The World Turned Right-Side Up

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 148 and Revelation 21: 1-6 Sermon Title: The World Turned Right-side Up Preached on May 15, 2022 I love this passage from Revelation because in it is a description of the new Heaven and the new earth. The holy city, the new Jerusalem, comes down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. In other words, here is the promise that God turns the world right-side up, which is good news for us today because some days, many days, most days, it feels as though the world has been turned upside down. Does the world ever feel that way to you? Just the other day, our friend and neighbor Linda Spears, who has been volunteering at our food distribution ministry, told me about her grandfather, who made a career out of selling mules. He was the man to see when it came time to plow the field. For years and years, he knew how to make a living. His life made sense. Then John Deere tractors came to town, and his way of life was entirely disrupted. Have you ever felt as though your world were coming together like a puzzle out on your kitchen table, when all of a sudden, life comes along to scatter the pieces? Sometimes, our world is like a puzzle, and not just a 1,000-piece puzzle newly bought, but more like the kind you bought at a yard sale, so at least half the pieces are to a different puzzle, and the picture on the box doesn’t match what seems to be coming together. Take Polk Street or Mountain View Road for example. John Hills walked into my study the other day, and he says, “Joe, did the city of Marietta get a buy-1-get-10-free deal on stop signs recently?” These streets, up until those stop signs, I could have driven blindfolded. Now, all of a sudden, a stop sign has materialized out of nowhere. Likewise, I read the paper, and it describes an unfamiliar world. Just last Wednesday, I read that the Braves game will air on Apple TV or the Peacock app. Does everyone in here even know what that even means? Everything changes. Case in point: I received an email recently pointing out how there was a time when only rich people had automobiles. Everyone else had horses. Now, everyone has a car, and only rich people have horses. From time to time, the world turns upside down. Maybe you remember listening to baseball games on the radio; now we’ll watch them on our computers. More than that, columnist Dick Yarbrough reminded us that our copies of the Marietta Daily Journal will no longer be tossed on our driveways but sent through the mail. He looked back on his life, remembering the good old days when a group of kids would gather each afternoon on a street corner with bikes at the ready waiting for a truck to arrive with a bundle of newspapers that they’d roll, place in their bags, and would throw onto doorsteps or into bushes nearby the doorsteps. I was never a paperboy, but a newspaper in the mail feels like heresy. Of course, I don’t mean to be so hard on Otis Brumby III, our local publisher. I grew up playing football in his front yard. I’m sure he’s doing his best. We all are, but it’s hard when the world feels turned upside down. When everything changes. When all the pieces were fitting together. Or when it feels like our best days are not before us but behind us. That’s why we must, from time to time, look to this passage from the 21st chapter of Revelation. Let me read a portion of it again: And I heard a voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; They will be his peoples, And God himself will be with them; He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; Mourning and crying and pain will be no more For the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Don’t you love that? I do. I look forward to that great day in the future when God will set the world right-side up. We must remember that God’s going to do that. We must remember that just as God created the world, so it will all be recreated. We don’t always think about that. Christians are most always mindful of how God created the world. We care so much about how God created the world that we argue about the way in which God did it. Parents used to take their kids out of public schools if they taught evolution. There were these great debates: Are you a creationist or might God’s hand have been at work in the evolution of the earth’s species? We get embroiled in that creation debate, but we must not forget how just as God was at work in the beginning of all things, so God will speak and make all things new again at the last. We can’t forget that. If we forget, we’ll lose hope. We can’t forget that God will put the puzzle of our lives together. God will sort it all out. My cousin and friend, Fran Sommerville, she’s a part of the Stephen Ministry of our church, sent me a wonderful piece written by a man named Sean Dietrich. He told the story of buying a jigsaw puzzle at the grocery store. I’ll read you just a piece of it: My mother started each puzzle by saying the same thing: “We gotta find the corners first, that’s how you do it.” The idea was that once you found the corners, the rest of the puzzle would come together. Thus, we would sift together twenty-five hundred pieces, looking for four corners. Once we found them, we’d dig for the edges. And we would talk. I remember one day, working on a puzzle. She stopped working. She said, “You know, you’re gonna grow up one day, and you’re gonna soar.” I did not think I would do anything with my life. I dropped out of school before eighth grade, I worked pathetic jobs. I once scooped ice cream for a living. That was my actual job. Ice cream. I threw the newspaper, laid tile, hung sheetrock, pulled electrical wire, drove a commercial mower, and played piano for church choir. Today, I dumped a five-hundred-piece puzzle on my kitchen table. I found the corners first. And I thought about the way our lives went. The day my father took his life, my mother was angry at him. She was angry at the universe for letting it happen. And I was angry with God for letting that happen to her. I wasn’t fuming mad, mind you, but I was sour inside. But I think I see things more clearly now. Our lives have been one giant puzzle. And maybe that’s how everyone’s life is. The pieces don’t make sense when they aren’t together, but you don’t give up looking. Not ever. My mother helped me find the corners first. My wife, my family, and my friends helped me find the edges. And so, the twenty-five-hundred-piece puzzle gets put together by an Unseen Hand. And even though it resembles a big cardboard mess before it’s done, it’s no mess. It’s perfect. That’s a nice image, isn’t it? And I can relate to corners first - then the edges. Is that how you put puzzles together? Is that how your life has come together? Or does it feel today like a jumble of pieces: Half must go to some other puzzle, or you get to the end, and you can’t find that last piece? When that’s life for you, then remember the picture on the box. The picture of how it will all look in the end is our second Scripture lesson for today. “See, I am making all things new.” Of course, so much is gone. Notice what all isn’t there. There are no stop signs, newspapers, Braves games, mules, nor tractors. The sea is gone, and Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, For the first things have passed away. As the pieces go up in the air, remember that’s where we’re going. Don’t forget what it will look like, or you won’t have the faith you need to step out into the future. Speaking of stepping out into the future, today we celebrate graduates of high school, college, and medical school. I remember being one of them, though I can’t relate to most of them anymore. I applied to two colleges, only got it to one, and that’s how I decided where to go to college. Now, it’s so different. These days, kids start working to build their resumes to get into the University of Georgia as soon as they start middle school, while another Marietta Daily Journal columnist once wrote, “My acceptance letter to the University of Georgia came addressed: Dear [Joe], or current resident, congratulations, you’ve been accepted to the University of Georgia.” You see, everything changes. Some things get easier. Others get harder. Graduates, in the midst of all of it, never forget those voices telling you how you’ll soar, and when one door closes before you or when it feels like the pieces of your life are all up in the air, remember the cover of the box, which is our final destination. That’s where we’re going, my friends. It is done, God said. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. This is our God, so as you think about all that’s wrong in our world, all that hurts in your life, and how the future may seem as jumbled as a puzzle dumped out on your kitchen table, I tell you, God is at work, leading us all to this new heaven and new earth when all will be put right-side up. Graduates, listen to your church as we say, “You will soar.” Parents of graduates, as your lives change, know that the pieces will come back together in new and beautiful ways. And everyone here, all God’s people, listen to this: The future is not uncertain. Today may feel like chaos, but God is in control. The first things are passing away as God is making all things new. Halleluiah. Amen.