Sermon April 14, 2013 (Easter 3 Year C, Revelation 5:11-14)
Please pray with me. Gracious Lord, bless the speaking and bless the hearing, that your Word may take root in our hearts and bear fruit in our lives, for the healing of the world you so loved, and to the glory of your holy name. Amen.
On Thursday evenings in January, a group of us from this congregation gathered to read and study the book of Revelation. There was much grumbling as we went through the twenty-two chapters of this book, not because we didn’t want to read it, but because it can be so strange and complicated. Things don’t make chronological sense, characters in the story appear and disappear, the symbolism is heavy and difficult to understand, and the violence can be unbearable. To add to that, there is all kind of word in the air in our nation that Revelation gives clear answers about how the world is going to end and how God plans to destroy the earth, which confuses the matter entirely. Pastor Julie confessed last week that this is not her favorite book of the Bible, and she is in good company- Martin Luther wanted to chuck Revelation from the Bible. Thankfully, he didn’t have that kind of power, especially because Revelation is the core source of the words we sing in worship. Despite its strange visions, Revelation has arguably had a larger influence on art and music in the western world than any other book, and it continues to be a source of new works of art and music and literature. Whether we love or hate this book, it continues to profoundly shape how we see the world.
Something that can help us wade through Revelation’s complicated imagery is to understand that Revelation was not written as an end times script. The true title of this book is, “the apocalypse of John.” Apocalypse in Greek doesn’t refer to the end of the world, but rather means, “unveiling.” An Apocalypse was a book that unveiled the truth about the present, not predict the future. John’s complicated vision unveiled the truth about God to a people who were being actively persecuted by the Roman empire. Dan Erlander is a Lutheran pastor and cartoonist, and he wrote a book called Manna and Mercy, which is a beautifully simple and profound interpretation of the long arc of the whole Bible, from the first chapter of Genesis to the final vision of Revelation, and I think we even have a few copies in our library. He writes about the early Christian church and their struggles to remain faithful to Christ amidst the Roman empire. I’m going to let him help us understand in what context the book of Revelation was written.
Dan Erlander writes, “the [early Christians] trusted Jesus as their leader and Savior. They announced their trust by making a simple confession of faith- “Jesus is Lord.” This confession was acceptable to the big deals of the Roman Empire until they came to this realization: “By saying Jesus is Lord the believers are denying the Caesar is Lord. They are denying that the Roman Empire is the savior of humanity and the bringer of the golden age of peace.” Threatened by this subversion, the big deals lashed out with imprisonment, torture, and death. They promised great benefits to all who would deny Jesus and embrace Caesar as lord and savior.
God came up with a wild and wonderful idea to encourage faithfulness among the partner people during times of persecution. The Creator sent strange and awesome visions to a dreamer who was imprisoned on an island called Patmos. The dreamer, whose name was John, wrote the visions down and sent his writings to Christian congregations. His dreams made absolutely no sense to the big deals [and, I would add, to many of us, too!]. To the oppressed believers, however, the dreams were messages of amazing good news, a word of hope which proclaimed…
“Rome, with all its military power, is weak and impotent. It will soon join all the past empires on the ash heap of history. God and the wounded Lamb hold the future. They will endure forever and will usher in the new creation by the power of suffering love.”
The cloudy language that John uses assured that this subversive book was not banned or burned by the authorities, and it spread the word that God was still at work in the world and would outlive and triumph over their persecutors. In fact, John’s word to the congregations included scenes where the angels and saints in heaven actively worked to create freedom for them on earth. In today’s reading, the heavenly chorus sang, “worthy is the Lamb!” In English, we miss the fact that to say “worthy” in Greek was to worship Caesar. The Roman emperor was the only one who was supposedly “worthy” of worship. But here, instead of praising Caesar, the angels in heaven praise a God who will outlast all earthly rulers and kingdoms, and they sing praise to the Lamb who was slaughtered, as they so vividly sing here. Jesus, the one who died at the hands of this empire, was the one truly worthy of worship, because he was on the side of the oppressed, of the persecuted, of the poor and of the sick. To sing, “worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and glory and honor and blessing” was to say that blessings do not come from the Roman empire, but from the everlasting God.
After the heavenly chorus sings these words in our reading today, all of creation echoes back their praise to God and the Lamb. This morning we sang, “springs of water, bless the Lord,” and in John’s vision here, all of creation joins in the song of praise to God. I’ve heard biologists describe the way creation works, the mysteries of decomposition and the delicate balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide and soils and forests and water purification in wet lands, and frogs and owls and cattle and whales, this whole web of life as a great symphony, each instrument with its crucial and unique part. And here, scripture says, yes, creation sings, and it bears witness to the slaughtered Lamb and to the God who is the true source of power, riches, wisdom, and strength, and honor and blessing and glory, forever, amen!
If this song sounds familiar to you, it’s because we already sang these words today. Open your seasonal bulletin to the third page. Read the words, “Now the Feast and celebration, all of creation sings for joy, to the God of life and love and freedom, praise and glory forever more!” This opening hymn of praise comes straight from the book of Revelation, and during most seasons of the church year, we sing this song at the beginning of worship as a part of the liturgy, the pattern of worship. This is why we can have a seasonal bulletin, because some things are so good we don’t need to change them every Sunday. One of the versions that I know and love is in another musical setting of the liturgy: This is the feast of victory for our God, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. The third verse of this hymn of praise says, “Sing with all the people of God, and join in the hymn of all creation.” Creation affirms and praises a God of life and love and freedom, and God’s people of all times and places are invited to join in creation’s hymn of praise.
The intent of these words in our worship service is to form us as God’s people, the same way water flows to shape rocks into smooth stones in a riverbed. Out of great love, God’s people are invited every week, every year, every generation, every era, to join in the hymn of all creation. These brief interludes of worship in the book of Revelation were meant to encourage faithfulness in the hearts of John’s listeners, they were an encouragement from heaven to God’s people on earth to praise God alone, not the gods of success or military might or egregious wealth or popularity or the status quo. In the same way, the liturgy we sing in worship is meant to shape and form our lives, from this opening hymn of praise to the sharing of the peace to the act of sharing food in communion with one another and God. Before communion, we hear these words, “with earth and sea and all their creatures, with cherubim and seraphim and all the host of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn.” In that moment, we here on earth sing the song that the angels and the saints and all of creation are already singing, heaven and earth are joined in love, and we become part of an eternal choir.
Revelation was written to a people in great distress, and it describes disease outbreaks and dying oceans and murders of their friends, because they were living in dark times. As the world crumbles around God’s people, they stop to worship and re-orient themselves to God’s saving work. They re-focus their devotion to the things that give life, not destroy it. And while the world crumbles around us, while the ocean acidifies and the glaciers melt, and there are mass shootings and killings all over our country, and the wealth of a few seems more important than the well-being of all, we, too, stop, and we sing this same song, we give praise to the God who will outlast all of this craziness, and the God who actively works in our world to bring life and love and freedom. And we join in with the hymn of the angels and all of creation, who give us the strength and courage to continue the song and to become one great people of God. May God’s Lamb power prevail until that final day, when all things are restored in Christ’s love. Strengthened by the power of that hope, I say thanks be to God, Amen.
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