Will you pray with me?  Lord, may the words of my lips and the meditations of all
our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

Two weeks ago, I was blessed with the opportunity to go, with a group of pastors, professors, and laypeople, on a week-long pilgrimage and study trip to the Gothic cathedral in the French city of Chartres, about an hour outside of Paris.  Built at the turn of the 13th century, it is a large construction.  The two towers at its front end reach nearly 400 feet into the sky.  The vaulted ceiling inside reaches a height of 121 feet, and the green copper roof rises far beyond that.  The cruciform interior is just over 425 feet long.  The walls still hold over 170 of its original 183 medieval stained-glass windows.

It is a palpably holy place.  To enter it is to become immediately aware that there are indeed places in this world that are somehow closer than others to God and to all God hopes for the creation.  Even the tourists seem to know their place in the long line of pilgrims that have worn smooth the stones of the floor with their feet and their knees and saturated the walls with prayer and praise.

But more than just old, more than just big, more even than holy, the cathedral at Chartres is beautiful.  Pillars and arches soar into the heights, drawing eyes and thoughts to lofty things.  Statues and images, each one an act of devotion and veneration, surround you at every step, their solidness and even their imperfections—a missing hand or head here, a chipped flower there—call you to remember, remember the stories and truths of the faith.  A faint odor of incense hangs in the cool, quiet, still air.  And there is light.  At Chartres, light is everywhere.  It spills, washes, cascades, floods across floors and statues and worshipers.  And this isn’t the bright, cold light of enlightenment reason, or the buzzing fluorescent light of American malls.  This is light like a party, brilliant and jewel-toned as it passes through the windows, reds and oranges and purples and yellows and greens and blues light the floor and walls with a riot of color and life.

Chartres’ authors and builders sought to make that place as glorious and gorgeous as any place ever imagined on earth.  For in their minds, their task was nothing less than building an outpost, a colony if you will, of Christ’s Heavenly City here on earth.

And they did their work well.  It is beautiful—a choked-up, speechless, aching, Grand Canyon kind of beautiful.  While there in that sort-of heavenly city, I found myself lost in it.  But while I was there, the minds of the rest of the nation and much of the world were in another city, Blacksburg, VA, scene of the Virginia Tech tragedy.  While I was there in that sort-of heavenly city, war continued to tear apart the lives of those living in another city, Baghdad.  And while I was there, there continued to be homeless people in the city of Boston, and violence in Roxbury and Mattapan, and vast inequalities of wealth.  And all those other cities, the broken cities, the still-uncompleted cities were with me, on my heart as I in contemplation of the glory of the Heavenly City.

In Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead, an elderly minister reflects on his many years serving the same rural parish in the American Midwest.  At one point, he says, “Calvin says somewhere that each of us is an actor on a stage and God is the audience.  That metaphor has always interested me, because it makes us artists of our behavior, and the reaction of God to us might be thought of as aesthetic rather than morally judgmental…”.  “…the reaction of God to us might be thought of as aesthetic rather than morally judgmental.”  What if God judges us not by how right we are, or how upright we are, or how morally solid we are, but by the beauty of our lives?  Not by physical beauty or Madison Avenue beauty, but by the beauty of our actions.  How would our thinking about the Christian life, or any life, be different if what we concerned ourselves with was whether our actions in the world and interactions with each other were beautiful?

The author of the book of Revelation understood well that Heaven, whatever it is and whenever it comes, will be first and foremost a beautiful place.  Could you picture it, when Christian was reading a moment ago?  Could you begin to see it in your heads?  1500 miles square, with walls made of jewels rising tier upon tier upon tier into the sky, and streets made of gold pure and clear as glass.  A river running with the very stuff of life flowing through its center from the throne of God, and a tree, a gigantic tree bearing a different fruit for each month of the year, and with leaves to end every war and heal the nations.  The glory of every nation, of every good thing created by every good soul gathered in, burnished and shining.  Every dark deed, every failed attempt and unholy aim left outside the walls as the people stream into the city through pearl gates that never, never close.

And over, above, below, through, around, and in every thing and every soul shining the light of the glory of the heart of God, light like a party, so bright, so all-pervading that the sun and moon need be no more, and the night itself goes down to death.  And the people—you and I—worship in Temples no more, but in the very being of God.

Greg Jones, Dean of Duke University Divinity School, in reflecting on the comments of the pastor in Gilead, argues that “…for Protestants, beauty remains a marginal category” .  Unfortunately, I think he’s right.  I think that most of us, surrounded and bombarded every day that is unjust and unrighteous, that is ugly, base, and mean, that show forth the uncompletedness of our cities, view visions like this one from Revelation as at best pleasant pie-in-the-sky dreams, and at worst, as dangerous distractions from the work that we are called to do.  And make no mistake about it, we are called to work for the new world, to begin laying the foundations of the city.  We are called to follow Christ in serving all humankind, in calling powerful ones to account, in striving to create justice in an unjust world.

But Revelation, with its impossible city, reminds us that in the end, the completion of the creation is not our task.   That all our efforts, all our striving, all our good works, are absolutely necessary, and in the end not enough.  We lay the foundations, yes, but in the end, what will complete the creation, what will save the world, what will finally build the city of God is nothing less than grace.  In the end, it is not we, but God who will complete our every effort and bring the people of God into the city God has built for them.

The creators of Chartres Cathedral were self-consciously seeking to point to the Heavenly Jerusalem.  They made it huge, as wide and high as they possibly could.  They gave it walls of glass that glitter and sparkle as if they were made of gems.  They filled it with image after image, in stained glass and in sculpture, of the Heavenly City.  And they filled it with light, as much light as the technology of the day would allow, bounced and filtered and refracted down on the people, bathing them in radiance.

And the author of Revelation and the authors of the cathedral at Chartres knew, they knew that in the end, the glory and beauty of that places the created—like the glory and beauty of this place—were not ends in themselves but rather pale reflections of, pointers to the glory God has in store for us.  They sought to provide a place of beauty, not as an escape from the harsh realities of an uncompleted world, of cities like Boston, and Baghdad, and Blacksburg, but to remind us of what it will be like when God finally does complete it, and so give us strength to live in it courageously and beautifully.  They knew that the beauty they created and the works they did were a necessary start, but that in the end, the fulfillment and completion of the creation can only be achieved by the Source of all beauty, God.  And they knew, as surely as they knew how to use pen, and mortar, and glass, that in the end God will come, will finish the work she has started, will make all things new.

So, because there is much still for you and I to do and we will need courage to do it.  Because our lives and our world is still incomplete and we are called to labor in it until God comes to complete our work.  Because don’t we know our cities and we are broken and not yet full of the glory of God, I offer you a vision of beauty:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and all that once divided the peoples was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Boston, the new Baghdad, the new Blacksburg, VA, coming down from God, shining and dressed as for a wedding in heaven.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.  God will dwell with them; they will be God’s peoples.  She 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.”

And I was carried away to a great, high mountain and shown the holy city.  And Boston, and Baghdad, and Blacksburg, it has the very glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal.  It lies foursquare, fifteen hundred miles to a side, and there is room for everyone, for the poor and the rich, the great and the lowly, those who died peace or in violence.  And there is no more concrete, or stone, or gunshot-pitted pavement, but the walls are made of jewels, of jasper, and sapphire, and agate, and emerald, and onyx, carnelian, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, amethyst, and pearls, and the streets are made of pure gold, clear as glass, and every door is open.

There was no temple in the city, not our kind of temple or their kind of temple, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty.  And Boston, and Baghdad, and Blacksburg has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is light, and it shines everywhere, through the Back Bay and through Roxbury, through the green zone and through Sadr City, through the drill field and through the dorms.  The nations will walk by its light, and the people will bring all that is glorious and honorable of the nations into it.  And death, and oppression, and inequality, and war, and murder, and suicide—nothing unclean shall enter it, and all those who pass its gates will leave their sin behind.

Then I saw the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of Boston, and Baghdad, and Blacksburg.  On either side of the river is the tree of life, and it produces all the wealth the people need, and there is enough for all.  And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of every nation.  Nothing that broke us or oppressed us in this life will be there any more.  But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and we will worship him.  We will see his face, and his name will be on our foreheads.  And there will be no more night, for the Lord God will be our light, and we will reign forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.  Amen.