Home.\u201d It seems that Mr. Detman, principal of Lake Wobegon High School, was terrified of what might happen if one of those Minnesota blizzards struck during school hours, and all the country children were stranded in town. So he set up a system of \u201cstorm homes\u201d\u2014people who lived in town who, in the event of a serious storm, might give shelter to children who could not make it to their own home in safety.\u00a0 In Keillor\u2019s story, his storm home was that of Mr. and Mrs. Kloeckl. He didn\u2019t know them, indeed he never met them, because during his school years the storms were always conveniently on weekends or during vacations. But each day he would pass by that house, his storm home, and he would fantasize about what it would be like to be there. He imagined \u201cthat the Kloeckls had personally chosen [him] as their storm child because they liked [him]. \u2018Him!\u2019 they had told Mr. Detman. \u2018In the event of a blizzard, we want that boy\u2014the skinny one, with the thick glasses.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBlizzards aren\u2019t the only storms,\u201d Keillor writes, \u201cand not the worst by any means. . . . If the worst should come, I could go to the Kloeckls\u2019. \u2018Hello,\u2019 I\u2019d say, \u2018I\u2019m your storm child.\u2019 \u2018Oh, I know,\u2019 she\u2019d say. \u2018I was wondering when you\u2019d come. Oh, it\u2019s good to see you. How would you like a hot chocolate and an oatmeal cookie? . . . We\u2019re so glad to have you! Carl! Come down and see who\u2019s here!\u2019 \u2018The storm child?\u2019 \u2018Yes, himself, in the flesh.\u2019\u201d [Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days<\/em> (Viking, 1985), 248-249]<\/p>\n Welcomed and embraced<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cBlizzards aren\u2019t the only storms, and not the worst by any means.\u201d You know that from your own life! But there is a home, you see, where you are welcomed and embraced and loved, because you have been chosen by Christ to live with him, to be at home with him. \u201cSee, the home of God is with you!\u201d<\/p>\n And so Warren has it all wrong when he suggests that \u201chome is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.\u201d Our home is with Christ\u2014and he doesn\u2019t have<\/em> to take you in, he longs<\/em> to take you, longs<\/em> to have you with him. He delights<\/em> in you!<\/p>\n Mary replies to Warren: \u201cI should have called home\/Something you somehow haven\u2019t to deserve.\u201d Now that\u2019s more like it. \u201cSomething you somehow haven\u2019t to deserve.\u201d Again a phrase from the Small Catechism<\/em> comes to mind: \u201cAll this [God] does out of fatherly and divine goodness and mercy, though I do not deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps you\u2019ve heard the story of the Yankee traveler, who stopped for breakfast in a North Carolina town. He ordered bacon and eggs, but along with it came this strange white substance he didn\u2019t recognized. \u201cWaitress,\u201d he said, \u201cI didn\u2019t order this.\u201d \u201cHoney,\u201d she said, \u201cthat\u2019s grits. You don\u2019t order grits, they just come.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHome is something you somehow haven\u2019t to deserve.\u201d It just comes. It is grace<\/em>\u2014the grace of home, the gift of welcome. You haven\u2019t to deserve it, it is just there, lovingly there for you.<\/p>\n See, the home of God is among you. He will dwell with you as your God. You will be his own. God himself will be with you. He will wipe every tear from your eye. <\/em>Such a promise! Such a God! Such a home!<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Pastor Richard Johnson<\/p>\n Webster, NY<\/p>\n roj@nccn.net<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Easter 5 | 15.05.2022 | Revelation 21.1-6 | Richard Johnson | I\u00a0saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,157,108,110,565,3,109,285],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-7997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-offenbarung","category-beitragende","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-21-chapter-21-offenbarung","category-nt","category-predigten","category-richard-o-johnson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7997"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8000,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997\/revisions\/8000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7997"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=7997"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=7997"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=7997"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=7997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHe will dwell with them as their God;
\nthey will be his peoples,
\nand God himself will be with them;
\nhe will wipe every tear from their eyes.
\nDeath will be no more;
\nmourning and crying and pain will be no more,
\nfor the first things have passed away.“<\/em><\/p>\nAnd the one who was seated on the throne said, „See, I am making all things new.“ Also he said, „Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.“ Then he said to me, „It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.“ <\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(Revelation 21.1-6)<\/h3>\n