Renovated, rebuilt or transformed

5 Easter 2025

Revelation 21:1-7
As you may have noticed, I like fixing up old things.  A have restored a few old cars over the years. But I always tried to use them as my regular vehicle and they proved less than dependable. A fifty-year-old car remains a fifty-year-old car, even after months of work and many replacement parts. My biggest restoration effort was a 130-year-old stone cottage in Hahndorf. Kathy and I spent thirty years fixing and renovating that old cottage. And do you know what we had after thirty years? That’s right. A 160-year -old cottage. For all that work, it remained an old cottage.

Restoring old things is not easy. Some of you may have noticed a few old bicycles around the manse. I enjoy fixing up old bicycles.  It is a cheaper hobby than restoring old cars.  But when I start a project I have to decide how to proceed. Do I keep the bike looking old and just try to get it in working order? Do I restore it as much as possible to its original condition? Or to I take in down the frame and start all over with modern parts, essentially making it a new or different bicycle?  It is not always an easy decision. But at the end of the day, a 100-year-old bike remains a 100-year-old bike, which I was recently reminded of when picking up speed down a steep hill and testing out the 100-year-old braking system!

So as a keen renovator, I was very interested to read today’s text from Revelation 21. God makes the heavens new, and the earth new. He remakes the entire city of Jerusalem. Indeed, Jesus, the lamb seated on the throne that we read about last week in Revelation chapter 7, declares: Behold! I make all things new!’  And that includes us. For we read that there will be no more sadness, pain, tears or death (vs 4). These things will have passed away.

So how does Jesus do it? What is his approach to renovation?

The early rabbis, commenting on similar Old Testament promises that God would make the world new, came up with three options.

First, some thought that God would simply renovate the world. He would restore it the way he had originally made it. Any renovator can relate to that. Our goal is often to get that old car, bicycle, house or whatever we are restoring to look and function as much as possible as it did when new. But is that all God does in making all things new? Does he simply put them back to their original condition?

The second option the rabbis came up with was that God would return the world to its original state, when he first began creating, and rebuild it from scratch. In renovators’ terms, this is equivalent to taking the house down to foundations and frame and rebuilding. Or taking everything off the old bike, sanding down and repainting the frame, and putting on all new parts. The end result, according to the rabbis, was also a world that would resemble what God originally intended. But it would be more of a complete rebuild than a renovation, with little recognisable remaining of the original world.

The third option the rabbis came up with was the most radical. Some thought God would completely destroy the world and start from scratch with an entirely new and different world to the one he had originally created. This would be the equivalent to simply giving up on that old cottage, knocking it down, and building a modern cubist structure in its place. Or melting down the bicycle and making a whole new design, never seen before.

So how does Jesus make all things new. Which of the rabbinic schools of thought that interpreted Old Testament promises that God would make a new heavens and new earth are correct?

Were the renovators right. Were the complete rebuild theorists right? Were those who thought all would be destroyed and God would make something completely different right?

I would suggest that none of them were right.

They were missing an important piece of the puzzle.

They did not understand fully the nature of the God who was making the new heaven and the new earth.

The God who speaks from the throne in John’s vision is none other than Jesus. We see this clearly in several textual clues. We already know from chapter seven that it is the Lamb who sits on the throne. The promise that God will dwell swell with us is reminiscent of John 1:14, ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’  And the words ‘It is done’ in verse 6 would have reminded readers of Jesus’ last words from the cross in John 19:30.   Jesus is also known as the Alpha and Omega, and the reference to his given us water from the spring of life also has strong connects to John 7:37-38. So in the minds of the readers, there would be no doubt that it is Jesus sitting on the throne.

And when Jesus, from the throne, says he has made all things new, he speaks as if it has already been accomplished because in John’s vision, it has been. And because it is the victorious Lamb, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end who speaks, we can be confident that this restoration of all things is so certain that we can speak of it as more than a prophecy, more than a promise. But as a reality.

Remember, this is the same Jesus who has conquered sin, death and grave through his own death and resurrection. Jesus knows a thing or two about making things new! And he does not simply renovate us and our world. Nor does he sweep us away and start over.

Jesus transforms us. He makes us new people in him.

He transforms the holy city of Jerusalem. He transforms the earth and even the heavens. Yest the heavens and earth remain. And we remain. We will still be us. But we will be transformed. Not destroyed and replaced. And not simply patched up or having a reset button pushed. For our God is a renovator like no other. He doesn’t simply repair us or start over. In Christ, God is in the business of transformation. And we will be transformed into who and what God had always wanted us to be.

We will be God’s children, and the Lamb will be out God (vs 7). And he will wipe away all tears. There will be no more death, no more pain. Jesus will give us the very waters of life. And we and our world will be transformed. Indeed, in Christ, we already have been and are being transformed. The wonderful promise of the future Jesus has in store for us is already a reality for Christ, who is enthroned in heaven, preparing a home for us. And thus it is also already a reality for us. Amen.

Pastor Mark Worthing