Behold, behold, I make all things new, beginning with new and starting from today
Behold, behold, I make all things new, my promise is true, for I am Christ the way.

And the one who sits on the throne proclaims: “Behold, I shall make all things new”

But what, precisely, is being made new?

Well, from that reading from the Book of Revelations, it is nothing less than a new heaven and a new earth; it is the fulfilment of the Lord’s Prayer, a new kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven; it is that heavenly bride … oh the preparations that go into a wedding! Oh the preparations of getting the bride ready, the agony, the pain, the measurements, the going back to the seamstress again and again and again to get the dress just right, and the cost. But, even for a normal wedding, it is usually worth it. And this is the bride. All the preparations, and all the cost is worth it. For God has come to live among the people he has created. God, himself, will dwell among us. That is what is new.

Behold, behold, I make all things new, beginning with new and starting from today

Behold, behold, I make all things new, my promise is true, for I am Christ the way.

What’s new?

Well, for Peter in the Book of Acts, quite a lot is new. For Peter gets a visit from the proverbial Pizza Delivery man, who arrives shouting: …

     “One extra large, to go, with all the toppings”

     “Oh no” replies Peter, “I only ever eat Krisp ‘n Kosher!”

     “Try it” says the delivery man, “You’ll like it!”

It took three attempts for God to get it through to Peter that all animals that dropped down in that sheet were OK to be killed and eaten; that the new rule applied; that kosher was set aside. It took three attempts for God to get it through to Peter and the writer of the Acts of the Apostles thought that we would have the same problem of understanding what is new. For in Acts chapter 10 the writer gives us an account of the dream as Peter dreams it. And then in the very next chapter, we get (in almost exactly the same words) an account of Peter’s description of the dream to other people. We needed it to hear at least twice to get an understanding of what is new.

Everything, for Peter, was new. Gentiles could receive the Holy Spirit. Gentiles could become members of the movement of disciples of Christ. Gentiles are OK, they are not beyond the pale.

Behold, behold, I make all things new, beginning with new and starting from today

Behold, behold, I make all things new, my promise is true, for I am Christ the way.

Then in the gospel, at the Last Supper, just as Judas is disappearing into the night to betray Jesus, we have the new commandment … well it’s not a real commandment, is it? It doesn’t work like a proper commandment should. Good commandments make something very clear. “Do not murder” is a proper commandment. I know where I stand with that. “Do pay your taxes” is another proper commandment. I know what’s expected – even if I choose to bend the rules to my own advantage! They are proper commandments. We know where we stand, They make sense, They are verifiable and measurable., I can judge myself. I can judge others and they can judge me. And if there is any doubt, we can set up as system against these verifiable, measurable commandments to ensure justice.

But … LOVE … that’s different. Love doesn’t tell us what to do. Nor does it tell us what not to do. It doesn’t help us when we seek to judge others. It doesn’t help us to set up a system to ensure adherence to that commandment.

Take, for example, collecting for Christian Aid Week. I could encourage you, I could exhort you, I could even command you (like priests might have done in years gone by) to go and do your bit for Christian Aid. Or we could discuss what love would seek of us. And how we would respond to the challenge that Christian Aid offers if we were totally motivated by love. Not a love that is for those who are like us. Not even a love that is a compassion for those who are less fortunate than us. But a love for those we do not know and can never know, yet whom we love because we are members of the same human family.

But that’s just an example to show that love isn’t like a commandment in the good old fashioned sense of telling us what to do or what not to do. Love tells us where, what we choose to do, should come from. Love speaks to our motives, rather than to our actions. And actually I suspect it puts a greater responsibility on us as we seek to make our own decisions. It is, what we might call, a ‘grown up’ commandment. Summed up by St Augustine as “Love, and do as you will.”

If we can get in touch with this commandment to love, and be motivated by love in everything we say and think and do (from how we speak to shop assistants in supermarkets to how we fill in our tax returns) then everything will, indeed, be new:

• the old rules, like Peter only eating Kosher food, will be set aside
• the old earth will pass away into a new Jerusalem
• and everyone, by seeing what we do and how we speak, will know that we are followers of Jesus of Nazareth

Behold, behold, I make all things new, beginning with new and starting from today

Behold, behold, I make all things new, my promise is true, for I am Christ the way.