On this our Patronal Festival of St Giles the Church sets before us a glance through the window of heaven in our second reading from the beginning of Revelation Chapter 21.
The book of Revelation is a difficult and much misused book. It was written by the visionary John exiled on the island of Patmos most likely during the persecution of Emperor Domitian in 93AD. At that time Christians like all Roman citizens were being forced to call a man God. Their refusal led to their widespread martyrdom. From his exile Saint John handed on a vision rich in symbolism sent to help Christians in that and all ages to make good of their troubles by fixing their gaze on the consequences of the incarnation.
It is Christian faith that God took flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. By taking our nature he has lifted it up into his divinity. This man is truly man and God and so worthy of our worship.
The book of Revelation takes what has been revealed to his first worshippers through the unique life, death and resurrection of Jesus and applies it to the community of the Church. More than that - it sets forth a vision of cosmic transformation.
The love of God in Jesus is known to us as it was known to Saint Giles, in word and sacrament and fellowship. This knowledge we have is by anticipation. It’s a preview of what’s to come from the love of Jesus for, as someone said across the pond, ‘we ain’t seen nothing yet’!
The nearest we get as Christians to what the future will be is here in the book of Revelation. Here we read of the Church in a way that’s truly awesome. There is a wedding ahead. Jesus is the bridegroom. The Church is the bride to be, once she is perfected. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
These are almost the last words in the Christian holy book and they’re set for us on our Saint’s Day. When they speak as they do of a marriage they express in poetry the consummation of Christian faith. 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.
To believe God has made his home with mortals is at the heart of Christianity. It is affirmed at the start of the Gospel of Saint John for Jesus and here at the end of the Revelation to Saint John it is affirmed for all believers.
If Jesus is uniquely the Son of God made a mortal we who, with St Giles, trust the same Lord Jesus are destined to be carried through this vale of tears into a place of resurrection where Jesus waits for us. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
These last words of the Bible are an encouragement to all of us as press on with faith towards the world to come.
Jesus loves me this I know, because the Bible tells me so.
Of all the places I can think of where texts from the Book of Revelation are to be seen none is more striking than the display of Chapter 11 verse 15 above the coronation altar in Westminster Abbey where you read these words: the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever.
St Giles worked for that kingdom of love and peace to come in his generation. With Christian vision and motivation he helped build up his community in France. In doing so he had his sights on the life of that community he is now for ever part of, the home of God where death will be no more; nor mourning and crying and pain. May what he thirsted for be ours! May the communions we make at this altar be fulfilled as we join Giles one day at the marriage feast of Jesus our heavenly Bridegroom.
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