Sixth Sunday of Easter (Rogate) Revelation 21:9-14, 21-27 May 25, 2025
There’s a term in the English language, derived from the Greek, that we never say, but that we always use. When we say things like, “All hands-on deck,” or “Many mouths to feed,” or “You hit the nail on the head,” these idiomatic phrases are also called “ekphrasis”, especially if used in some poetic or other literary settings. Ekphrasis.
What is “ekphrasis”? It’s a compound Greek word, “ek,” which means from or out of, and “phrasis” (and by the way, the English word phrase comes from phrasis) which means to express, or expression if it’s the noun form. Literally, ekphrasis means to speak out or call forth.
And so, when we have an image in our mind such as a work of art or something real, ekphrasis is the way in which we speak forth what is in our mind, but it’s done in a poetic, dramatic, perhaps even over the top sort of way.
For example, I went up to Duluth last week for a couple of days and stayed in a pristine cabin on Caribou Lake. The clouds were fastly moving, and the wind was crying loudly through the new spring trees as the once placid blue waters of the lake seemed to tremor with every howl, as if the Lord Himself was whispering from on high. The walls of the cabin moaned at every word He spoke from behind the draping clouds, hiding His presence, seen, but unseen, felt, but never touched, close, but just out of reach. Yet the voice of God, or perhaps only the wind, seemed to bring life and energy and hope and wellbeing to the once desolate and white-washed scape of sea, the snowy ground, the frozen paths onto the docile lake, where life was chilled to death, and death once more is life.
Ekphrasis. Describing a scene, putting words to something that really has no words.
And this is how John the Revelator describes the last chapter of this book – no, not the Book of Revelation, but this world, this existence, when this fallen and broken place ends and a new place comes forth.
John saw “the end,” and he attempts to describe what he saw – a picture without words – with words. Ekphrasis.
But what he saw was in “vision form,” meaning that God was revealing heavenly matters to John in a dream. What he experienced was images of reality, not reality itself. His vision was without spatial or temporal context. It was bigger than life and it was beyond the clock.
You can see John’s difficulty in his describing of the new heaven and new earth. Not only that, but John is also using this apocalyptic writing style, this genre of Jewish literature to express his vision in this hidden yet revealed way.
And here’s the problem and why so many people get twisted in knots when it comes to reading and understanding Revelation. We try so hard to impose 19th and 20th and 21st century thinking and reasoning onto a 1st century text. And we don’t just do this with Revelation; we do this with the whole bible, but Revelation stands out the most because even in the 2nd century it stood out the most.
Think about how people try to impose modern thinking and rationalism onto the Book of Genesis. They read Genesis 1 and insist that it is impossible that God created the universe in 6 literal days because modern science refutes it.
But what those who insist on such a thing are really saying is that science and reason is god over Scripture, and if over Scripture, then over God Himself, and that takes us right back to Adam and Eve and why sin entered the world in the first place.
We just can’t read Scripture, and particularly the Book of Revelation, with 21st century lenses because we will never see and discover the real lesson which God, through John, has for His people.
Here’s another example of Ekphrasis. In The Iliad, written by Homer, he describes the Shield of Achilles – it’s in book 18, if you care to look it up and read it. Well, Homer never saw, touched, held, or used the Shield of Achilles. If there even was such a shield, it was long gone before Homer came along. Even so, in his description of that shield, it is dramatic, it has depth, it has color, it has form and details and if you read his description, in his painting a detailed picture with words, it’s as if that shield was right there sitting next to him.
Similarly, John never went to heaven before he died. He wrote Revelation based upon a dream he had while on the Island of Patmos. It was a series of visions of heaven and of the two cities: Babylon and Jerusalem, evil and good, Satan and Christ; it wasn’t actually the new heaven and new earth, anymore than when Isaiah was having his vision where he stood before the throne of God, or Ezekiel when he stood in the presence of God, etc. Even Paul himself says he had a vision or an experience of the third heaven, or the realm beyond the eyes, and that what he saw was inexplicable, that it could not be put into words.
So, John, through the genre of apocalyptic style – which is important – describes the Lord’s visions given him as something that is indescribable. You get it? Ekphrasis.
But here is what is REALLY important and what ties the whole reading from Revelation together today. “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” Who IS the Bride? Throughout all Scripture, who or what is the Bride of the Lamb? It is not something or someone yet to come. The Bride of Christ is here now – the Bride of Christ is the holy Christian church. It is all believers of all time and space, gathering before our Lord in worship and prayer, to receive His Word and His Sacrament – this is the Bride.
So, what John is seeing in his vision in Revelation 21, and as he describes it using the apocalyptic symbology and numbers, is the CHURCH, not in some distant future time only, but also right now, and of course, 2,000 years ago. We, God’s people, we ARE the new Jerusalem who is coming down from heaven, wrapped in the glory of God as a rare jewel, like jasper, spotless and clear as crystal. The 12 gates of the church – the Law and the Gospel preached by the faithful messengers of the Lord, those who bring the Good News from the church to the world. The Apostles, of course, are the fulfillment of the 12 tribes of Israel, they are the foundation, the ones who were sent by the Lord to start the church.
The street of the city is pure, unblemished gold, so pure that it is as glass because the blood of Christ has washed us clean, cleaner than any detergent or bleach or machine could ever wash anything. There is no temple in the Christian church or location where everyone has to go to worship and sacrifice, because the Lamb of God has fulfilled all the old laws and ceremonies of that defunct temple.
And it is by this one true Christian church, this holy Bride of Christ that the world walks and the kings of the earth will bring their glory in. And the doors will never close because there’s no night or time where fear rules the hearts of God’s people because Satan has no power over us. And only those with penitent hearts of faith may enter this holy kingdom and may dwell here, and as for the rest, they will remain outside, in the dark, in the place of torment.
John is describing what God has given us in Christ, not some distant floating city, but the City of God even now, the Bride of the Lamb covered in His blood and made spotless by His death on the cross.
And what do we find in Revelation 22? The great invite of the Gospel: “Come,” says the Spirit and the Bride, come and eat and drink, be washed, be cleansed by the waters that run through the city and eat of the fruit that grows from the Tree of Life. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and the Gospel. The Word and the Sacraments.
And the new Jerusalem is also the final and full revealing of the church on the Last Day. We see the church today as imperfect, splintered, through a mirror dimly, but on the Last Day the Bride of Christ will be fully revealed, or as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, “we shall see face to face.”
What hope! What comfort! Especially for many Christians 2,000 years ago who suffered horribly at the hands of several evil and distorted emperors who wanted to wipe the church from existence, who would have a Christian burned at the stake for giving an awkward glance, who would disembowel a believer for praying to Jesus, who would crucify a saint because he ate the body and drank the blood of His Savior.
To be assured by the Apostle that, even in such torturous living, the Lord prevails and His church triumphs, and His people dwell richly forever in His kingdom, that even in the midst of such suffering, the Church prevails and shall stand for a thousand years, until the end comes, when suffering and pain will be no more, when Eden will finally be restored, and the Tree of Life will stand as our light and our love.
If I were to add to my soliloquy of Caribou Lake, a few sentences of closure and a positive turn to the weather, it would complete the picture, wouldn’t it? And in fact, the last chapter of Revelation, which we’ll look at next Sunday, that’s exactly what John does. He ends the Bible in the same way it began, with the tree of life in the center of it all, and a river running through it, and the Lord right there in the midst of it all, and His holy church – FOREVER – safe and secure with Him.
So I challenge you, read the Book of Revelation as it’s meant to be read, that running throughout its pages is a sure message of hope and comfort and confidence even in the midst of an ever-increasing tumultuous world where Christians are not welcome because we are not of this world.
And then, as your Lord teaches the seven churches in the first few chapters, repent and ask your Lord to help you to be separate from this world, to come out from it, because the last thing you want is to be standing with your pants down on the last day, unprepared, unready because you were too busy chasing after and enjoying the pleasures of the world, or embracing the teachings and false doctrines of the wolves who would have you seeking entrance into the gates by the wide path.
Remember your baptism where the river of the water of life was poured upon you and God marked you as His child. Flee to Him, run to Him. We have two baptisms next Sunday. What a PERFECT Sunday it will be for baptism! It’s as if John is right here pointing us to the font and saying, “See, the water of life, as it flows from the throne of God.”
One more attempt at “Ekphrasis” for you and I’ll do my best. There is a church in Nebraska, just west of Omaha on the south side of Interstate 80 and high on a hill in the midst of some bushes and trees. This sanctuary is built with nothing but timber and glass and with a subtle brick wall near the front. It’s a little bigger than our sanctuary though with higher ceilings. You can see into this church from all angles, and see the pews and the chancel and the altar.
And running through the center of the stone paver walkway to this little church is a stream of water, and the water runs effortlessly from the baptismal pool in the Narthex and down the hill. The water is always running, and it is always cool and clean, and it is a nearly perfect symbol of the water that runs from the heavenly throne. For when you look at that shallow pool of water where baptisms are done, and you glance up ever so slightly, there at the other end of the sanctuary you see the stone altar from where Holy Communion is celebrated, and right above it you see the Lamb of God on His throne, the cross of life where Jesus was given and shed for you. Amen.
