Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 15, 2022 – Acts 14:21-27; Revelation 2:1-5A; John 13:31-33A, 34-35

So, did you find what it was? The phrase was, “God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” It appears twice in the Book of Revelation or the Book of Apocalypse, if you prefer. Once near the beginning, once near the end. And between those brackets comes a whole bunch of stuff that people are very confused about.

I don't know if you noticed, on the way into the parking lot, we have our flag at half-mast. The president requested that we do that to honor the million dead from Covid. I looked it up. That’s just under twice the number of people, Americans, who died in WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. We lost just under 700,000 people in four wars. We lost over a million people to a disease that could have been handled better. The thing of it is that we are not grieving about all of this. Now, everybody knows those Kübler-Ross steps of grief. First comes the denial, then the anger and the bargaining, and then they enter into depression and then, at the other end, something called closure. We’re all stuck on go. We’re all still in denial about the extent of this tragedy. And, until we begin to grieve, we will not be able to move forward.

But that’s not the only thing we’re grieving. If you watch the headlines about what’s going on in Ukraine, people of a certain age are thinking this is 1938 all over again, with an Anschluss, not into Austria, but into someplace else. The violence that goes on in our own country, especially violence of young people against young people. The violence against people of color. All these things. And yet, we’re told that God will wipe every tear from our eyes. And my response is, I’m sure your response is, when? Can we really put our faith in that at all?

In order to understand the message of the Book of Revelation, I want to start in an entirely different place.

Someday I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me. Where troubles melt like lemon drops, a way above the chimney tops, that’s where you’ll find me. Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly. If birds fly over the rainbow, why then, oh why can’t I?

Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, anyone else but me, anyone else but me. Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me ‘till I come marching home.


Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again. It's been a long, long time. Haven't felt like this, my dear, since can't remember when. It's been a long, long time. You'll never know how many dreams I dream about you. So, kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again. It's been a long, long time.

Please have snow and mistletoe and presents by the tree. Christmas Eve will find me where the love light gleams. I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.

Those songs all came out of the devastating experience of WWII. They’re all apocalypse. That’s what they were, apocalypse.

The author, T.H. White, wrote a book called “The Once and Future King.” It was the reimagining of the story of King Arthur. He reimagined it through the lens of the experience of the two world wars. And there are four parts to it. The first part, “The Sword in the Stone,” is a story of the teenage King Arthur, growing up with Merlin, an old wise man – a Yoda type – as his guide. And it ends with two chapters where Arthur reaches his full power, is betrayed by his most trusted people, and dies in a battle to save his kingdom against the rebellion of his own son, with Merlin as his advisor still at the end. Walt Disney took the first book, “The Sword in the Stone,” and made a coming-of-age cartoon about it. A very sweet cartoon. And then Lerner and Loew took the last two books and made a bittersweet Broadway show about it, called “Camelot.”

That, too, is apocalypse. Notice the pattern. We talk about the present day, where we are somehow or other in great sadness, anger or anguish. But we talk about the present day in terms of our memories of long ago and in terms of our expectations of a better future. And that’s what our scriptures talk to us about today.

Any given time in human history could be the best of times and the worst of times. But there’s always something we look back to as those better times still and something we look forward to as a way of getting out of where we are now.

That’s why I asked you to listen to what Paul and Barnabas do in the first reading. Whenever they leave a place where they have founded a Christian community, they leave elders behind to what? To care for the needs of the community. That task went through many changes over two centuries. It became deacons, priests, and bishops. It became religious orders who served the poor and served the sick and taught the young. It became all sorts of institutions across two centuries. But the same purpose was behind all of them – to care for the needs of the community.

We return to the gospel, what does Jesus say? “The way that people know that you follow me is that you love one another, care for one another.” And that’s what we see in the Book of Apocalypse. That people are in grave danger now. And the grave danger is represented by all sorts of mythical beasts and horrible monsters and that sort of thing. But there was a time when somebody won a victory. His name is Jesus. So we look back to that great story. We look forward to a time when there will be peace and joy and laughter and mercy. But right now, we’re in the thick of it.

What our scriptures say to us is that the way in which God wipes every tear from our eyes is that, every now and then, we hand a box of Kleenex to somebody else.