It’s breathtaking how the effects of Easter ripple in eternity.
“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9-10).
Note, “kingdom,” not “kingdoms.” This is not a heterogenous composite of different families. This is one family, one kingdom, one humanity in Christ – through the cross.
Owen Roberts and I recently spent three weeks visiting our global workers all across Southeast Asia in six very different contexts. We worshiped with Thai people in a Bible College, Filipinos at a church plant, Cambodians on a beach, and in many other countries that are unpublishable in a public document. It was deeply moving to be welcomed to sing praises in languages that were not our own, in English, and in unknown tongues together.
It was also a timely reminder of how it feels to be united in Christ in a context where you are a cultural outsider. Just three days on a beach without a dedicated interpreter; just three weeks of life in cultures very dissimilar to ours, but enough to get a small taste of what it must be like for those who for various reasons find their church home in a foreign culture.
The increase of immigration to Newfoundland and Labrador over the past few years has given an unquantifiable gift to the province and the church. Not only do we have the opportunity to invite, welcome, and practice Christlike hospitality, but we also get to benefit from the spiritual vitality, questions and insights of those who come from countries more reached and less reached than ours in terms of gospel saturation. Every time our church becomes a little more diverse, we get another window of what it must be like in heaven, to worship together with those from every tribe, tongue and nation.
God by His Spirit has been going ahead of us, preparing us for this heavenly reunion, and also the earthly reunion that we are presently tasting. I’m not sure if you have heard the reports, but we now have (at least) four churches (Western, Central, Eastern, Labrador) who are all working together to increase and improve welcome and connection systems for newcomers to Newfoundland and Labrador. We are blessed to have a government who recognizes the unique contribution that our faith communities can make to this necessary, good work, and is investing in it. To the pastors, churches and disciples who are intentionally investing in newcomers and connections, well done!
We may not have all had the physical experience of being newcomers to a culture, but we have certainly all experienced it spiritually. Paul says in Ephesians 2: “remember that at that time (before the cross) you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one…” (vv.12-14).
No matter what culture we were born into, our shared citizenship is in heaven. Our shared family is His family. Our shared humanity is the new humanity. According to Paul, people from every culture will have to make radical changes to our ways of living in order to let the light of the gospel truly shine through our particular cultural lenses. This is what reunion means. As we are brought into closer union with Christ, we allow him to challenge, affirm, grow, shape us into the perfect image of a family that we find in the life of the Trinity.
This Easter, as you reflect on the cross and all that has been accomplished for you personally, I want to invite you to take some time to also reflect on what the cross has accomplished globally. Whatever political climate we find ourselves in, and whatever our political leaning, our first responsibility is to be citizens of the kingdom. Our primary family is the family of God. We are active participants in the purpose of Christ “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). Until his kingdom comes, and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven, let us continue to invite people from every tribe, tongue and nation to the greatest reunion the world has ever known.
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