Revelation 7: 9-17
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
The book of Revelation DUN, DUN, DUUUUUN! A weird, scary peak at the end of the world! Right? Actually... NO! People have sold it that way for sure but I’d buy an AMC Pacer from them before I bought any of their Biblical interpretation! The book of Revelation is not a fortune telling book. It’s more a fantasy/sci-fi thriller meant to pass on an incredible truth. It’s like Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”. Dickens didn’t write that story to be read as a non-fiction biography of a guy named Scrooge. He wrote fiction… a story… using moving door knockers, ghosts, and magical teleportation to maneuver around his reader’s preconceptions so they might be able to hear some very real truths about poverty, the possibility of new life through transformation, and the power of generosity in their lives. Scrooge wasn’t real. The truth of his story was, and is, very real!
The Book of Revelation is a story like that. It’s a fantastical story with adventures, battles, blood, dragons and creatures, all worthy of the best science fiction and fantasy minds around. It was written to grab the attention of the reader, just like that lion shaped door knocker coming to life in front of Scrooge grabs us! The book of Revelation grabs us with it's strangeness and transports us to another place and time in order to provide an “unveiling” or a “Revelation” of a very powerful truth about God’s love for all of creation. Revelation is a story written to the Christians who were literally being fed to the lions. It is a story that uses fantastical creatures and imagery to maneuver around their hopelessness and challenge them to continue to live the Jesus Way, no matter what was going on around them. The crazy creatures also had another purpose as well. Having anything Christian found on you then would get you killed while having a wackado story about beasts and magical dragons would not.
Here’s an example. The number of the Beast, 666! Wooohooooo! This is one of the tinfoil hat wearing, plaid sport coat wearing, bad bible interpretation best sellers. Want to know what it really is? It’s Nero’s name. That’s it. You take the Greek letters in his name, switch those to Hebrew, then use the numbers associated with the Hebrew letters, do the math and Ba-Da-Bing, Caesar Nero adds up to 666. Nero is the Anti-Christ. He’s The Beast. Not because he’s a supernatural boogyman coming in the future but because he was literally ANTI-CHRIST... he was against Jesus the Christ and his followers who wanted to change the world so it worked the Jesus-Way rather than the Nero-Way and he was The Beast who fed people to lions.
The Nero-Way insisted that peace came through victory and victory came through violence. That wasn’t just his military or political way either. Victory was a goddess. This was Nero’s version of religious nationalism… politics, militarism, and religion all wound together, all for the purpose of keeping him and his friends in power and moving money and resources out of the pockets of the poor and into the pockets of the wealthy. The Jesus Way is vastly different. The Jesus way insists that real peace only happens when everyone has enough… enough food, clothing, shelter, dignity, worth, purpose and safety. Nero and his very wealthy and powerful friends saw the Jesus Way as a threat to their system of Victory which kept the poor, poor and the rich, rich. If that struggle between the Nero-Way and the Jesus-Way sounds familiar, then you’re understanding the REAL lasting power of the book of Revelation.
Now, that’s nearly an entire sermon of background without any details about today’s lesson. BUT, my hope is that now we can just zoom over the wackado stuff put in the original to throw Nero off the scent and go right to the truth. “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb.” This means the Kingdom of God is a done deal. God has gathered up all of creation in the Resurrection’s redeeming power. It’s true whether the world looks like it or not, knows it or not…likes it or not… lives it or not. It’s a done deal and now that we’ve walked out of the Terrible Used Biblical Interpretation show room we can just get to the heart of this Revelation for the people then and for us today. “LIVE the Jesus Way”, and through living that way, live into a life of meaning and worth regardless of what the Neros, the Putins, a party of politicians, or a court is up to today.
Live the Jesus Way... Do what you can, right where you are so that “they will hunger no more, and thirst no more” Live the Jesus Way so that our neighbors have the food, shelter, dignity, purpose and worth they need to have abundant life. Bring those who are your neighbors to the “springs of the water of life, where God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
This lesson is nothing more and nothing less than God nudging us, imploring us, reminding us, and compelling us to live the Jesus Way by Loving God and loving neighbor and to live that way so that we might have an abundant life and share that life with others. EVEN when the world around us looks like a horror film… ESPECIALLY when it looks like a horror film we are called to LIVE ABUNDANTLY. Amen.
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