Commentary on Revelation 21:1-6

Have you ever felt like starting over? Maybe you have deleted a difficult text message, telling yourself that you would try again later. Or maybe you have turned off the game because your team was down at the half. Or maybe you are tired of all the political shenanigans and find yourself looking for fresh faces. Sometimes starting over seems like a good idea.

This is exactly how the popular Left Behind series and other dispensationalist theologies have interpreted the book of Revelation—the world is a mess, and God has deemed it time to say, “Out with the old and in with the new.” Revelation, for these interpreters, graciously warns its audience, “God is starting over. Don’t get left behind!”

In our own apocalyptic times, when everything feels out of sorts and is spinning out of control, I must admit, sometimes starting over sounds like a good idea.

As my students will attest, I often stress the importance of original languages when studying biblical texts, especially for preaching. This week’s lectionary passage is no exception. I’ll make three observations.

First, drawing on modern ideas of apocalypse as the world gone up in flames, the New Revised Standard Version and other translations describe the old world as destroyed, “for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (21:1). But the verb John uses here is not the word for death or dying. It is the verb for departure or going away (aperchomai). Heaven and earth haven’t gone up in flames and they haven’t died. Heaven and earth have departed. They’ve made a break for it. They’ve cleared out.

But there is more. As the old heaven and earth depart, a new heaven and earth come down out of heaven from God. This scene from Revelation images heaven coming down to earth. Despite popular depictions of heaven, God comes to us. God chooses to join us. It isn’t the other way around. God, it seems, isn’t in the business of starting over.

Second, the repetition of a singular preposition in verse 3 is also lost in translation. The New Revised Standard Version translates the Greek preposition meta with two different English words—“among” and “with.” In so doing, the Greek loses its rhetorical effect as the repetition of the preposition creates an echo of intimacy that weaves our lives together with the divine: God is with us. God dwells with us. God will be with us. This repetition stresses that we can’t flee from God. Our lives are too intertwined.

A third feature of the text’s original language calls our attention. Again, English translations miss the nuance. The New Revised Standard Version and other translations use the English words “home” and “dwell” to translate the Greek, but these translations miss an important image. A more literal translation would read: “See, the tent of God is among mortals, God will tent with them as their God…” The reference to God’s tent and God tenting with God’s people evokes the tent of meeting that housed God’s presence with Israel in the desert after their escape from Egypt. As Huber and O’Day note, John’s vision promises his audience that just as God camped with the Israelites in Exodus, so too God will camp with us.¹ In a world where the houseless are increasingly criminalized for camping in public, modern Christians would be astute to remember where God resides.

Aside from the Greek, one final image captures my interest: an image of God wiping away our tears. What God offers in this moment is not a one-way ticket out of Dodge. God offers care. God does more than simply rescue God’s people. God joins God’s people in their pain and suffering and expresses sympathy and concern for them. Just as they see God, God sees them.

I think we often miss this detail because we are too quick to jump to the second half of the verse—“mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” We are so eager to get to the good news that we end up ignoring the care God offers at the beginning of the verse. This image of a compassionate and tender God reminds me of the image of Jesus weeping with Mary and her neighbors in the Gospel of John (11:32–34). While both stories offer expressions of resurrection, neither ignores or attempts to erase the pain and suffering of God’s people. Resurrection isn’t in the business of starting over. Resurrection isn’t in the business of quick fixes.

These images of God and Jesus mourning alongside us are too important to overlook. Modern society often chastises crying, viewing it as a sign of weakness. In politics, this perception is especially stark. Leaders who show tears are frequently ridiculed or deemed unfit for their roles. When President Obama teared up while speaking about gun violence, for example, some critics dismissed his display of emotion as performative and a sign of fragility. Minutes after his second inaugural address, President Trump quickly chided his political enemies, labeling one opponent a “crying lunatic.” In a world that favors power and rhetoric over genuine empathy, a God who joins us in our tears is a powerful image of resurrection.

This fifth Sunday of Easter, John reminds us that we are not heaven bound. Heaven is bound for us. God has come to dwell among God’s people, even in our moments of pain and suffering. So, yes, it might be tempting to destroy it all and rebuild from the ground up, but that is not the work God calls us to do. God calls us to join God in the good work of redemption, the work of radical care. We don’t have to burn it all down. We don’t have to escape to some new world. God meets us right here on earth. This is what dispensationalist theology misses. God is not waiting for us to join God in heaven. God is waiting for us to join God in the good work right here on earth.

Notes

1. Lynn R. Huber and Gail R. O’Day, Revelation, Wisdom Commentary Series 58 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023), 327–328.