Psalm 148
“The New Creation”
Preached Sunday, May 15, 2022
One of my favorite things is talking about theology. Now, so often, I think people think talking theology is some way up “here” thing, when really it’s something we do every day. Theology is how ever we think and talk about God. So yeah, I love talking about God! Imagine that… wonder why I became a preacher…
But really, part of my job as a preacher and a pastor is to talk theology with you. To help you understand and discern what you think about God, to understand your theology better. And so, today I want to turn to one of the most theologically pressing questions of our world:
Do all dogs go to heaven?
Okay. So maybe not the MOST theologically pressing question of our world but one that we’re going to unpack together because while the question may seem trivial to some, how we answer this question has bigger and greater theological impacts for us and all of creation.
Which brings us to one of my favorite theological concepts or concepts of our faith and that’s The New Creation. In our current world I feel like as Christians we spend a lot of time talking about heaven. And when we talk about heaven we talk about it as this other removed place in the clouds and us as disembodied spirits in it. And there still may be a heaven like that but Scripture specially talks a lot about what comes AFTER that heaven. We often think of heaven as the final endgame but not according to Scripture. The Bible talks about that day when ALL of creation, including heaven, is re-created and made new and God establishes the Kingdom of Heaven here on the new earth.
One of the most famous of these Scriptures is today’s reading from the book of Revelation:
“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 as their God; 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.’”
In this New Creation, the world as we know it has passed away and there is a NEW creation. God’s home is among mortals. There will be no tears, no death, no mourning, no crying, no pain. It is at this point when the resurrection of Christ will be shared with us. Christian theology talks about Christ as the first FRUIT of the Resurrection and the Resurrection of the Dead awaits all of us - that means that those who have died will be resurrected along with their bodies - renewed and recreated like Christ’s resurrected body.
And this is all over Scripture. The Old Testament prophets are full of references to God’s Holy Mountain, that day when people from every corner of the earth shall come to God’s Holy Mountain and divisions will cease and there will be never-ending peace.
For me, this theology of the New Creation gives me great hope for our beautiful wonderful planet and all of creation. For when we talk about heaven, it’s always so focused on humanity - but what about the rest of creation? The New Creation helps us look toward that day when every relationship is made right, made whole. Between Creator and created and between all of creation. When Christ reigns again, enemies will lay down weapons that in turn will become instruments of new life, of the harvest. Families restored. Borders erased. People from every corner of the earth become kin on God’s holy mountain.
And we know that humans aren’t all there is to creation. Despite many of us sometimes acting like it.
As much as we can know of the heart of God, I believe that God must truly want to see all of God’s handiwork redeemed. The God who created everything from the depths of the oceans and the creatures therein to the stars and mysteries of the universe. In today’s Psalm we hear a reflection of ALL of creation worshiping and praising God: the sun, moon, and stars! The heavens and the deepest seas and the creatures there within! Fire and hail, snow and frost and wind! Mountains, hills, and trees! Wild and domestic animals, things that crawl and things that fly! And humans! All praising God together! God created ALL of creation to praise God and reflect the Divine’s glory back. And as much as can know the heart of God, God loves all of God’s creation and God will not abandon ANY of God’s creation.
Romans 8 tells us as much: “The whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. … We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now.”
Another Scriptural reference of the New Creation comes from Isaiah 11 - and it’s probably the most famous, one that we hear every Advent:
“The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.”
The vision given to us in Isaiah 11 portrays not just humans but wolves and lambs, leopards and goats, calves and lions, cows and bears, snakes and serpents. Given the Biblical evidence, it is not too wild of a speculation to say that one of the wrongs that will be made right at Christ’s return is the hierarchy and status of non-human animals within creation, their relationships with each other, and humankind’s relationship with them.
Indeed, Romans 8 also says: Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice—it was the choice of the one who subjected it—but in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children.
We can find evidence for the redemption of all creation not only in scripture but in our Wesleyan theological heritage. In his sermon, “The General Deliverance,” John Wesley affirms that God hears the groans and cries of all creation and that brute creatures will have deliverance, not annihilation. We all await with bated breath for the day of Isaiah 11 when all creatures will live peaceably together and be redeemed. Many Christians have surmised that creatures would be released from their carnal desires, carnivores turned into herbivores, violent wildness turned tame. Wesley, however, speculates that God may take it a step further so that all creation may be made what we are now. Wesley writes with hopeful conjecture in his sermon, and I quote:
“May I be permitted to mention here a conjecture concerning the brute creation? What, if it should then please the all-wise, the all-gracious Creator to raise them higher in the scale of beings? What, if it should please him, when he makes us “equal to angels,” to make them what we are now—creatures capable of God; capable of knowing and loving and enjoying the Author of their being? If it should be so, ought our eye to be evil because he is good? However this be, he will certainly do what will be most for his own glory.”
In summary:, in the New Creation, all animals will be redeemed, and restored, and possibly raised up to the capacity of knowing, worshiping, and loving the One who created them. The answer isn’t just “all dogs go to heaven”—it’s all dogs (and cats and birds and cows and snakes and sharks and pigs and platypuses and horses and squids and, and, and…) will, in the New Creation, not only be there but have the human capacity of reason and be able to consciously love their Creator alongside humans.
To take this one awesome step further: at the day of the general resurrection, in the hopeful knowledge that Christ plans to release all God’s lesser creation from their bonds and elevate them, why would they then be excluded from the resurrection? Indeed on that day it will not just be the beasts of the wild, the farm, and tamed household pets that worship the Lord alongside us, but all that which has become extinct: the mammoth, the megalodon, the tyrannosaurus rex, the black rhinoceros, the dodo, the brachiosaurus, the Rocky Mountain locust, and, and, and… From dinosaurs to beetles, every creature God has EVER created is precious and loved in God’s sight and if it should so please the Divine Creator of the universe, God will resurrect and elevate all creation to know, worship, and love God.
Woah. So how’s that for a theologically and scripturally reasoned answer to do all dogs go to heaven? That in the New Creation, ALL of creation will be redeemed, renewed, restored, elevated. The New Creation is about us as humans, loved and made in the image of God, and it extends so far beyond us as well.
To take this one awesome step further: at the day of the general resurrection, in the hopeful knowledge that Christ plans to release all God’s lesser creation from their bonds and elevate them, why would they then be excluded from the resurrection? Indeed on that day it will not just be the beasts of the wild, the farm, and tamed household pets that worship the Lord alongside us, but all that which has become extinct: the mammoth, the megalodon, the tyrannosaurus rex, the black rhinoceros, the dodo, the brachiosaurus, the Rocky Mountain locust, and, and, and… From dinosaurs to beetles, every creature God has EVER created is precious and loved in God’s sight and if it should so please the Divine Creator of the universe, God will resurrect and elevate all creation to know, worship, and love God.
Woah. So how’s that for a theologically and scripturally reasoned answer to do all dogs go to heaven? That in the New Creation, ALL of creation will be redeemed, renewed, restored, elevated. The New Creation is about us as humans, loved and made in the image of God, and it extends so far beyond us as well.
So what are the implications of holding this theology of The New Creation and ALL of God’s creation being redeemed? How does this affect us here and now in our lives that moves it beyond a theological concept in our minds to a part of our faith that we live out every day?
In high school my home room was in charge of collecting and accumulating the school’s recycling. While I was doing this one day the principal of the school stopped me. He said, “You’re a Christian, right?” I said, “Yes.” So then he said to me, “Why do you bother with recycling when God is going to remake all of creation anyway?” As a teenager I didn’t have an answer for him but I do today:
We are called to care about what God cares about: this includes our neighbors and especially the last, the lost, and the least. And it goes beyond our human neighbors to all of creation. That which God has given us to be stewards over. We are called to help all creation thrive so that it can praise and reflect back the glory of our God.
Moreover, God’s timeline is not our timeline. While we can hope and know that one day God will restore all creation, we don’t know when that will be. When we are called to care for and love our neighbors, that includes the generations yet to come who will live on this planet - to care for our delicate ecosystems in a way that honors God and allows our children and our children’s children to not only survive but thrive and see God’s glory in the created world.
And the last implication for our lives to lift up today is that we are not a people without hope. Believing in the New Creation gives me a deep seated hope and trust in God that one day, in the words of Teresa of Avila, all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manners of things shall be well. And this changes everything, the way I think about and strive to care for this world, the way I interact with my neighbors, the way I share God’s love. I do so from a place of trust and hope that ALL of creation is in the hands of God.
And I have hope that one day, God will restore and redeem us all, wipe every tear from our eyes, abolish death, and live among us.
“Do all dogs go to heaven” sounds trivial but it helps us get to something much deeper: the expansive and renewing and recreating love of God for all.
Wow. Praise God. Amen.
In high school my home room was in charge of collecting and accumulating the school’s recycling. While I was doing this one day the principal of the school stopped me. He said, “You’re a Christian, right?” I said, “Yes.” So then he said to me, “Why do you bother with recycling when God is going to remake all of creation anyway?” As a teenager I didn’t have an answer for him but I do today:
We are called to care about what God cares about: this includes our neighbors and especially the last, the lost, and the least. And it goes beyond our human neighbors to all of creation. That which God has given us to be stewards over. We are called to help all creation thrive so that it can praise and reflect back the glory of our God.
Moreover, God’s timeline is not our timeline. While we can hope and know that one day God will restore all creation, we don’t know when that will be. When we are called to care for and love our neighbors, that includes the generations yet to come who will live on this planet - to care for our delicate ecosystems in a way that honors God and allows our children and our children’s children to not only survive but thrive and see God’s glory in the created world.
And the last implication for our lives to lift up today is that we are not a people without hope. Believing in the New Creation gives me a deep seated hope and trust in God that one day, in the words of Teresa of Avila, all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manners of things shall be well. And this changes everything, the way I think about and strive to care for this world, the way I interact with my neighbors, the way I share God’s love. I do so from a place of trust and hope that ALL of creation is in the hands of God.
And I have hope that one day, God will restore and redeem us all, wipe every tear from our eyes, abolish death, and live among us.
“Do all dogs go to heaven” sounds trivial but it helps us get to something much deeper: the expansive and renewing and recreating love of God for all.
Wow. Praise God. Amen.
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