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Sermon: 11th March 2010
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping
Readings: Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 118:14-29; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31
“LIVING IN THE IN-BETWEEN”
The Book of Revelation is a daunting book for most Christians trying to understand the Bible’s message. It is full of strange images, often disturbing images. People use it to come up with all kinds of strange claims about what the future holds. It’s convenient to have it right at the end of the Bible, where we can quietly forget that it’s there.
And yet it is there! And in the period between Easter and Pentecost, our lectionary gives us the opportunity to dip into the book, and see a little of what it is saying. Not the comparatively well-known letters to the seven churches, but some of those unfamiliar parts we might otherwise back away from. I thought it could be helpful this morning to make a few comments on the book that might help us understand the circumstances in which it was written, and something of what it is all about.
It was the last decade of the 1 st century AD. The Christian church had spread throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond. But in the Roman Empire it wasn’t easy to be a Christian.
In some places Christianity was reasonably well tolerated. But official policy had turned against the church. A number of Roman emperors had claimed to be divine, even if not all of them really believed they were! And if you were loyal to the empire you must declare your allegiance to Caesar as Lord.
So Christians in many parts of the empire were expected to offer public worship to Caesar, and say “Caesar is Lord”. There were different reactions from Christians. Some decided it was all too hard and gave up their faith. Others decided they could go along with the ritual for appearances’ sake on the basis that they didn’t really mean it anyway. But for the truly dedicated Christian it was a huge decision. For if you refused the order to honour Caesar as Lord, you could be arrested and even executed.
For Christians, Jesus is Lord – certainly not Caesar. Could one really publicly say that Caesar is Lord and still be true to the Lord Jesus? What would happen to the church? Would it die because Christians gave up their faith or compromised in their allegiance? Or would it be wiped out by the might of the Roman Empire, perhaps to satisfy the vanity of Emperors?
But that wasn’t the only problem faced by the church. There were internal problems as well. New ideas – heresies you might say - which would divert people from the truth of the Gospel of Jesus. And too many Christians were giving up the moral standards taught by the apostles, and compromising with the lower standards of society round about. Many Christians were trying to have a foot in both camps. Would all this undermine the church? Would the church abandon its commitment to Christ?
On the island of Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor, a Christian leader called John had been imprisoned or exiled for his faithful preaching of the Gospel. Some believe that it was the apostle John; others believe it was another person of that name. But we do know that this John received a series of visions. And he wrote a letter to seven churches on the mainland nearby in which these visions were recorded. We find the imagery strange, but it was much more familiar to many of those who would receive the book.
In reading the Book of Revelation, it is important to seek the big picture, rather than get bogged down in all the detail: that is where some of the fantastic schemes dreamed up by eccentric preachers come from. And don’t be too literal – you’ll turn your mind inside out if you try that!
Revelation is written in the apocalyptic style: in fact “apocalypse” means “revelation, an unveiling of things that haven’t been seen before.” Apocalyptic works used pictures and stories to present history in symbolic ways. In particular, they presented events in black-and-white terms as a battle between good and evil. In a sense, they looked behind current events in order to show that God was still working his purposes out, even when his people were having a tough time.
Apocalyptic works encouraged God’s people to keep going, to remain faithful, to hang in there, for God was still with them, God was still in control, and God would have the final victory. So the book’s message was: “Keep going, remain faithful, there is a bigger picture that we can’t see, but God is still at work, and Jesus is still Lord. The victory will be his!”
Our passage this morning is part of the book’s introduction. John is writing to these seven churches in the Roman province of Asia. Mind you, there were a number of other churches in the province. Why these churches? Perhaps John had a particular link with them. Perhaps it was because they lay on a circular route which would make it straightforward for a messenger to deliver them.
Certainly seven was a number which represented completion or perfection: we might say that the seven churches represented the whole church. In a sense the seven churches represent the whole church even today, and John’s message to them is still relevant to us nearly 2000 years later.
John greets his readers with grace and peace: words which speak of God’s generosity, and of the reconciliation he offers us through Christ. But these gifts come from the God who is Trinity. The Father who is and was and is to come: the eternal one. The seven spirits, in other words the Holy Spirit in all his fullness. And Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. And in that description of Jesus, we might see why this book is so appropriate for this Easter season. He bore faithful witness to God’s truth, even though it meant death on the cross. He is the firstborn from the dead: his resurrection points to our resurrection and the hope we and all his people have in him. And as he pointed out to Pilate, he is a king, but his kingdom is not a political empire, but the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is in fact the true Lord of all who call themselves kings and emperors on earth.
John launches into praise of the one who loves us and died to set us free from sin’s power to condemn and destroy. But Jesus has also made it possible for us to be members of God’s kingdom, free to serve God as if we were priests with unfettered access and loving welcome. Indeed he is worthy of eternal praise and glory.
But John also looks forward to what we might see as the climax of history. “Look!” he says. “He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him” - even those who nailed him to the cross, even us! “And on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.” Why will they wail? Because they were wrong about Jesus, wrong about what they did to Jesus. Because of what he went through to bring about our forgiveness and reconciliation.
The Christian message is consistently described in the New Testament as Gospel: good news, not good advice, or good morality, or good standards. It is news of what Jesus has done, above all through his death and resurrection, and it is good news of eternal blessings and hope. We look back, but we also look forward.
This Book of Revelation makes it clear where we stand in history. We are the “In-Betweeners”. We stand between the first and the second coming of Jesus. We look back to what he has done, and forward to what he promises to do for us. We live between the coming of the kingdom in Christ, and the fulfilment of the kingdom at his second coming.
How do we live in this in-between time? That is the challenge presented by this great and strange book. Jesus is Lord. We are to maintain our allegiance to him. Jesus is Saviour. We are to maintain our trust in him. Jesus is King. We are to obey and serve him.
At times it will be hard. There is pressure to conform to the world’s standards and priorities. There are the difficulties and problems we experience in our lives that test and discourage us. There is the fact that we don’t see the big picture ourselves: we look back to ancient stories rather than personal experience, we look forward to realities we can only begin to take in. But the challenge remains. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Here we are in the in-between. But we must hold on firmly to the reality that Christ will come again: that coming will be glorious, and bring us to glory.
Keep going. Hang in there. Keep serving the Lord. Maintain your faith and your faithfulness. Jesus is Lord, and in his time we are assured that all will acknowledge the truth of Jesus and his Gospel. Even when it is difficult, let us keep going as Christ’s followers, Christ’s disciples. Amen.
Paul Weaver