18 May 2025

WORSHIP RESOURCES

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Revelation 21:1-6

Making All Things New

 

Additional Scriptures

Psalm 148; John 13:31-35; Acts 11:1-18

Preparation

Today is the fourth week of five in the book of Revelation. Worship planners might want to consider linking the services. For example, have the same character in period biblical costume read the Revelation scripture each week. Or choose a hymn that will be used each Sunday. It would be helpful to have the five speakers collaborate on their approaches to the theme scriptures. For additional information on the book of Revelation, listen to this podcast with Tony and Charmaine Chvala-Smith: Projectzionpodcast.org/podcast/558--newbrew—revelation.

 

Prelude

 

Welcoming Hymn

“Bring Many Names”     CCS 5

OR “This Is a Day of New Beginnings”  CCS 495

 

Welcome, Announcements, Joys, and Concerns

 

Call to Worship: Psalm 148:1-4                                            

 

Opening Hymn           Encourage participants to sing in languages other than their own.

“All Creatures of Our God and King”     CCS 98

OR “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”      CCS 101

 

Invocation

 

Response

 

Prayer for Peace

Peace Hymn

“The Peace of Jesus Christ”  CCS 317

OR “Peace of Jesus”    CCS 318

 

Light the peace candle.

Peace Prayer

Spirit of Love,

You love us so much. We feel your love as you abide in us and as we abide in you. 

 

With certainty, we feel warmth from the sun heating our skin.

With certainty, we hear the wind dance through our hair.

With certainty, the ground never fails below our feet. 

With certainty, we feel your love!

 

May we stop resisting, then, to spread that love to our neighbors! May we stop ignoring the tears, mourning, and crying of the desolate. Instead, may we act on your love, to wipe away tears and proclaim deliverance to people oppressed. Just as we stand in your love, we must also stand for your peace! Let us stand for those who feel rejected. May we take seriously the commandment to love one another and, in doing so, bring your peace to a suffering world. In the name of Jesus, who shows us how to love. Amen.

                        Tiffany and Caleb Brian

 

Scripture Reading: Revelation 21:1-6

 

Dwelling in the Word

            Project and print this paragraph for all to see.

 

Revelation 21 shows God not moving far away; instead, God comes home. “See, the home of God is among mortals.” God dwells with us on God’s Earth. Humanity, with our messiness and problems, shares the Earth with God. The Earth isn’t on a short-term lease to us. Revelation says God moves in, forever, our eternal, earthly roommate.

 

First reading:               As the paragraph is read the first time, just let the words

wash over you.

Second reading:          During the second reading, be aware of what draws your attention.

Third reading:             During the last reading, how might this paragraph describe your relationship with God?

 

Ministry of Music or Congregational Hymn

            “Source and Sovereign, Rock and Cloud”   CCS 4

OR “Many and Great”   CCS 3

 

The Spoken Word

Based on Revelation 21:1-6

 

Disciples’ Generous Response

Generosity Hymn

“Can We Calculate Our Giving”   CCS 617

OR “Take My Life and Let It Be”    CCS 608

 

Statement

God’s astonishing compassion and love in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate example of generosity. God loves us abundantly and unconditionally. As we open our hearts to courageously and generously share by placing money in the offering plates or through eTithing, we reflect the movement of God’s astonishing love and compassion for the world.

 

If you have participants joining the worship online, remind them that they can give through www.CofChrist.org/give or through eTithing at www.eTithing.org (consider displaying these URLs).

Blessing and Receiving of Local and Worldwide Mission Tithes

 

Closing Hymn

“O God, Our Help in Ages Past”      CCS 16

OR “God of Wonder, God of Thunder”   CCS 18

 

Benediction

 

Postlude


 

SERMON AND CLASS HELPS

Year C—Letters
Fifth Sunday of Easter

Revelation 21:1–6

 

Exploring the Scripture

The Book of Revelation is an apocalyptic prophecy. In this sense, the word apocalypse means revealing divine mysteries. It is credited to John, although modern scholars identify the author as John of Patmos. It is addressed to the seven churches of Asia and features three literary styles: epistolary, apocalyptic, and prophetic.

It was written to strengthen the members’ faith as the church suffered persecution by the Roman Empire. It seeks to bring a message of hope as we move toward John’s vision of final events. Today’s text introduces the New Jerusalem.

It is an apocalyptic vision of “a new heaven and a new earth” (v. 1), signaling a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophetic promise. Words filled with hope are amid images of sky, sea, bride, and groom, followed by the grand announcement interpreting the vision.

God’s home is with the people. God lives with us and calls it home. We can understand this to mean the tabernacle of God is with humanity, creating a mutual home where hope flows prophetically, and all that once brought suffering, pain, grief, and tears is gone.

An age-old promise now is made possible through Christ with so much certainty that you can write it down and record it for all posterity as “done.” Living water from the spring flows, hope never-ending—God with us—the beginning and the end.

Powerful words and images cast the vision of liberation, which prophetically speaks across the timeline of humanity and all creation. The freeing truths of the gospel are made plain in New Jerusalem, where all things are made new. The image contrasts sharply with the unjust reality of empire, be it Roman or any other unjust world power. Redemption and making all things new are not otherworldly. They come to this Earth and meet the people right where they are, echoing God’s dream for the world as Jesus prayed, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

John’s vision captures our imagination of what can be. When God, revealed through Jesus Christ and made known through the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit, finds a home in the hearts of the genuine community, the light of Christ can rise through the people of God, speaking truth to power and bringing light from the darkness. This is hope and a new vision for a world where all who thirst, drink; hunger, eat; and pain will be no more.

 

Central Ideas

1.     God’s home is with humanity and all creation on Earth.

2.     Living with us, God makes all things new and wipes every tear.

3.     God with us is our hope and God’s vision for all creation.

 

Questions for the Speaker

1.     How does the Christ event, which God revealed through the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, make the hope described in John’s vision of the New Jerusalem possible?

2.     How does the vision of a new heaven and a new Earth bring hope and assurance to today’s world?

3.     How have you or your community experienced God’s indwelling presence as “a gift from the spring of the water of life”?


 

 

SACRED SPACE: A RESOURCE FOR SMALL-GROUP MINISTRY 

Year C—Letters
Fifth Sunday of Easter

 

Revelation 21:1–6

 

Gathering

Welcome

Today is the fifth Sunday of the Easter season. The Easter season continues for fifty days and concludes with the Day of Pentecost.

 

Prayer for Peace

Ring a bell or chime three times slowly.

Light the peace candle.

Gracious God and precious Friend, extend your peace throughout creation in flowing ribbons of love.

Let all who seek you know your presence and be moved to greater acts of peace in their communities. May they know your infinite tenderness and intimate friendship as they seek greater knowledge of you.

Bring your presence to those struggling with loneliness and uncertainty, that they may understand your desire for their companionship and reach out to you in love.

Be with those who feel weak and useless, that they would find strength in their trials and the confidence to share this strength with others.

Above all, we pray that your peace, love, and grace would impress upon our hearts the desire to live in service to you.

As we go forward from this sacred space, may we carry your peace and love with us to all the corners of the world. In Jesus’s most precious name we pray. Amen.

—Molly Bagley

Spiritual Practice

Breath Prayer

Read the following to the group:

At the Last Supper, Jesus says:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

—John 13:34–35 NRSVue

This new commandment is as important today as it was in Jesus’s time. Tensions, misunderstandings, abuse, war, and oppression are destructive forces in our world. As disciples of Christ, we can offer healing to humankind and to all creation as we live this commandment: Love one another.

During this Easter season our spiritual practice is a breath prayer. During the prayer, we use a word to breathe in and a word to breathe out. For today’s prayer we will breathe in the word love and breathe out the words one another.

Slowly read the following instructions:

Sit with relaxed posture and close your eyes. We will spend three minutes in centering prayer.

Breathe in a regular, natural rhythm.

As you breathe in, focus on love. As you exhale, breathe out one another.

Breathe in and out. Continue to focus on breathing in love and exhaling one another.

Watch the time for three minutes. Urge participants to continue the breath prayer for the full three minutes.

When time is up, share these closing instructions:

Offer a brief word of thanks to God, take a deep breath, and open your eyes when you are ready.

 

Sharing Around the Table

Revelation 21:1–6 NRSVue

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“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 and be their God;
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.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”

At the breaking of the seventh seal there is a brief silence in heaven. John’s vision continues in Chapters 8–20 and contains many symbols based on John’s knowledge of the Hebrew Bible. Among the symbols:

·       Trumpets and bowls representing God’s judgments.

·       A great red dragon representing Satan.

·       A prostitute representing general wickedness.

Amid the devastation, there is constant thanksgiving and praise to God and Jesus. We see this back and forth several times in the vision, a cycle of pain and despair, then praise and hope, then pain and despair, and so on. The constant message is: “Do not lose hope!”

In Chapters 12 and 13:

·       Three great beasts bring a threat to heaven and Earth.

·       A great red dragon prepares to devour a child who is about to be born. The mother flees, and the child is taken to God.

·       Michael and his angels defeat the dragon and throw it down to Earth, where the dragon wages war against the rest of the mother’s children.

·       A second beast rises from the sea, and a third rises from Earth with the number of 666. This number generally is accepted to be a numeric code representing the letters of the Hebrew spelling of the name “Nero,” a recent emperor of Rome.

The vision continues with Babylon falling, or it may be a commentary on the vile state of the world, from John’s perspective. What follows are many exultations affirming that God is in charge.

The lamb appears again in Chapter 14, calling for the saints to endure and remain faithful.

In Chapters 15 and 16 another series of sevens shows up:

·       Seven bowls of the wrath of God are poured on Earth, the sea, rivers and springs, the sun, the beast, the Euphrates, and the air.

·       In Chapter 17 John shows contempt for Rome by his depiction of a prostitute, sitting on a beast with seven heads (seven hills of Rome, seven emperors).

·       A white horse appears, and this time its rider is Jesus, the One called faithful and true. He is the “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

·       He defeats the beast and its armies.

·       An angel binds the dragon for a thousand years, then releases it for a short time.

·       All evil, including Gog and Magog referenced in Ezekiel, is consumed by fire.

·       The dead are judged according to their works.

At long last, John sees the vision of a new heaven and a new Earth. He sees a holy city coming down from heaven, and the voice of God proclaims that the dwelling place of God is with mortals. God will bring comfort to God’s people. There will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain.

 

Questions

1.      Why are we being reminded that God is “the beginning and the end?”

2.      When have you experienced cycles of despair and hope?

3.      When have you needed the message to “not lose hope?”

4.      From the Hebrew Bible, Ezekiel 48:35 refers to a city, the name of which “from that time on shall be, The Lord is There.” What would it be like to live in a city with that name?

 

Sending

Generosity Statement

Faithful disciples respond to an increasing awareness of the abundant generosity of God by sharing according to the desires of their hearts; not by commandment or constraint.

—Doctrine and Covenants 163:9

The offering basket is available if you would like to support ongoing, small-group ministries as part of your generous response. You also may give at CofChrist.org/give.

This offering prayer for the Easter season is adapted from A Disciple’s Generous Response.

God of rejoicing, we share our gifts joyfully and with thanksgiving in response to the generous gifts you have given us. May the offerings we share bring joy, hope, love, and peace into the lives of others so they might experience your mercy and grace. Amen.

Invitation to Next Meeting

 

Closing Hymn

Community of Christ Sings 351, “To Be Your Presence”

 

Closing Prayer

 

Optional Additions Depending on Group

  • Thoughts for Children

 

 

Thoughts for Children

Ask: Does anyone know what a community is? (A group of people who live near each other, gather together, share beliefs, or care about each other).

A signal community is a community that follows Jesus’s way of living. It is an important part of God’s peaceable kingdom. A community like this also can be called Zion.

Zion is defined in scripture as a city on a hill, a sign of peace. We understand Zion as a place where we can find our inner peace. It’s also where we live with others in loving relationships that are just and fair, where we can forgive and work out problems with others, where there is no poverty, and where we live in harmony with all creation.

Living in God’s peaceable kingdom, Zion, a new heaven and a new Earth, all mean that we can be a signal community, a place where we can help create peace.

When we are together in worship and sharing, we are examples of God’s peaceable kingdom, a signal community. What do you think is the best thing about living as a signal community? (peace, love, singing, snacks)

Together we will build signal communities of joy, hope, love, and peace.

Thank the children for participating.

 


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