Much Ado About Something

Scripture — Revelation 21:1-6 (NRSV)

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.”

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.”

Devotion

Easter came very late this year. It’s so late that my ordination anniversary, April 1, which normally falls in the Great Fifty Days of Easter, fell in Lent. (Yes, I was ordained a priest on April Fool’s Day.)

The year I was ordained, April 1 was Friday of Easter Week, which is a feast that moves around (since Easter Day obviously moves around). As I’ve written about before, I take pictures every day during the Easter season and post them on my social media under the hashtag #50daysofeasterpictures; I’ve been doing this since 2017. So, most years where I get both April 1 and the Friday of Easter Week happening during the Easter season, I’ve enjoyed celebrating my ordination with a picture twice. This year, sadly, I only got one picture.

And this year, my picture was about Shakespeare. You see, I directed a show for the first time in my life—Shakespeare’s comedy _Much Ado About Nothing_—and our first set of performances was in early April but our second set was on the Friday and Saturday of Easter Week. In fact, all week during Easter Week, I took #50daysofeasterpictures pictures related to the show, encouraging people to come see it. And finally, on my ordination anniversary, there I was watching my cast perform one of Shakespeare’s best comedies.

What does any of this have to do with the book of Revelation? Well, I honestly couldn’t stop thinking about Much Ado as I read over this beautiful description of the new heavens and the new earth. In Shakespeare’s story, there are two couples in need of healing. Claudio and Hero were childhood friends, but now they are preparing to get married in a setting overshadowed both by war and by Claudio’s own stupidity, which leads him to believe—twice, actually, in one play—that Hero is being unfaithful to him. Beatrice (Hero’s cousin) and Benedick (Claudio’s friend) once dated, but hurt each other badly (Shakespeare doesn’t specify exactly how); they are the people each other most needs, but it will take work and suffering for them to find their way back together.

It takes more than work and suffering though—it takes grace. (A lot of this grace happens through the character of Dogberry and the way his team of watchmen uncovers the slander against Hero, in ways I don’t have space to go into in this devotional but which you can read about at length here, if you want.) When Claudio rejects Hero at the altar, she swoons and appears dead. While according to the plot she is hidden away and everyone is told to say she is dead, what Shakespeare’s language indicates for the next half hour—and the way I told my actors to play it—is that she is actually dead, mysteriously restored to life for the final, triumphant wedding when several brides show up adorned for their husbands and both couples get married. Benedick even exclaims about his reconciliation with Beatrice: “It’s a miracle!”

We don’t know a lot about Shakespeare’s personal faith, but the end of this play—as the end of so many of his plays do—draws heavily on imagery of resurrection, giving us a scene that wipes every tear from the characters’ eyes, comforts their mourning, and makes all things new. But that, you may say, is fiction. In our own lives, you may protest, people and dreams and plans and relationships all stay dead when they die. We don’t know anyone who actually, like Hero, came back to life.

Well, actually, if you know Jesus, you do.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Babylon and the New Jerusalem: A Tale of Two Cities (Revelation 17-22).