Homily for Easter 5, Year C

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 It’s strange, what we carry with us.

 

Not in your pockets.

Not in your purse.

 

The burdens of which I speak are too big, too heavy for pockets and purses.

You know the ache I mean.

The empty chair at the table.

The diagnosis you didn’t expect.

The silence from the friend who used to call.

The newsfeed that makes your heart sag.

 

We don’t talk about them all that much.

But we know them.

We return to them—sometimes in dreams, sometimes in silence.

 

And maybe you’ve heard people say,

“But Easter has come! The tomb is empty! The stone is rolled away!”

And you want to say,

“Yes. Yes, I believe that. I do.”[1]

 

But.

 

There are days it still feels like Holy Saturday.[2]

The ache. The in-between.

Not Friday’s despair, but not Sunday’s joy.

Just that… space.                     

Where everything hurts and nothing’s healed yet.

 

And that’s where this vision comes.

 

Not from a prophet in a palace.

Not from a preacher with a spotlight.

But from John. In exile.

On a rock in the sea.

Far from home. Far from power. Far from anything he once counted on.

 

And John says—

 

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.”

 

Now, if you’re like me, you might think that means starting over.

Erase the board. Burn the blueprints. Build from scratch.

 

But no.

 

John isn’t talking about escape.

He doesn’t say of his vision, “I saw people rising up to heaven.”

 

He says:

 

“I saw the holy city coming down.”[3]

 

Coming down.

Not us going up.

But heaven coming here.

 

Right here.

 

A city. Not floating. Not ethereal.

Solid. Planted. Real.

 

And then a voice speaks.

 

“See, the home of God is among mortals.”[4]

 

Among. Not above.

Not beyond the stars.

Not hidden in some spiritual fog.

 

Among.

 

The God who walked in the garden.

The God who pitched a tent in the desert.

The God who wept at a tomb.

 

That God moves in.

 

And then—this promise:

 

“God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

 

Now I’ve heard that read at funerals, and I’ve read it at a few.

It’s lovely. It is.

But it’s more than lovely.

 

This is not sentiment.

This is resistance.[5]

 

John was writing to people whose faith was costing them.

To little churches that felt small under the shadow of empire.

 

And he tells them,

Tears are not the end of the story.

 

God does not ignore them.

God does not explain them away.

 

God wipes them. Tenderly. Personally. One by one.[6]

And then comes the line—maybe you heard it earlier:

“See, I am making all things new.”[7]

 

Not “I will.”

 

Not “Someday, when you’re good enough, I might.”

 

But—

 

“I am.”

 

Now. Already. In the midst of this.

 

And then another voice:

 

“To the thirsty I will give water as a gift.”

 

Now that—that might be the best part.

 

To the thirsty.

 

Not to the ones who figured it all out.

Not to the powerful or the proud.

 

To the parched.[8]

The dry.

The ones who barely made it through the door this morning.

The ones who had to talk themselves into hope again.

 

To you.

To me.

 

A gift.

 

And suddenly, this isn’t just John’s vision anymore.

 

This is yours.

 

This is ours.

 

Because we’re not waiting for the throne to be set.

It’s already set.

 

We’re not waiting for God to start caring.

God already moved in.

 

We’re not waiting for the Lamb to rise.

He already has.

 

Which means—we live now between the tears and the wiping.

Between the ache and the healing.

 

And what are we supposed to do in that space?

 

Try harder?

 

Work more?

 

No.

 

Listen again.

 

“It is done.”[9]

 

Not you have done it.

Not go do it.

It is done.

 

By grace.

By Christ.

By the God who began the story and has already written the end.

 

So now?

 

We live like it’s true.

Even if the world says otherwise.

 

We tell the truth—when others prefer lies.

We sing—when others fall silent.

We comfort the grieving.

We build the city.

We pour water, even if our hands shake.

We keep watch for the Lamb.

We keep walking, even if we limp.

 

And when someone asks, “Why?”

 

We say:

 

“Because he is making all things new.”

 

Even now.

 

Even here.

 

Even in you.

 

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[1] Craig R. Koester, Revelation and the End of All Things, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 157–162.  In the cited pages, Koester explains that John’s revelation emerges not from a position of strength, but from political exile on Patmos. He emphasizes how this shapes Revelation as a book of hope for Christians who felt dislocated and vulnerable under Roman imperial pressure.  Koester interprets this phrase not as escapism or annihilation, but as a renewal of the created order, emphasizing continuity with God’s redemptive purposes. He explains that John’s vision is not about God taking us away but about God coming to dwell among us.  Koester notes that the phrase “the home of God is among mortals” signals a profound theological shift: God is not distant, but chooses to dwell in the midst of human community.  Koester emphasizes that the churches receiving Revelation were small, struggling, and often suffering, and that this vision offers them a hope already being enacted.  

 

[2] I saw an advertisement.  A new production of Waiting for Godot will open in September and star Keanu Reeves as Estragon, marking Reeves’ Broadway debut.  Waiting for Godot and the liturgical observance of Holy Saturday are both acts of waiting—aching, unresolved, and often silent. They occupy a space between what has ended and what is yet to come. In Holy Saturday, the church waits at the tomb, suspended between Good Friday’s death and Easter’s resurrection. In Beckett’s play, Vladimir and Estragon wait on a barren stage, suspended in an undefined present, for a figure named Godot who never arrives.  Both settings are marked by absence. On Holy Saturday, Christ is absent—entombed, descended to the dead, and the church refrains from Eucharist or alleluias. It is the one day of the year when liturgy holds its breath. Similarly, Beckett’s characters wait in a world emptied of certainty, where language falters, memory is fragile, and time seems both stagnant and cyclical.  Holy Saturday also teaches the faithful something difficult: that hope is not always triumphant. Sometimes it is quiet, bruised, and without guarantees. This is Beckett’s world as well. Yet, paradoxically, the very act of waiting implies hope. The characters in Godot have not walked away. They stay. They persist. Like the women at the tomb who wait through the silence and the dark, Vladimir and Estragon wait—not because they are sure of what will come, but because they do not know what else to do.  In both Holy Saturday and Waiting for Godot, the audience is invited into the vulnerability of not-knowing. The play becomes a kind of secular Holy Saturday: an unresolved vigil where nothing is certain and yet everything depends on the possibility—however faint—that something might still break in.

 

[3] Augustine wrote The City of God (De Civitate Dei) in the early 5th century, beginning in 413 CE and completing it around 426 CE, in response to the profound political, spiritual, and cultural crisis that was the fall of the Roman Empire.  For Augustine the sack of Rome was not a theological crisis but an opportunity to disentangle the Gospel from empire, to call Christians to place their ultimate trust not in political systems but in the eternal God.  His vision of the “City of God” culminates in the promise found in Revelation—when John declares, “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”

 

[4] Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 132–138.  In the cited pages, Bauckham explains that Revelation 21 does not portray believers escaping the world, but instead shows God’s redemptive presence descending into it. The vision of the New Jerusalem “coming down out of heaven” signals that God’s purposes for creation are fulfilled not by abandonment, but by transformation.  Bauckham interprets this passage as the consummation of God’s desire to dwell with humanity, not above them but in their midst—a continuation of the divine movement that began in the incarnation.  Bauckham reads Revelation’s conclusion as a direct contradiction of Roman imperial theology, which located salvation in hierarchical structures, not mutual presence. The New Jerusalem’s descent means God’s reign does not mirror Caesar’s. It’s relational, restorative, and communal.  The city is not spiritualized—it is communal, public, just. Bauckham insists that the vision affirms the value of embodied life in community.  

 

[5] Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 84–88.  In the cited section, Schüssler Fiorenza emphasizes that Revelation 21:4 is not simply poetic comfort, but a profound act of resistance against imperial violence and suffering. She writes that John’s vision of God wiping away tears addresses real-world trauma—the mourning, crying, and pain caused by Rome’s domination.  Fiorenza warns that reading this passage as a vague spiritual promise empties it of its historical urgency. Instead, she insists the text must be understood in light of the suffering of early Christian communities under Roman rule—communities who needed a vision of justice and restoration, not platitudes.  Fiorenza sees God’s tender act—not delegating angels, but God self wiping the tears—as a sign of radical divine compassion and proximity to suffering people. Fiorenza argues that Revelation doesn’t silence grief—it honors it and shows that God’s justice begins by responding to pain with presence.

 

[6] A scene in The Two Popes:  Cardinal Bergoglio—before he became Pope Francis—is visiting a grieving woman. Her husband had disappeared during Argentina’s “Dirty War.” She’s seated across from him, clutching a photograph, her voice thin but fierce.  She doesn’t want doctrine. She doesn’t want a sermon.

She just wants someone to see her pain. To stay in it with her. To not flinch or offer easy answers.

And Bergoglio—he doesn’t offer a defense of God. He doesn’t speak of providence or explain why the suffering came.  He simply listens.  And in that stillness, in that refusal to look away, you realize what’s happening: he’s bearing witness. Not only to her grief, but to the God who doesn’t look away. The God who has moved in—who has made his home among mortals.  In that quiet, you begin to understand what Revelation means when it says,

“God will wipe away every tear.”  Not analyze the tears. Not dismiss them. But wipe them—with hands that are scarred.  That moment, in that room, is what the throne of the Lamb looks like—

not high and looking down, but kneeling low, eye to eye with sorrow. Because the gospel doesn’t say we rise above pain.  It says God descends into it.  We are not alone.

[7] Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2011), 172–175.  In the cited section, Gorman highlights that Revelation 21:5 uses a present, continuous verb: “I am making.” It signals an ongoing divine activity, not a delayed promise. He argues that this wording should shape how we understand God’s active, renewing presence in the here and now.  Gorman insists that believers are called to live as participants in God’s present-tense transformation of the world. Revelation is not escapist—it’s formational. It calls the Church to bear witness to the Lamb even now, as the new creation is already breaking in.  Gorman argues that Revelation’s end-time imagery is not about timetable speculation, but about ethical alignment with the kingdom of God—faithful action rooted in the already-reigning Christ.  For Gorman, “making all things new” is not accomplished through conquest, but through Lamb-shaped self-giving love. The new creation flows from the victory of the cross, already achieved.  

.

 

[8] David A. deSilva, Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation’s Warning (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2010), 263–267.  In the cited section, deSilva emphasizes that this verse is a profound declaration of God’s generosity, not a reward for the accomplished but a gift for the thirsty—for those who are needy, desperate, and weary.

deSilva highlights that thirst in Revelation speaks not only of physical deprivation, but of deep existential yearning—a cry for justice, healing, and communion with God.  For deSilva, this verse marks a culmination of the Lamb’s invitation to all who suffer under imperial injustice: God provides what empire cannot—living water, free and full. The contrast between imperial coercion and divine gift runs through Revelation and culminates here.  deSilva explains that God’s gift is offered freely, not earned by strength, status, or spiritual performance. It is rooted in God’s character, not human worthiness.

[9] G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 1050–1054.  In the cited pages, Beale interprets the phrase “It is done” (Greek: Gegonan) as an emphatic declaration that God’s redemptive work is fully accomplished—a theological conclusion echoing the words of Christ in John 19:30 (tetelestai).  Beale explains that the passive construction emphasizes that the new creation is God’s initiative—not humanity’s. It is grace enacted by divine sovereignty, not a system of reward for effort.  Beale reads “It is done” as the culmination of the covenantal faithfulness of God, completing what began in Genesis and was sealed in Christ’s passion.  Beale shows how Revelation 21:6 echoes Jesus’ words on the cross (“It is finished”) to reinforce that God’s work of salvation is not just sufficient but complete.  

 

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