Revelation 21.1-6 and Psalm 148   

On this Fifth Sunday of Easter, as we follow the Lectionary, we continue in our celebration of the resurrection and today, in our Epistle Reading from Revelation 21, we are presented with the awesome truth that we will spend eternity, not in some disembodied spiritual state in heaven, but in physically resurrected bodies in a restored physical earth.  John tells us that he saw a “New Heaven” and a “New Earth.”  Furthermore, he saw the “New Jerusalem,” that is the church, the bride of Christ, coming down out of heaven to live on this New Earth.  The biblical teaching on the resurrection is that Jesus rose, literally, physically, materially from the grave.  The biblical teaching on the resurrection is that those who die in Christ will rise, literally, physically, materially from the grave.  The biblical teaching on the resurrection is that God’s people will live, in a literal, physical, material world-the New Heaven and Earth.  This is good news in the face of the realities of this present life in which there is death, mourning, crying and pain.  This is message of hope in the midst of adversity, not only for the first readers of the epistle of Revelation, for every believer down through the centuries, and for us today.