Sunday 19 November 2017 Love, joy and theApocalypse MartinBaker
Introduction
This is the third week that we have been looking at the Bookof Revelation.
The Book is written to seven churches in what is today SouthWest Turkey. John is writing from the Island of Patmos . Patmos is an Islandoff the coast of Turkey. He has been banished there. Banishment was arelatively common punishment for the Roman authorities, especially for people like John who questionedthe very authority of Rome.
Last week I mentioned that John uses the language ofapocalypse , which means unveiling or revealing. A reality, another storybehind what we see happening. Like in the Book of Daniel when the Jews werebeing persecuted by the Greeks it seemslikely that the churches he was writing to were facing two particular issues.
On one hand there were some who had died or were being persecutebecause of their insistence that there was only one God and one Lord and thatwasn’t Caesar but Jesus who should be worshipped. And on the other hand, there were other churches who had become lukewarm or insipid. They,perhaps under pressure, had given up and succumbed to the prevailing culture oftheir day and their life and worship had become indistinct from the practicesaround them.
So John uses this language to speak of another reality soimportant that it’s knowledge will help us understand and deal with thechallenges we are facing now.
Revelation 7:9-17
9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude thatno one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples andlanguages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, withpalm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying,"Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to theLamb!" 11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the eldersand the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throneand worshiped God, 12 singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom andthanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God forever and ever!Amen."
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Whoare these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" 14 I said tohim, "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 washedtheir robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 For this reason they are before the throne of God, andworship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on thethrone will shelter them.
16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sunwill not strike them, nor any scorching heat;
17 for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be theirshepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God willwipe away every tear from their eyes."
Let Us Pray
May my words and our thoughts be acceptable in thy sight, OLord our strength and redeemer. AMEN
A vision this morning.
A Great multitude. Salvation belongs to God and the lamb.
Living creatures.
Robes washed clean in blood.
No more hungers.
Spring of the water of life.
Tears being wiped away.
Does this make any sense?
I know we are all told to exercise more. I’ve got an agingexercise machine at home. Heavily underutilised. And as much as I dislike exercising inthis way, I try to make the time pass by watching as I exercise, episodes of avery long running television series which has it’s origins in the tv seriesStar Trek. It continues in many forms. I’m up to about 1996 I think. I’ll stop exercising of course once I finally catch up.
On the TV series there is the character called MrSpock. Actually by 1998 he has beenreplaced by Tuvoc. Tuvoc, like Mr Spockcomes from the planet, Vulcan. And on this planet everyone is very logicaland un-emotive. And they find it most difficult to understand the human thoughtprocess. Making decisions based onemotions or intuition or feelings they - find very troubling indeed.
There is a value in Mr Spock’s view of life. Some decisions are veryimportant to make on logic. Based on the accumulation of scientific knowledge. We want and need people in society who arevery good thinkers. Very good scientists. And doctors and pilots and aircraft engineers.We don’t want these people, in their professional lives, to be spontaneous or make their decisionsbased on a feeling or an emotion or a whim. We don’t want a pilot to say things like I wonder what happens if I pushthis button, or to maybe I’ll give this a try or I’ve never seen one of thosebefore or it’s ok I’ll just make it up as I go along.
And yet on the other hand, we want a whole lot of activitiesto be based on other processes. Our musicians, our artists, our painters, our singers,our inventors perhaps. We also greatly value creative people.
And perhaps above all, we value qualities like love, courage, loyalty, integrity.
We say that some of these qualities, the hardest ones topoint a stick at, are also the most important, most enduring things. Eventhough Mr Spock might say they are illogical Captain Kirk might say that theyare the very things that make us human. From faith perspective we could saythat these qualities especially of love and sacrifice, grace and forgiveness, are themark of our maker, the things that express our identity as those created inGod’s image.
So how do we look at these readings today?
9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude thatno one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples andlanguages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, withpalm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying,"Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to theLamb!"
Part of us might worry that readings like this don’t makesense. They are illogical. And therefore they become unbelievable. We could say we don’t want to have a faithin something that seems unbelievable. Doesn’t make sense. And yet a whole lot of important things wedo may not make a lot sense. At least to the Mr Spock in us.
We could say that having a baby doesn’t make sense. They cry,they keep us awake, they poo, we worry so much about them. My children are still my biggest worry andexpense 25 years later. What would MrSpock say about that?
We listen to this reading today and one part of us says itdoesn’t make sense. Washing your clothes in blood how could that make sense? Infact it’s not a very agreeable image at all. We hear that the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be theirshepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God willwipe away every tear from their eyes."
What we are being asked to do today is to hold two things inmind at once.
On one hand some things don’t make sense. They are to dowith things about mystery and wonder and awe and none of those things caneasily be put into words. And the secondthing is to say the things we are hearing this morning are the very mostimportant things for us to think about and write about and speak about. We haveto find some way of expressing what is ultimately important.
It’s just the universe out there. It’s just light from a starthat is billions of kilometres away. So why gaze up in awe and wonder. It’sjust a sunset. It’s just a baby. It’sjust a new birth. You’ve just toldsomeone you loved them, it just a feeling.
That little faith community in Southern Turkey who John waswriting to in the book of Revelation. They would know that person who came tochurch last week, that person who wouldn’t bow down and worship Cesar. He knewhe was going to get executed for that. He just refused to bow down to Caesarclaiming that only Jesus was Lord. Why do that?
This last week the South China Morning Post reported thatvillagers in the South of China are being forced to take down posters ofscripture on their walls and replace them with large photographs of the PartyLeader Xi Jinping. (pr: SHEE JIN PING) Thestated policy is to “transform believers in Jesus into believers in theCommunist party”.
The officials successfully “melted the hard ice in theirhearts” and “transformed them from believing in religion to believing in theparty”, the report said.
As a result, more than 600 villagers “voluntarily” got ridof the religious texts and paintings they had in their homes, and replaced themwith 453 portraits of Xi.
The local party official Qi Yan said that “Many rural peopleare ignorant. They think God is their saviour … After our cadres’ work, they’llrealise their mistakes and think: we should no longer rely on Jesus, but on theparty for help,” Qi said.
He said the township government had distributed more than1,000 portraits of Xi, and that all of them had been hung in residents’ homes.
The most troubling thing for the communist party is thatwith now more than 100 million committed Christians in China, Christians now outnumberparty members.
A claim in Revelation that we find difficult, but which the villagers in Southern Chinawould know and the book of Revelation expresses, is the conviction that witness on behalf of thegospel of Christ crucified, the lamb we hear about, will bring one into direct conflict with thepowers of this world of empire (1:9).
This conflict is spoken about in revelation as “the greatordeal," or “the great tribulation”. John the writer of Revelation believed that great tribulation hasalready begun and coincides with the mission of the church. Augustine said that the tribulation isactual in the ongoing experience of the church. They are not future events butpart of the church’s life and times now.
Today we hear of a vision. In the midst of tribulation. A visonof something greater than our own fears. Or even our own sense of loss. Or our insecuritiesor our fear or the powerful drive to accumulate and own and possess.
Not empires or power or wealth at the centre but a lamb at thecentre. Jesus at the centre. His love his forgiveness his promise of a new lifeeternal life that starts at the point of our commitment to following him.
We can’t simply explain to young Harry the logic offollowing Christ. The way of service, love forgiveness and sacrifice will alwaysseem counter cultural, foolish, a stumbling block.
It’s the decision we make about the stories that guide ourlives. The party leader and all he represents, or perhaps the more subtle things,the shows of wealth, the expression of our fears.
Or, the words, theactions, the decisions that start offwith thanksgiving that say Blessing andglory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our Godforever and ever!."
I doubt I could convince Mr Spock that Jesus is Lord andSaviour of his life, that God’s love is immeasurable. But what I could do is tell him stories.
Simple things maybe. Since Sandy spoke last week 50 or 60people, from our worship this morning, from our HATCH event from our familyprogramme have committed to buying gifts for children from some of our communitiespoorest homes.
Over the next few weeks we will distribute almost 60 food parcelsthanks to your generosity.
Three weeks ago I went for a lovely lunch with our 11 amservice musicians at Simon and Fran’s place. We talked about the songs thatwill uplift our worship and speak to the readings we hear. And from there to our Kawakawa Bay communityand this amazing Saints and Angels party that they put on for their wholecommunity. A hundred were involved in anencounter with the Gospel and it’s message through this wonderful set ofactivities. And then back here for our Sunday night dinners and the question - whyare you doing this? – a question which opensup a whole conversation about God’s unconditional love and welcome andhospitality. Mr Spock and maybe the great leader Xi Jinping would be confused.
So today it’s about our faith, our world view. The things wedo and say that express what is most important to us. The things we want toteach our children and our grandchildren.
I want to leave you with some words from Paul to an ancientchurch community in Corinth not too far from modern day Athens. He said this
[2 Cor 4:8,9,17,18].
8 We are pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed,but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but notdestroyed; 17 For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for aneternal weight of glory beyond all measure, 18 because we look not at what canbe seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but whatcannot be seen is eternal.
AMEN
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