Text: Revelation 7:9-17
Twenty
or so years ago the Monty Python cast made a movie called The
Meaning of Life in which
they attempted to address the question of “What is the meaning of
life?” They got into a wide variety of issues. One was the Roman
Catholic Church and birth control. The question that arose in that
segment was, “If the meaning of life is procreation, what do you do
with all the excess children?” The Monty Python answer was of
course donate them to scientific experimentation. They then asked is
the meaning of life simply to eat, drink, and be merry. For this,
they did a skit of an extremely heavy man going to a restaurant and
eating everything on the menu. Pardon my crudeness, but he ate and
called for the bucket and ate and called for the bucket. At the end
of the meal after eating everything on the menu, the waiter taunted
him with an after-dinner mint which he repeatedly refused not being
able to eat another bite. But, finally he gave in, ate the mint and
exploded; and all that was left of him was a rib cage containing an
alarm clock for a heart. Then they asked what if the meaning of life
is making money. Their answer involved pirates conducting hostile
corporate take-overs; except, the pirate ships were skyscrapers
moving about the streets of Manhattan. The pirate skyscraper would
ram the skyscraper of the corporation it wanted to take over and
corporate exec pirates would jump aboard and after much sword
fighting, take over. Their point with the movie, I think, is that we
are not going to find the meaning of life with our current approaches
because they are in the end absurd. Nevertheless, it’s still a
difficult question in the broad spectrum of things. We all do search
for meaning.
We
all have our questions and “what's the meaning of life” probably
does not top our lists. At the top of many of our lists is “Why,
God, do you let so much evil happen?” The Trinity does have an
answer, but I’m afraid the answer is a bit wanting from our
perspective, and for the most part, not what we want to hear.
Myself, I’m convinced that the Trinity’s answer is, was, and will
be in the form of Revelation 7:10; an innumerable number of redeemed
people standing in the presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
in white robes, holding palm branches, and shouting loudly,
“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the
Lamb!”
Now,
if I were a non-believer I think I would laugh at this point in the
sermon. It certainly does sound as if I just surpassed Monty Python
in the absurdity department. If I were agnostic and somewhat
antagonistic against the church, I would say, “Why do you
Christians always have to start talking about who’s saved and who
isn’t?” Yet, I think the Revelation 7:10 answer is relevant
especially when we begin to consider why we ask questions with
respect to meaning and holding God accountable in the first place.
These are difficult, emotion-laden questions that recognize that if
there is a God then either something has gone drastically wrong in
that God’s creation and/or that God just doesn’t care. Why is
that we have to search for meaning? Why is it that in the Trinity’s
good creation we find ourselves feeling abandoned? Why is it that in
Trinity’s good creation everything has to suffer violence and be
violent, everything? The answer to those questions is blatantly sin,
we are fallen and fall short of our created purpose and what a Hell
on earth has come about from it. As one of my former New Testament
professors, Paul Achtemeier, used to say, “The consequence of sin
is having to live with the consequences of sin”. Even so, the
answer is, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and
to the Lamb.” If we are looking for things to be put to right in
this world then our Father who sits on the throne and Jesus the Lamb
by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit are who are going to
make things right.
Let’s
step into the Revelation for a moment. There are two questions that
this acclamation/proclamation of praise in Revelation 7:10 addresses.
Give me a minute to root them out. At the beginning of chapter six
the Lamb begins to open the seven seals that were on the scroll of
the Father’s sovereign will for his creation as it will be played
out in the context of our history. It involves plagues and wars and
stuff and I am not saying things like that are the Father's will but
that his will has been, is being, and will be done amidst our context
of plagues and wars and stuff. The first seal brought a white horse
that came to conquer. He is imperialistic war. The second seal was
a red horse wielding the sword of wanton violence. The third seal
brought a black horse that let loose unjust and unfair economic
practices. The fourth seal brought a pale horse who unleashed wanton
death on a fourth of the earth. In a nutshell, these horse and
riders are not the Trinity’s wrath poured upon the earth. Rather,
they represent the consequence of sin, and particularly the
consequence of war. The consequence of sin is having to live with
the consequences of sin and it is a mess. The four horses are what
have happened because we humans became alienated from our Creator.
The
fifth seal brought forth the voice of those who have been martyred
for being faithful. They ask the first question. “How
long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants
of the earth and avenge our blood?” Indeed, has their faithfulness
mattered? Does the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit simply wink at evil
or will he pass judgement on it? Oddly and maybe unsatisfactorily,
as an answer they are given white robes and told to wait a little
longer until the number of the martyrs is complete.
The
sixth seal is then opened. I call it the seal of the Gospel for the
Word of the Trinity’s grace and love spoken in the incarnation of
God the Son in Jesus Christ is a catastrophic Word the shakes the
powers and utterly turns them upside down and inside out so that they
hide in fear. Everyone who is not under the altar asks the second
question, “Who can stand?”. The Revelation reads, “They called
to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the
face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!
For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’”
Who can stand by their own merit before the Triune God of grace and
glory revealed to us in Jesus Christ?
Well
apparently, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will make it so that an
innumerable multitude will stand before him, the tribulation ended,
praising him and shouting, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits
on the throne and to the Lamb.” Nowhere else is there salvation.
Not in Mohammed, not in Moses, not in Buddha, not in Spirituality,
not in Nature, not in Progress, not in Technology, not in Wealth, not
in Power, not in Politics, not in Altruism, and certainly not in
Self. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the
Lamb. This is what so many churches are not saying today or are
totally misunderstanding.
John
leans on the Old Testament for his definition of salvation; something
that the church in the West has not done since the fourth century
when the Roman empire ceased persecuting us and instead
institutionalized us. A survey of the Old Testament on what it is to
be saved discloses that Salvation is the Trinity's actively
delivering his people from evil, from oppression, from the
consequences of sin as I mentioned earlier, and even from our own
idolatry, and then ultimately from death. The Trinity presently acts
in our lives to deliver us, to rescue us from our own demise in sin.
John says the Trinity will spread his tent over us to protect us.
This is metaphorical language for the Trinity sheltering us with his
own presence, the Holy Spirit, now and forever. This sheltering is
the washing of our robes in the blood of the Lamb that reconciles us
to the Trinity, the washing made possible only by Jesus’ once and
for all atoning death on the cross by which he has made us able to
stand. The Trinity does not remove us from the trial of faith that
this world brings against us. Rather, he saves us by sheltering us
with his very self until we come out the other side of it. Only in
true biblical faith do we find a God, any god, so actively present
with his people as to shelter them within his very self.
Finally,
in the midst of God’s sheltering we have Jesus the Lamb as our
shepherd who leads us to living water. The Trinity does not shelter
us so that we can do our own thing. The way to living water, water
that heals, is in following Jesus Christ who set us the example of
being faithful even unto death and makes able to be faithful.
Healing is another strongly Testament understanding of salvation.
The way of the cross is the way of new life in Christ. This way is a
total reorientation of our self’s, in fact a dying to the self, in
actively seeking to love the Lord with our entire mind, being, heart,
and capabilities and our neighbour as ourselves. It’s training the
mind to pray and meditate upon Scripture. It’s letting our entire
being be present to the Lord. It’s training our hearts to worship.
It’s using our capabilities to serve the Lord and one another.
It’s the obedience of wasteful and extravagant love for others.
Back
to where I started, we do have difficult painful questions that
overshadow our lives and in most cases seek to destroy not only our
faith but ourselves in the process. What is the meaning of life when
so much seems meaningless? Why does the Trinity let so much
senseless evil persist in his Creation? In a nutshell, sin is a
reality and the consequence of sin is having to live with the
consequences of sin and it get's evil. Why the Trinity doesn't act
immediately to end it is a question still left hanging. Yet, do know
that in the midst of our brokenness the Father is sheltering us with
the presence of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, stand up and follow the
Lamb to the living water; the spring of healing that is in him.
Amen.
