I was able to be a bit lazy on sermon prep this week as we spent 18 months to two years studying Reversed Thunder and the Book of Revelation. Since I had been advised by Jim Packer and Terry Fullam not to teach a Bible Study on Revelation, I had simply avoided it even in preaching for most of my ordained life. For those online or who have missed those discussions, JI Packer and Terry Fullam are Anglican luminaries of the 20th Century encouraged me in seminary not to teach a Bible Study on the Revelation of John. Imagine you are a seminarian picking the brain of famous Anglicans over lunch, and that is the one piece of advice they shared with me. They shared that they had birthed four churches out of their own attempts to lead Bible studies on Revelation and laughed at my initial confusion. We call those church splits. My thought was that if those two could not keep everyone together on a book, I was NOT about to try it myself.
Things changed a couple of years ago, though. Adventers were asking lots of questions about the Rapture. Friends and co-workers were claiming with certainty some things that Adventers rightly questioned. The end result, after I visited with Bishop John, was that we would study Reversed Thunder. I always remind those in Bible studies and book studies that I use those classes for sermon preparation. I pay attention to the questions and struggles. So here I was this barbecue week, already well prepared for a sermon on one of the readings. I naturally chose the “easy” way out. I air quote that easy, though, because preaching and teaching on Revelation is never easy. To make matters worse, most of us are tired from the barbecue, auction, and bake sale yesterday. Few of us are going to want to put on our thinking caps today, even though we did get the extra hour of sleep last night.
Context, of course, matters. The Rapture has been widely accepted in a number of denominations as the way the world will end. We can thank the Left Behind series and The Late Great Planet Earth for some of that. The rest we have to blame on ourselves. An argument can easily be made that one cannot understand Revelation without a good knowledge of all that comes before it in the Bible. In fact, as they learned in the class, depending on how we measure citations and paraphrases, Revelation is no worse that second. Too many Christians do not want to do the hard work and study the rest of the Bible before skimming the book. That makes it ripe for misuse and all kinds of rumors. For example, how many of us know that since September there have been at least five widely accepted end of the world dates by Rapturists? Yes, I learned in September there is an online community influenced by “Rapture experts”--all this in spite of Jesus’ warning that it is not given to us to know the date. I will say, as I am approached at the Y far too often about this, I kinda wish we could bring back stoning. It gets really old listening to people explain how the different calendars, the International Dateline, and Daylight Savings messes up the calculations of the dates and times. You are laughing, but remember, if they were right, we are all left behind! Lol On to the reading!
One of the challenges about the Book of Revelation is that it falls into a genre of literature we do not have today. When we go to the bookstore or Amazon, there’s usually no section called “Apocalyptic Literature.” That means most of us are very unfamiliar with the style in which Revelation is written. That, in turn, means we are likely to misread or misunderstand what the author is teaching us.
The best example of this challenge, I tell people, is to imagine you are an archaeologist living a few hundred years in the future and you unearth a Dilbert comic strip book. Everybody knows Dilbert, right? I see a couple heads moving sideways. Dilbert is an engineer, I think, who works in a typical office. The comic makes fun of bad business decisions by the pointy haired boss. If we dug this book up in 500 years, and comic strips were no longer a genre, how would we understand it? Part of why we find it funny is that the comic is based in the experiences of workers. We have all had those bosses that make bad decisions that they think are brilliant. No matter how hard we try to talk them out of the bad decisions, some are stubborn in their “brilliance.” Would we read such a strip as satire, realizing that Dilbert represents the frustration workers feel at one time or another in the workplace? Or would we read it as a “how to do business” book? See the challenge and the impact? Good. One reading is accurate and ironically funny; the other way would be tragic or convince them we were all idiots when it came to business in the late 20th or early 21st centuries. That is part of our problem when reading the book.
As the class learned, we need to learn to read apocalyptic literature with symbolic eyes or listen to it with symbolic ears. In fact, some in the class noticed how John writes with all five senses addressed during his vision. We tend not to communicate symbolically. We are usually rather direct. But keep in mind, the Apostle John is writing to a people being persecuted by the Roman authorities. In fact, John himself is imprisoned on the island of Patmos by order of the emperor. If John leaves the island, he will be killed. The Tradition has held that John wrote his works on the island and sent them to the churches. If John had wrote that Nero was the anti-christ and that he would be destroyed by Christ, how do we think Nero would have responded? Not well. By describing the anti-christ with the tattooed 666, though, John’s readers know that Nero is the anti-christ even though the emperor is not named overtly. Does it make at least a bit of sense?
Maybe a better example is the great battle between the dragon and the Lamb. We all have probably watched Game of Thrones. What happens when dragons encounter lambs? That’s right, the lambs get gobbled up by the dragons. John writes that the Lamb slays the dragon. How crazy would that image have seemed to soldiers who intercepted the writings of John and read them? Would anyone take it seriously? Do we think any soldier would have bothered even to report it to Nero? All this is to remind us that when we read Revelation, we need to understand there is a lot of symbolism used to encourage the flocks of God in the midst of a great persecution.
Our passage picks up today in chapter 7. As is always the case, we need the context. Chapter 6 is the description of the angel breaking the first six seals on the scrolls. The breaking of the sixth seal results in the observance by humanity, as everyone is hiding to avoid the accompanying shaking, “Who can stand before the Lord?” After the pillars of the very earth seem to start shaking, this is not just an academic exercise. How can one stand when God is judging the earth? The answer is that none of us can.
Chapter 7 picks up with John being told that the humanity in the scene is 144,000. Those who studied the passage and the book can tell you that John was likely writing symbolically. There were twelve tribes of Israel, right? Each tribe has twelve thousand members in the heavenly gathering. By our math, of course, we know that there is 144,000. But knowing the importance of the number 12 and our study of other prior books in the Bible, we understand that John might not be writing something literal. Why? Our passage picks up with John now seeing with his eyes the multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, and language, standing before the throne and the Lamb, dressed in a white robe, and waving palm branches. Does John describe 144,000 people? No. He sees with his eyes that it is a vast multitude that no one can count. More importantly to us Gentiles, it is not a group made up of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. People from every tribe, nation, and language are included!
Now look at the clothing. Robes have a special place in Jesus’ instruction. We just read about one of those teachings a couple weeks ago, right? The king throws the wedding feast, but people beg off with sad excuses. The king instructs his soldiers to compel commoners to come to the feast, where the king encounters one of the guests not appropriated robed. What happens to that individual? He is cast out for not wearing the correct robe. Everybody remembers the story and is a bit uncomfortable that the king throws him out, right? Some argue it is not fair to expect those invited to be properly attired, even if they understood the expected dress code. Right? Good. The other reminder about robes in Jesus’ teaching is the parable of the Prodigal Son or Loving Father or Ungrateful Older Brother. When the prodigal son comes to himself and decides to return to his father and apologize, what does the loving father do? He places a robe upon him. It is a reminder to us, to the servants, to the ungrateful older brother, and to the prodigal son that he has been restored to his position in the family. All those seen by John are prodigal sons and daughters, human beings who have returned to the Father, who lovingly and graciously redeems and restores them to their place in His family. Any questions?
The palm imagery is much easier for us to understand. Every Palm Sunday, as we begin the liturgies of Holy Week, we wave our palms in victory. We know, of course, that people hoped Jesus was the Messiah, that He was entering Jerusalem to be enthroned. Jesus was, but not in the way they hoped or expected. He was enthroned on that Cross, with the bandits on either side. Pilate’s sign makes that clear. But like that crowd so long ago, we wave our palms giving thanks to God for the victory that Christ has won for us, that even when we tempted Him to come down, He stayed to make His victory and our salvation complete. In Roman times, though, people would welcome conquering generals and soldiers back by lining the streets to Rome and waving palm fronds, not unlike the great Ticker Tape Parades in NYC after WWI and WWII. John sees that kind of celebration in His vision and relates it to us.
John then brings our ears back into the story. The multitude cries out that Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb. Those of us who read chapter 6 would have heard the martyrs crying out for justice. How long, O Lord? Now, it is the entirety of the people of God crying out that salvation and victory belong to God and to the Lamb. The word our translators render as soterios is salvation, but there is also a nuance of victory described by that Greek word. Think of Jesus’ cry from the Cross, It is accomplished! Given the palms above and the cry, we should understand that in this great cosmic battle, God and the Lamb have triumphed for the people.
John is still not done. The multitude of humans are joined by the spiritual beings in this celebration. The angels, the elders, and the four living creatures fall on their faces before the throne and sing of the deserving character of God and the Lamb for what they have accomplished. Humans, embodied spirits, gather with the spirits to glorify God in the scene. Those of us paying close attention realize there are seven honors ascribed to God by the spirits. Seven is the number of completion in Hebrew understanding, so that makes sense to us. But looking closer, we see that the middle descriptor is thanksgiving.
Each time we gather, what do we do? We give thanks to God for what He has done for us in Christ Jesus our Lord. In fact, we remind ourselves each time we gather that Christ has died, that Christ has risen, and that Christ will come again, right? We call it a Eucharist, which is the word John uses here. But you and I are instructed that the meal in which we are nourished by Christ’s Body and Blood is rooted in this heavenly vision. Our Eucharistic feast points to the Eschatalogical feast that God has prepared for those whom He gathers to Himself after Christ’s return. No matter how good we think this feast of thanksgiving is, it pales by orders of magnitude to the one to which we are invited by God! But this gathering reminds us of His victory over sin and death and His call on us to come to the Wedding Feast! Everybody awake and following?
Then comes the big reversal. Because we do not have the genre apocalypse, we might not understand the expectation of John’s original audience. When one is given a vision, when the veil is torn, the heavenly figure shares important information with the earthly figure. Here, though, the elder asks John who these figures, robed in white, are. John has no idea and understands the elder knows. Remember, the elder is one of the spiritual beings, along with the angels and four living creatures, who fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God right before this. John asserts that the elder is the one who knows. The elder tells John that this multitude that no one can count are those who have come through the great ordeal and that their robes have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.
Most of us have been to college, and many of us have sent kids to college. We often learn the hard way what happens when we wash a red t-shirt with our whites, right. We know better, but sometimes we might rather spend our money on fewer loads of laundry and a little more beer. That’s right, everything turns pink when we mingle our clothes to save money! No matter how much time we spend impressing this truth on our children, though, some make the unwise decision and learn the truth the hard way. I hear lots of laughter and see lots of nodding. We also teach our children that blood can be one of those challenging stains to remove, right? It makes no literal sense to understand that we can wash something in blood and expect it to turn white. Again, this is symbolic language. What makes people righteous before God in the OT? The blood of the sacrifice. What makes us righteous before God in the NT? That’s right, the Blood of Jesus. We understand that this washing in blood is a symbolic act in many ways. Make no mistake, it has literal consequences. But no longer do we sacrifice animals on the altar. Christ became sin for all of us and offered His blood in atonement for our sins. Jesus, better than all of us, understood the meaning behind “the life is in the blood.” He offers us new life through His Blood, given freely and from His love for us, for all humanity. That act cleanses us from our sins. Everybody understanding so far? Good. By His saving act, we are made worthy to stand before our Lord!
Back to the great ordeal. What do we think that ordeal is? For John’s original audience, they likely would have viewed it as the initial persecution under Nero. But who does not live through an ordeal? We each face multiple ordeals in our lives. We all face death, either our own or that of a loved one. Most of us face disease, again either our own or those of loved ones. Many of us face privations, broken relationships, and who knows what other challenges in life. Nature presents ordeals through floods or ice storms or droughts or volcanoes or earthquakes. We all face ordeals; life is full of ordeals. At each ordeal we face, we run the risk of falling away from God, particularly when Satan is there to tempt us. If God really loves you, why does He let you experience cancer? If God really loves you, why won’t He let you kick the habit or the addiction? Satan loves to convince us that God is not trustworthy. But the elder reminds us that God has demonstrated His trustworthiness in Christ. When God could have rightly left us to death because of sin, God chose to come and dwell among us and give His life as a ransom for us all. When we hear that whisper of whether we can trust God, we should always be reminded by the truth expressed by the elder. Only God has proven Himself worthy of our trust. No king, no politician, no friend, no relative, absolutely no one is as worthy of our trust as God. His faithfulness, in fact, serves as the clothing of those who have passed through the ordeals of life.
The elder is not finished, though. God will do more than dress those who cling to Him in faith. God shelters them, even as they are before Him day and night. He feeds them, waters them, shades them, and protects them from any scorching heat. Again, with much of the intended audience coming from the eastern Mediterranean ANE, the audience would have understood this idea of needing food and water and shade better than many of us do. We live in a community filled with HVACs. When we get hot, we turn down the AC; when we get cold, we turn up the heat. Unless there is a power outage, we often do not feel the vagaries of nature’s weather. Such was not the case in the ANE. They understood how life teetered on the edge. They were utterly dependent upon the rains that God promised for drinking and for growing food. Starvation, in fact, was never really out of the minds of any who lived in the Roman Empire, except for the ruling class. Commoners and slaves alike knew the fragility of life, and now John was being told that God would provide what His people needed.
The elder goes on to upset the order again. The shepherd of God’s people is the Lamb. Y’all may not be shepherds, but you understand the way shepherding works, right? Shepherds tend the lambs. Shepherds protect, feed, water, shear, and do everything necessary for the sheep and lambs under their care. The elder, though, is declaring that the Lamb, Jesus, will be the shepherd.
The elder also declares that the shepherd will lead His flock to the springs of the water of life. Those of you with long memories will recall we spent a Sunday this summer discussing Living Water and our call to be springs of that Living Water which wells up within us thanks to God dwelling in us. Whoa! I see a couple nods. That’s been a few months, but now it is back in the last book of the Bible. The Lamb will lead us to these fountains of Living Water, these places of abundant and holy life. We will not be wandering around searching, groping, fretting. Instead, those of us who claim Jesus as Lord will be led by Him to this abundance. It is a tender and hopeful image.
Then the passage ends with the elder reminding John that God will wipe every tear from their eyes. CS Lewis states it as God will make all the sad things come untrue. It is a nutty promise in one sense. We have all had ordeals in our lives. We have all suffered due to our own sins and the sins of others. How can that suffering ever become a memory over which we shed no tears? As we grapple with our ordeals, we might wonder the same question. But we are reminded in this vision that God is with us, among us, dwelling in an intimate relationship with each one of us. If He promises such will be the case, it must be true, even if we can see no way to that kind of glory and abundant living. In the end, it becomes a matter of trust and hopeful expectation that He who created us, who called us, and who sent us out into the world as a nation of priests has never failed us nor failed to keep His promise. In the end, we are left with nowhere else to go but to Him, the one with words of life, curious about how our sadnesses will be made untrue.
For now, though, we are sojourners in these ordeals we call life. On this day, as we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, we remind ourselves intentionally of those who came before us, who served as lights of the world in the darkness of their generations. We remind ourselves that human beings like us loved us, cared enough for us, to share their love of God with us. And because of their testimony and their pattern of living, we chose to accept that invitation, that first step in this walk with God that we call faith. As always, though, there is always more to the glorious news we called the Gospel. For reasons known only to Him, He calls us each to be and do the same in the lives of those around us. He gives us each the possibility to be the saint in the lives of those around us, the ones for whom they may one day thank God for our presence in their lives. Can you imagine? You and I have the opportunity to be perceived as saints long before we are gathered into that great multitude beyond counting? You and I are given the invitation to the Great Wedding Feast and invited by God to share it in His Name. Just as you give thanks to God for the person or people in your life who shared the Gospel with you in word and deed, you and I have the opportunity to be remembered and thanked for doing the same in someone else’s life!
Best of all, because He knows us and calls us each by Name, He knows our needs and weaknesses. And so He meets us there in this place. He calls us to trust Him once again, to remind ourselves of the wonderful and amazing work He has done for us in Christ Jesus. He invites us to taste of the pledge of that Feast in His Body and Blood and then sends us out to accomplish all that He has given us to do in the ordeals of the world around us or in the lives of those around us, that the multitude seen by John will continue to grow. Such is our pattern of living until He calls us home or returns and then gathers us together in that multitude with those in every generation who trusted in Him, to fulfill those final promises we have not yet experienced. It is a great lesson of which we are reminded this day, this day when we give thanks to God for all the saints He has given us and His willingness to use us as saints in the lives of others!
In His Peace and Promise,
Brian+
