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The Catholic Telegraph
May 18, 2001In last Sunday’s reading John gave us a general overview of the end time, when God will be definitively victorious over His enemies, when God will dwell with His elect, when all creation will be made new again.
This Sunday’s reading elaborates and interprets one element of what we saw last week: the holy city, the new Jerusalem. As edited for the Lectionary, the reading shows us the origin and nature of the city, its beauty, and its purpose.
First of all the city is imbued with godliness. It comes from God’s heavenly abode and is a "holy", i.e., godlike. It even looks like God, gleaming with God’s indescribable brilliance. (Note that John says its radiance was "like that" of jasper and crystal.)
Next comes a series of descriptive items, all of which have for their purpose to express the beauteous perfection of the city. Six times in all we have the number twelve, the number of fullness and completion (cf. the number of months in a year). There are twelve angels stationed at the twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There are twelve levels of foundation inscribed with the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. With three gates on each side, the city is cubical in shape, i.e., it has a perfect geometrical form. The mention of the twelve tribes of Israel and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb acting as foundation seems to indicate that the city is to be viewed as the continuation, indeed the conclusion, of God’s plan of salvation that began with the Israel of old and that reached its final stage with the apostles’ proclamation of the risen Christ.
Thirdly, the reading gives us the purpose of the city: to provide a means of contact between God and His elect. There is nothing in the city that is not holy, nothing that needs to be shut out by the walls of a temple. There is no sun or moon there because there is no darkness, no alternation of day and night. Within the city, God and the Lamb are everywhere, constantly providing brightness and life. Everything is imbued with the power and the majesty and the sacredness of God and the Lamb.
This holy city is an image of the Church. Just before our reading begins, in 21.9, the angel says to John, "I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." As we saw last week, the bride of the Lamb is the Church. As Revelation moves toward its conclusion, the victorious kingdom of God, the triumphant Church, and the living presence of God all meld into one in the image of the heavenly Jerusalem.
This reading invites us to give some thought to a fundamentally important question about the Church, i.e., the relationship between the community of the faithful here and now and the full and final kingdom of God still to come. Put succinctly, the relationship is one of "already but not yet."
The Church, this community of believers that we experience here and now, is the beginning of the final victory of God over evil, the start of a people who will dwell in glory with God for all eternity. God’s project of salvation that began with the patriarchs of the Old Testament and was proclaimed in its final form by the apostles and their successors is embodied in the Church, the Church that will reach its full maturity as the new Jerusalem. No further suffering and death of Christ is necessary for human redemption. No further instruction and guidance will come from God to lead us where He means us to be. Everything we need to reach final glory has already been provided for us. We are already equipped to become citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, already counted in the census of its citizens.
But we are not yet there. We have not yet reached the point when everything will be expressed and provided for us in the universal, all-uniting presence of God. We are still on the road. We still need sacraments and Scripture. We are still called to repentance and change. We still vary in fervor and dedication from day to day. We still need help from each another. We are still called to provide help for each other. We have to put up with the sinfulness of the world (and the Church!) around us, and the world around us (and the Church!) has to put up with us.
There are two pitfalls that we have to be careful of as we deal with the "already but not yet" of the Church. One is to write the Church off as irrelevant in our pursuit of eternal happiness, to forget that the Church of now will become the Church of then, to overlook the fact that, with all its faults, the Church is even now the bride of the Lamb, even now offering salvation from Christ. The beginnings of the new Jerusalem are already in our midst.
The other pitfall is to forget that the Church we have now has not reached its final fulfillment. We need to acknowledge the present limitations of the Church, its leaders, its members. We need to acknowledge that its final perfection will not and cannot come from us. It can only come "down out of heaven" from God.
The Church of now lives in hope and repentance and it looks forward to the state in which it will exist in gratitude and fulfillment - in the city of the Lamb.
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Conversation Questions
Does the light of the Lamb shine in my life here and now?
What elements of the Church of now do I find particularly indicative of its future glory?
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