Isaiah 65:17-25 - For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord-- and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

Luke 21:5-19 ­ When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down." They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?" And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is near!' Do not go after them. "When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately."Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. "But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.
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In all probability, in one hundred years, not a single person in this room will be alive. Look around you. We will all be gone. And this holy place that has sheltered the prayers of several generations, will be gone one day. Maybe in a hundred years, maybe a thousand. Who knows. Look around you. Everything here is passing away. We are all moving toward extinction.

Did you hear about the remains of a new humanoid species that was recently discovered on the small Indonesian island of Flores? It was a tiny species only three and a half feet tall. It makes you think of J.R.R. Tolkein's Hobbits or Swift's Lilliputians. Apparently they evolved as a dwarf strain of humanoids in an isolated island environment, and they existed at the same time as our ancestor Homo sapiens were living in nearby areas. Although their brains were very small, about the size of a modern chimpanzee, there are a number of signs of their intelligent behavior.

It sparks the imagination. What might it have been like for these little humanoid creatures to have encountered their large-brained relatives who would carry the process of evolution forward? Might they have been frightened of Homo sapien? Curious? Imagine. If the tiny Flores Island humans were to have looked upon the Homo sapiens, it would be for them to see the evolutionary rise of consciousness that was even then creating the future of humankind. They would be seeing the future coming toward them.

Part of the Christian proclamation is that a new kind of humanity has arrived in Jesus Christ. In Jesus is the foretaste of the future for humanity and for all creation. We look at Jesus, and we see the fulfilment of our history, coming to us from the future. And just as the Flores Island man may have looked at an entirely new creation, coming from a distinct line of evolution, so we too recognize in the incarnation of Jesus a break in the historical process of cause and effect. God breaks into our history, and gives us something new.

Isaiah articulates a vision of something new like this. "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind," he prophecies. The new creation. It is like the resurrection. A new creation is being thrust into the old, taking and accepting the former, but transcending it; transfiguring it.

Theologians are very careful speaking about this. Christ is fully human, we say. But Christ is also fully divine. That is something new. A new creation in the midst of the old. And when we, in our old humanity, live within this new energy and life, we begin to become the new creation living in the old. The meaning of our life then, comes not so much from the past, as it does from the future breaking in upon us. We too can have a vision like Isaiah's of a city in which no more shall the sound of weeping be heard or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. Before they call God will answer, while they are yet speaking God will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. That is a new creation indeed.

We are invited to embrace that vision of the future as being more real than everything in that the past has offered. We are invited to live within the vision that God is drawing us into that kind of future, breaking into the present with the hope and promise of that kind of new life. And because God is that way, we can live with the values and vision of the new creation instead of being bound by the dismal old realities.

I know this feels abstract. Let me try to offer a way to think about this. The late bishop of Winchester, John V. Taylor writes this. "If the earth in its planetary orbit swung even fractionally nearer the sun it would become a different kind of world in which, if there was any sort of life, it would be quite a new life system. If human consciousness became even fractionally more conscious of God we would become a new humankind. This happened in Jesus. He was the new (human being) because his entire beginning was in continuous response to the (Divine).

We are like the little people of Flores Island looking at the humanity of the future. And what will this new creation look like? What is this change of consciousness that creates a new humanity? We've got lots of hints. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

That's not the way life is here and now, is it? But that is a vision of the future that is coming toward us in the new creation of Jesus Christ. It has already begun. It was initiated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is already here, but it is also not yet come. We live in the tension of the in between time. And in this in-between time we are invited to live so closely to God, that we can actually begin to breathe the new creation, to let the Spirit of that new humanity breathe in us so deeply, that our behavior begins to correspond to the new humanity, the new consciousness. It is groaning and yearning to come to birth.

But here's the hard part. For the new to come, the old must die. "The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind." "Not one stone will be left upon another." If you live motivated by the vision of the new world, it will cause you to question the way things are here and now. You will challenge the status quo; you will insist on change.

Think about those Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart. We've just been through a political season. Did we hear those values as the central reality promoted from any direction? No, we did not. To live under the vision of God's new creation will be a life of practical opposition to the way things are, just like Jesus' life was a life of practical opposition to the way things were in his day. It means you will look at the old ways of the world and you will say, "How can you do things this way, if God is what God is?" Occasionally you'll feel like you are from another planet. Jesus talks about that in today's gospel.

Do not despair. Do not be afraid. The future is inevitably and ultimately bright. Quoting Bishop Taylor again, Jesus was absolutely "sure that the future is full of grace and open to anyone who will trust and return. The kingdom is intended for all unconditionally. Men and women have not to strive to improve themselves but only to enter by the narrow gate of accepting the fact that they are accepted."

The deepest truth is this. Resurrection inevitably follows death. It is the new creation. Whenever we die to the old world, we cross a line. We are resurrected. We are accepted. We are no longer a debtor. But also we carry no past credits into the new creation. The old is past. The former things shall not be remembered. It is a new creation.

Homo sapien becomes Homo Christus. That is your destiny and your calling. That is the future that is coming. But what if, right here and right now, just a few of us could live out of that higher consciousness? Just a few of us could look at the world from the reference point of the future? What if some of us lived the Beatitudes and the new commandment to "love one another." Just a little change in the consciousness of humanity can have immense effect like the changing of our planet's orbit just a few degrees.

Do you find yourself dissatisfied with the way things are? Good! Forget it. Forget the way things are. And look at the world from the perspective of the future. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. That is what the future holds. If that is what God is creating for us, then how can we continue to live the way we've been living? Forget the past. Embrace the future. Take on God's vision for the world. It is the most real and constructive thing we can do.