New Heavens & A New Earth: Some Beautiful Nonsense

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
April 20, 2025
Easter Sunday, C
Isaiah 65:17-25
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Luke 24:1-12

“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” God said in Isaiah 65. “Be glad and rejoice forever.” Jesus was raised from the dead, and we saw something of this new heavens and new earth. Life that is not ended in death. Death that has lost its terror because death has become a gateway from life to life. Such is the new heavens and the new earth that God promises and gives us a glimpse of on Easter, with Jesus’ resurrection.

To some, it may sound like nonsense. Sometimes even to me it sounds like nonsense, except that God creating something new is the story throughout scripture, a story of hope. New heavens and a new earth sounds like hope, hope rooted in God’s creative love for us and for all that God has made. “Behold,” Jesus says in Revelation 21:5, “Behold, I am making all things new.” 

So, the new heavens and the new earth are what God has in mind for humanity, which sounds amazing. The idea of a new heavens and a new earth is captivating for humanity, so much so that we have countless sci-fi films about living on other planets and what the mysteries of the galaxies may hold. We’ve been to the moon, sent a probe out beyond our solar system, and we’ve had robots land on Mars so we can explore the mysteries of our neighboring planet. 

Now, we even have talk of people colonizing Mars. There are ideas of setting up bases where people can live, and there are even ideas of eventually terraforming the planet to make it habitable for people. Those are the dreams of some of humanity, that our new heavens and new earth will be the red planet. Ok, on the one hand, that sounds really, really cool: making a whole new planet where people can live and getting to travel there on a spaceship. That’s like all of the coolest sci-fi movies. 

On the other hand, however, colonizing Mars as a new planet for humanity to live on, sounds like nonsense to me, not because it’s not possible. I’m sure it’s possible to colonize a dead planet and make it habitable for humans. I mean, we live in Houston where we have about one and three-quarters seasons throughout the year, so I figure we can make just about any place habitable. 

The idea of making Mars a new earth for humanity sounds like nonsense to me because we’re already wrecking the earth we’ve got. The idea that after the Earth is wrecked, humanity will have another place to go, a new paradise for humanity that we’ve created on Mars, nonsense. That truly does sound like science fiction. Colonizing Mars is nonsense because of the almost certain reality that the only people who would get to go to this new earth, this new paradise, are the extremely rich and those with skills necessary for them to survive. 

That’s how things tend to work on this earth already. The extremely wealthy have more than they need for many lifetimes, while in the same economy, others work hard, remain in poverty, and become homeless. So, humanity’s idea of a new heaven and new earth is probably gonna follow the same pattern.

God making a new heaven and a new earth, however, means God is making something truly different. Some rabbis understood this new heaven and new earth to mean that God was bringing about a new social and world order: new rulers in the heavens, new rulers on earth, rulers who would follow in the ways of justice, mercy, and love. 

We seem to have had a taste of that in the early church, a new order with new leaders. The first apostles in the church, the first people Jesus appeared to after his resurrection, were women. “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them” were the first apostles in the church, and they went to the male disciples of Jesus and told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead. A new way, with women as the first apostles and the men becoming apostles too, although, when the men heard what the Mary and apostles had to say, their “words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” 

Now, that part sounds less like new heavens and a new earth and more just like the status quo, but things were different for a while. There were early churches that were led by women, and in the earliest days of the church, we did see people living together in harmony, caring for one another, not seeing the privileged as blessed and the poor as burdens. For a while, there was something new in the church. It didn’t last, but it was a taste, a taste of things to come. 

Jesus rose from the grave as a promise to us all that life does not end in death, but there is new life after death. There is something new, something beautiful, something truly to hope for, and not just for the rich and powerful among humanity. God’s new heavens and new earth are something truly new, truly different, where justice, mercy, and love truly are the ways we live. That new heavens and new earth of justice, mercy, and love, that is the resurrection life that Jesus promised us when he was raised from the tomb. 

God became human as Jesus of Nazareth. He preached justice, mercy, and love. He healed people and lived justice, mercy, and love. Because of that humanity decided we needed to kill him, and as we did, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them.” When God became human, we killed him, and God said, “I forgive you,” and I am going to show you the beginning of a new heavens and a new earth.

I realize that like colonizing Mars, that may sound like nonsense, because it’s hard to wrap our minds around, but a friend of mine named Carrie wrote, “even if you will never be able to wrap your mind around the Resurrection, Easter is the promise that impossibly good things can happen after (and even in the midst of) terribly bad things. Terribly bad things are happening…right now, everywhere. We do nonsensical things like dye chicken eggs that somehow are associated with a rabbit. None of these things make sense, but neither does Easter. The world is completely upside down right now. [We] could use the promise of some nonsense that maybe, every valley will be exalted and every mountain and hill made low,” that there will be new heavens and a new earth, a new life that will never end, a life of justice, mercy, and love.  

Why Are We Here? For Proclamation

Brad Sullivan

Easter Vigil, Year A

April 15, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Matthew 28:1-10

Why Are We Here?  For Proclamation

What are we doing here?  It’s Saturday night on a long weekend.  We could be out on the town; or staying at home, relaxing; or watching the new Star Wars preview for the 17th, 18th, and 19th times no YouTube.  Instead we’re here in church, doing much the same thing and in the same place where we are going to be tomorrow morning.  We’ve spent the last 40 days of our Lenten journey preparing for this night.  As Jesus spent 40 days in the desert preparing for his ministry and death, as his disciples spent three years with Jesus preparing for their new life in him, we have been preparing.  We’ve been learning from Jesus, learning to follow in his way.  We’ve been working at re-membering, at joining ourselves back to him.  We’ve been learning to rely more and more on Jesus through our Lenten journey.

Not so tonight.  Tonight is different.  What are we doing here tonight?  Tonight we are proclaiming:  “The tomb is empty and Jesus is risen.”  That is what Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph did on the day of Jesus’ resurrection.  Theirs was the first joy of proclamation. 

They had gone to the tomb, and the tomb should have smelled of decay, of blood and sweat, and death, but it didn’t.  The tomb was empty, and rather than decay, the tomb smelled of new earth and rock, clean and pure.  It smelled of new life and new creation, for that is what the empty tomb was, new life.

On the first day of the week, the same day when God proclaimed, “Let there be light,” an angel of light rolled back the stone of Jesus’ empty tomb and showed the women the new life and new creation that had been brought about through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  They saw the new light and new life that God had created once again, and then they went.

They went to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection, and Jesus met them on the way.  The new life and new creation itself met them, and he smelled of Eden, of earth and trees, of grass and fruit, of life and spring.  Seeing him was like seeing the sun rise on a beautiful field after a long, dark, frightful night.

They saw him, and they touched him, this new creation, and then they began their proclamation, the proclamation of the church that has continued on ever since and continues on this very night, across the whole earth, and in this very room.  The proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection, of new life and new creation continues on in our lives of service, of prayer, of conversation, and love.  The proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection continues on in each person who is baptized in his name.

The act of cleansing, of washing away darkness and following in Jesus’ light is an act of proclamation that the tomb is empty.  Blood, and death, and decay have been washed away and transformed into new earth, new life, new light.  That is what we are here to do tonight, to continue the proclamation, that God has taken the darkness of the world and said once again, “Let there be light,” for the tomb is empty, and Jesus is risen.