A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
31 August 2025
Series:
Revelation: An Unveiling for Our Times
John 4.1–14; 16.20–22
Revelation 21.1–6; 22.1–5, 17
Grace and peace to you
from the One who is and who
was and who is to come.
Today we reach the end of our
series on the Book of Revelation.
And what an ending it is.
We stand now at the climax of
John’s vision
—not with beasts and plagues,
not with terror and fear,
but with this breathtaking declaration:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a
new earth.”
But to understand this,
we must remember how
Revelation works.
Way back in chapter 4, John
invited his readers to enter the heavens.
As we have journeyed through his book,
we have done so not merely as observers;
but as those who are being are
drawn into a journey.
We entered heaven through the open door,
we have travelled with John,
we have seen the earth from
the perspective of God.
We have looked down upon our
world—our city, our communities, our lives—
and we have seen them as
heaven sees them.
We have seen the patterns of
power and empire,
the places where violence and
greed crush creation.
And we have seen the faithful witness of the church,
standing in resistance.
This is Revelation’s unique
vision:
We are given God’s eyes, God’s
perspective,
to see the world clearly and
without illusion.
And so empire appears as a
beast stamping on the earth,
or a dragon demanding worship.
Whilst the faithful church is a woman clothed with the sun,
or two witnesses testifying
boldly to God’s truth.
The visions of judgment are not
distant spectacles;
rather they are a way of
seeing our present world with divine clarity.
They sharpen our perception,
so that we can see the true
cost of compromise.
And then comes the vision of
the New Jerusalem,
which we meet in our reading today.
The heavenly city is presented
as a bride, adorned for her husband.
And within John’s visionary scheme,
this is an image the church
militant, the church here-and-now,
it is the faithful people of
God—made visible as God’s city.
When Martin Luther King Jr. preached
on this passage,
in this church, in 1961, he noted
that the image of the new Jerusalem,
is presented as a city of
equal length, breadth and depth.
And he said:
‘what John is really
saying is this:
that life at its best and life
as it should be is three-dimensional;
it’s complete on all sides.
So there are three dimensions of any complete life,
for which we can certainly
give the words of this text:
length, breadth, and height.’
For King, the length of life is
living to the best of one’s ability.
But on its own this can be a selfish life,
so in equal dimension is
needed a breadth of life,
where one lives out a concern
for fellow humans.
But a long and broad life is still inadequate – it is a life lived without a
sky –
unless in equal dimension we
also have
a relationship with the God
who loves us.
The New Jerusalem is a vision
of what life could be like,
it is the world as it should
be,
to set against the cold
reality of the world as it is.
And after having seen Babylon
as heaven sees it,
it turns out those who have
journeyed with John through Revelation
can no longer sustain their citizenship
of the evil empire.
The faithful readers of
Revelation must transfer their allegiance to God’s kingdom,
becoming instead citizens of
the New Jerusalem.
And so the New Jerusalem
returns to the earth,
reversing the upward journey
of Chapter 4.
We who are the New Jerusalem cannot
remain in heaven for ever,
we have to come back down to
earth with a bump.
But we do so transformed,
because now we can see
creation as God sees it.
And the earth we encounter is not
the earth we left,
something profound has
changed.
We now have a vision for renewal – of a new heaven and a new earth—
not as something God will give
us one day,
but as a vision toward which
God calls us now.
And we will need this vision,
because the world as it is can
be overwhelming.
We look around us and we see war, environmental destruction, and inequality,
we see communities divided by
race, class, nation, and ideology
We see the powerful ignoring
the vulnerable,
profit prioritized over
people,
comfort over justice.
Even in our personal lives,
grief, regret, and fear can
cloud our view.
Relationships fracture, hope feels fragile, loss is heavy.
And Revelation does not deny
any of this.
It has spent 20 chapters
naming it.
It unmasks for us empire’s
violence, corruption, and idolatry.
It refuses to let us look away
from suffering.
Revelation is not escapist fantasy;
it is political and economic
resistance literature.
It exposes false promises,
insists that things as they
are will be judged,
and tells the truth about the
world’s pain.
But Revelation does this so we
can imagine something else.
It tears down illusions to
open our eyes to God’s promise.
The sea in ancient thought
represented chaos, danger, uncreation.
And so when John says that the first heaven and the first earth had passed
away,
and that the sea was no more,
he is not describing annihilation,
he is describing
transformation.
And the thing is, this is not
an abstract or distant event.
It is an invitation to see the
present world through the lens of renewal.
To recognize where systems of violence, exploitation, and neglect persist,
and to participate in God’s
restorative work here and now.
To see a vision of the earth
renewed is to see possibility:
that human beings can live in
harmony with creation,
that rivers can flow clean,
forests can flourish, seas can teem with life,
that communities can thrive in
sustainable and just ways.
John’s vision reminds us that
God’s renewal is not a future escape,
but a present call.
The passing away of the old is
a prelude to the blossoming of what is new,
and we—the faithful bride of
Christ which is the New Jerusalem—
are called to be agents of
that transformation.
We participate in God’s work
when we heal what is broken,
when we advocate for justice,
when we live in ways that
honour creation,
when our actions flow like the river from the throne,
nourishing life in all its
forms.
The new heaven and new earth
are a vision of what is possible,
a horizon toward which God
calls us,
and a challenge to live
faithfully in the present.
Seeing the world through John’s
eyes,
we are invited to become
participants in creation’s renewal,
to act with hope, courage, and creativity,
and to embody the reality of
God’s kingdom here on earth.
The New Jerusalem is the
church,
called to embody God’s kingdom
here and now.
This is the challenge:
As the promise of God’s future
shapes our present,
we are no longer spectators,
we are citizens of God’s city
today.
We are signs of the kingdom God envisions.
We are those who see the world
from heaven’s perspective,
and this means recognising
what is broken.
It means seeing injustice not
as normal,
but as something to resist.
It means identifying where God’s people are faithful witnesses,
and where we ourselves must
act.
It changes how we live, what we
prioritise, and whom we trust.
The vision continues: “God will
wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain
will be no more.” (21.4)
This is surely a word for our
grieving world.
For every parent, refugee,
community, or person who has lost hope.
God will wipe their tears like a loving parent comforting a beloved child.
The pain of life is not
ignored, not explained away, not forgotten,
but relieved by God’s own
hand.
The vision continues: “Then the
angel showed me the river of the water of life,
bright as crystal, flowing
from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” (22.1)
This surely is an echo of the
words of Jesus
offering living water to the
marginalised in John’s Gospel.
But here in Revelation, that promise flows to the whole world
—free, abundant, and clear.
And then we are told,
“On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of
fruit…
and the leaves of the tree are
for the healing of the nations.” (22.2)
And notice the emphasis here:
the leaves are for the healing of the nations.
It is not only about human
relationships.
It is about the whole of
creation.
The vision John offers is one of wholeness, of a world restored.
The church is called to
participate in this restoration,
to imagine and enact ways of
living
where humans are
no longer at war with creation,
where our communities, our
economies, and our technologies
serve life, and not
destruction.
We are invited to cultivate a
vision for holistic living,
where justice, mercy, and care
extend beyond human societies
to the rivers, the forests, the air, the soil,
and the creatures with whom we
share the planet.
The leaves of the tree of life
are a symbol
for every decision we make,
every policy we support, every habit we form:
It is for us to choose life
rather than exploitation.
Our choices can grow systems of cooperation rather than
domination,
and nourish environments in
which all living things flourish.
This is part of our vocation as
God’s people:
to be agents of renewal not
only in human relationships,
but in the web of creation
itself.
Our worship, our teaching, our
organising, our daily choices—
all can become acts of
alignment with the river flowing from the throne,
with the leaves that bring
healing.
The church, as New Jerusalem,
is called to model this holistic vision.
We are a sign to the nations
that life can be
abundant,
that humans do not need to dominate creation to thrive.
That harmony is possible.
By embodying this vision, we
teach, invite, and inspire others,
so that the healing of the
nations becomes more than metaphor—
it becomes lived reality,
a foretaste of God’s kingdom
on earth.
John’s vision is not an
invitation to passive waiting.
It is a call to faithful
witness.
It’s not prediction, but participation.
If God’s future is a
reconciled city,
we work for reconciliation
now.
If God’s future is healed nations,
we pursue justice today.
If God’s future is tears wiped away,
we practice compassion now.
If God’s future is God dwelling with humanity,
we make space for God here.
Empire’s logic is stubborn.
It whispers that security is exclusion,
success is accumulation,
power is domination,
and compassion is weakness.
The New Jerusalem vision
confronts that.
It calls us to value what the world dismisses,
to welcome those the world
excludes,
to forgive when the world
seeks revenge,
to share when the world
hoards.
It asks us, as a church, to
examine ourselves honestly:
• Who do we make space for in worship and leadership?
• Whose voices are amplified—and whose neglected?
• How do our budgets, prayers, and time reflect God’s priorities?
• Where have we settled for things as they are?
When we pray “your kingdom come
on earth as in heaven”
we invite our own
transformation.
Revelation’s final vision is
not a lullaby for a troubled world.
Rather it is a clarion call to
wakefulness.
To be a community embodying God’s promise even now.
What would it mean for
Bloomsbury
to be a foretaste of the New
Jerusalem in central London?
A place where barriers fall, tears are noticed and wiped away,
where healing is practiced,
not only spoken of?
What would it mean for us to be a community so shaped by God’s future
that God’s hope is tangible to
all who meet us.
Friends, this is our calling.
It is our witness.
We are not those who seek to escape the world’s pain,
rather we share it with hope.
We are not those who spend energy building our own kingdom,
rather we point with everything
we are to God’s inbreaking kingdom.
We are not those desperately waiting for rescue,
but rather we are those living
today as the redeemed people of God.
We are those who join our
voices with that of the Spirit,
proclaiming to the world:
“Let anyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the
water of life as a gift.” (22.17)
This healing water is for
anyone and everyone to receive.
If you are weary of the world
as it is—come.
If you are longing for
healing—come.
If you are thirsty for justice, hope, and meaning—come.
If you are wanting to be part
of God’s new thing—come.
This invitation is not
abstract.
It is personal.
It is for you, for me, for us.
It is for those weary of
empire’s rules,
those grieving losses that
ache,
those struggling to hope
again.
“See, I am making all things
new.” says the voice from the throne.
Not only history’s sweep, but
your story,
your heart, your
relationships, your purpose.
God does not discard or replace; God renews.
This is resurrection hope.
The old is transformed.
The wounded are healed.
The broken are mended.
The dead live again.
And it is communal.
It is for a people, a city, a shared life.
Imagine our community as a
place
where God’s renewing work is
already breaking in.
Where tears are wiped away,
strangers become friends, and living
water flows freely.
If you can imagine it, then we
can start building it.
But for this vision to become
reality
we have to let God remake us,
we must confess where we’ve settled for less,
and open ourselves to be
agents of renewal.
This is not work we do alone.
It is Spirit work, grace work
So let us say yes to this
promise.
Let us learn to live as citizens of the New Jerusalem,
witnesses that God is not done
with us, with humans, or with creation.
Even here, even now, God is
making all things new.
For the One seated on the
throne says:
“See, I am making all things
new.”
And in this promise we place our faith, loyalty, and lives.
To God be the glory forever
and ever.
Amen.
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