The Great Ordeal
Revelation 7:9-17
When it came to choosing the Scripture passage this Sunday, I changed my mind three times. The Fourth Sunday of Easter is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. It’s not exactly up there with Easter Sunday or even Trinity Sunday, as far as general recognition, but the Lectionary readings for Good Shepherd Sunday are linked thematically through the theme of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Initially I was going to preach on Psalm 23, which famously begins, “The Lord is my shepherd.” But for whatever reason, perhaps because it’s so familiar, I wasn’t excited to preach on that Psalm.
Then I considered the reading from Acts, which tells of Peter’s raising from the dead a young girl named Tabitha. However, the connection to Good Shepherd Sunday is by no means clear, and besides, Peter has featured in many of the readings of late. I didn’t want to cause Peter fatigue.
Maybe the Gospel passage from John, in which Jesus explicitly refers to himself as a shepherd who promises life to his sheep. But then we’d be jumping back in time before the resurrection. I’d rather not lose the continuity we’ve been maintaining ever since Easter Sunday in reading about the early church.
Well, then, as far as the Lectionary is concerned, that leaves just one option: Revelation. Say what you will about Revelation, one thing’s for certain—it’s never boring.
Let me get my pet peeve out of the way right up front. Despite the many fantastic visions found in this book, the name of the book is “Revelation” singular, not “Revelations” plural. I emphasize that not to be pedantic but because it’s important for understanding the overarching message of the book. The first verse of the entire book reads, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1a).
People often have one of two reactions to Revelation. Either they’re a little too eager to read it, or they think of it like profanity—something that should never be heard in church. Sure, it’s in the Bible, and we ought to read it, but so is the book of Numbers, and no one reads that!
Whichever of these two reactions describes you, let me emphasize that the foundation of this book is Jesus Christ—the same Jesus Christ who preached forgiveness of sins and compassion for the poor and who humbled himself by choosing to go the way of the cross. Revelation paints us a picture of that same Jesus but from the perspective of his being seated upon his heavenly throne from which he reigns as Lord of all creation.
This book called Revelation is actually a letter addressed to seven churches in Asia Minor, what today would be western Turkey. Early church tradition attributed the book to John, one of the original 12 disciples of Jesus, although the author refers to himself simply as John. The letter was most likely written toward the end of the first century during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian. Again, relying on the tradition of the early church, Domitian exiled the apostle John to the island of Patmos, off the coast of Turkey, where he wrote Revelation.
As to why the Roman emperor would have wanted to exile John, exile was a punishment meted out by the Romans to those who practiced magic or astrology or who engaged in prophecy, which the Romans considered to be in the same category. Prophecy that had political implications, such as that found in Revelation, would have been especially threatening to Rome.
This leads to the first point I want to make: the gospel is political. Now, let me stop you before you reach for your heart medication, because you’re thinking, “Wait a minute! Is this going to be one of those sermons?” No, it’s not, but we’re already discussing religion, so why not get a little political?
When I say that the gospel is political, I don’t mean political in the sense of supporting a particular candidate or party or taking this or that position on a hot-button issue. What I mean is that the gospel has real-world implications. Implications not just for eternal life in the hereafter but for life in the here and now. In other words, the gospel isn’t just about where we will spend eternity but also how we conduct ourselves on this earth. To whom or to what do we give our allegiance?
The gospel speaks of power and authority, and it makes claims about where absolute power and authority lie. It’s not with any state, with any organization, or with any ruler. To those who claim to have, or who aspire to have absolute authority, the gospel is deeply threatening.
There is a reason that authoritarian regimes prohibit or strictly limit the proclamation of the gospel. They don’t want to hear that their authority is limited in any way. And the gospel announces that all earthly authority is under the authority of Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. As we proclaim each week in the affirmation of faith, “One day every knee shall bend, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess, Jesus Christ is Lord.”
We catch a glimpse of this truth in today’s reading. John sees a vision of a great multitude of people from every nation and tribe who speak every language under the sun. They are all gathered around the heavenly throne and hold palm branches in their hand. Yes, we are meant to think of Palm Sunday and Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The crowds that lined the streets of Jerusalem to welcome Jesus shouted “Hosanna,” i.e., “Lord, save us.” But now that salvation has become a reality and so the great multitude cries out, “Salvation belongs to our God.”
I don’t want to get too hung up on historical context because this isn’t a history lecture but a sermon, but to understand the power of the gospel we need to appreciate that proclaiming “salvation belongs to our God” is a political statement. In ancient Rome, salvation belonged to the emperor. Salvation was understood as the stability and order brought to the inhabitants of the empire by the emperor. The emperor was in charge of keeping the borders secure and the granaries full. Secure borders and plenty of bread was understood as a kind of salvation. Salvation from foreign enemies, from starvation, and from chaos and disorder.
But if salvation belongs to God, then it does not belong to the emperor, even if he rules over a great multitude of people from all tribes and languages, what was then most of the known world. And that salvation comes not from victory on the battlefield or bountiful harvests in the wheat fields but from the most unlikely of places…a Roman cross.
And that salvation comes not from victory on the battlefield or bountiful harvests in the wheat fields but from the most unlikely of places…a Roman cross.
The symbol of the Roman legions was an eagle. At the height of the Empire, the eagle of the legions flew from the isle of Britain in the West to Syria in the East, from the forests of Germany in the North to the sands of North Africa in the South.
In contrast with the eagle, a bird of prey, Jesus Christ is the Lamb, an animal of peace, an animal that is sacrificed. The one who sits upon the throne is the one who was nailed to the cross. Don’t let 2,000 years of history numb you to the outrageous nature of this claim. A crucified God, in the words of the apostle Paul, is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, but to us who are being saved it is the power and the wisdom of God. God makes known God’s saving power through the ordeal of the cross.
This passage from Revelation speaks of another ordeal as well. Gathered around the throne of the Lamb is a great multitude dressed in white robes. One of the elders says to John, “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.”
They have come out of the great ordeal. Haven’t we all? Haven’t you come out of a great ordeal? Or perhaps you’re still in the midst of one. The ordeal of cancer. The ordeal of divorce. The ordeal of death robbing us of those we loved. The ordeal of living paycheck to paycheck or trying to stretch a Social Security check to last the entire month. The ordeal of addiction. The ordeal of depression or some other mental-health issue. The ordeal of aging. The ordeal of loneliness. The ordeal of constantly worrying about the welfare of your children or grandchildren.
Life can be an ordeal. No one knows this more than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who endured the ordeal of the cross, the ordeal of being utterly forsaken and suffering the cruelty of crucifixion even though he was innocent.
And yet, through God’s wisdom and power, this Jesus who was crucified now sits upon the throne. He has passed through the great ordeal and come out the other side. Around him are gathered the great multitude of saints who have gone before us—our family members and friends, neighbors, strangers, and even our enemies.
One day we too will join that multitude where we will be sheltered within Christ’s loving embrace. There we will hunger no more and thirst no more; the sun will not strike us, nor any scorching heat, for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd, and he will guide us to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
All “blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”