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I
haven’t had cable TV in almost two decades, but I seem to remember that at
about 7 pm the networks warmed us up for primetime TV with those behind-the-scenes
shows like Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood. We got behind-the-scenes interviews with actors
and directors, behind-the-scenes looks at the sets, behind-the-scenes Hollywood
gossip, and a behind-the-scenes almost spoiler for upcoming episodes of our
favourite primetime shows. The intent of
these shows was to make us think were privy to the real world goings on in the
very unreal world of primetime TV.
Entertainment Tonight has aired for 38 years and Access Hollywood for
23. For some reason we like our behind-the-scenes
peeks into Hollywood and the lives of celebrities.
In
the first century world they had behind-the-scenes looks into what they would
have called reality. In the Greek world
what we call Greek mythology was behind-the-scenes reality to them. Just read Homer. They believed that everything that happened
in our world was somehow the playing out of the elaborate whims of the gods. It was priests, oracles, and epic
storytellers who gave people back then there dose of “celebrity news” and how
it pertained to their lives. You know
how it is – how it goes on Olympus is how it is down here just as how it goes
in Hollywood is how it goes in Washington and that spills into the rest of the
world. Who would have thought that “
Celebrity Apprentice” would become reality.
Another
form of behind-the-scenes looking they did back in Bible times was a form of
literature called “Apocalyptic”. The
name comes from the Greek word apocalypsis,
which simply means revelation. Hence, the title of the Book of Revelation –
The Apocalypsis to John. The first words
of the Book are The Revelation of Jesus
Christ.
We
get our word apocalypse from this
word as well. Fortunately, apocalypsis does not mean what we have
come to think apocalypse means. We tend to think of apocalypse as nuclear holocaust and mass destruction. But
unfortunately, when most of us think of the Book of Revelation, due to
centuries of misreading we think of it as a road map to how and when God is
going to destroy everything. Ever since
Hiroshima, we have been thinking the “Apocalypse” is now possible.
To
read the Revelation in that end-of-time-roadmap way is to misread it. Whenever you hear somebody saying, “we’re
living in the endtimes and all those Bible prophecies are coming true” realize
you are talking to someone who has been sadly misled. The fundamental flaw there is the assumption
that this Book had nothing to say to the people to whom it was first written
because only today do we have the means to destroy everything. The Revelation was in fact written to help late
first century Christians living in modern day Western Turkey understand why
they were being persecuted and how to deal with it.
The
only road map the Revelation gives us is that: God created the world; Imperial
powers on earth and cosmic powers in the heavens are under the influence of
Satan and are trying to destroy it (especially the people of God); in, through,
and as Jesus Christ – the true Son of God – and by his life, death, and
resurrection God has defeated the powers and is saving the creation; Jesus is
coming back and all the while God is making all things new; therefore, stay
faithful even if it means martyrdom and above all worship because worship is
the fulfillment and completion of everything.
Our
reading this morning is one of those scenes in the Book of Revelation in which we
catch a glimpse of what is going on behind-the-scenes of history. Behind-the-scenes of our reality everything
living thing in heaven in the power of the Holy Spirit is worshipping God the
Father who sits on the throne and God the Son the Lamb who was slain but now
lives. Obviously, things on earth are
terribly out of whack but in heaven there is worship and if we stick it out to the
end of the Book we will find that in time it will be on earth as it is in
heaven.
In
the Bible heaven isn’t this far removed place that you have to die to get
to. Rather, heaven like earth is a part
of God’s good creation, the part where God and his glory are readily present
and experienced. Instead of being far
removed from each other heaven and earth are overlapped in a way we will never
understand how but what happens on earth happens in heaven and what happens in
heaven happens on earth. But we cannot
see heaven, because it is veiled to us, but the day will come when that veil is
lifted, the day when heaven and earth are made new without that veil and it will
be on earth as it is in heaven.
There
are a few places in the Bible where were get the hint that God’s purpose for
his creation is to bring it under the Lordship of Christ Jesus and to fill it
with himself. Ephesians 1:8-10 reads: “With all wisdom and
insight 9 he has made known to us the
mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in
Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness
of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Reading down a little further in the chapter
Paul prays for the church, for us, saying: “17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know
what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his
glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who
believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God[f] put this power to
work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right
hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and
authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only
in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head
over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the
fullness of him who fills all in all.”
This filling, this fulfilling of Creation under Christ is what we
catch a glimpse of in the moments of worship that we come across in the Book of
Revelation. Worshipping God in Christ
full of his Spirit is where everything in God’s good creation is headed. When we together worship, we are entering into
that. When we in personal devotion
worship, we are participating in what all the creatures in heaven are presently
and always doing.
Soldiering on, I said a moment ago that the Book of Revelation was
written to persecuted Christians in the late first Century to help them
understand why they were being persecuted and to encourage them to remain
faithful and above all invite them to worship because worship is the
fulfillment and completion of everything.
In worship is where they would experience the presence of God and the
fullness of his power to strengthen and comfort them. The message of the Book of Revelation is
quite straightforward: When all Hell breaks lose on us here on earth, worship
as they do in Heaven and be comforted by God himself.
So what does that look like for us in post-Christian North
America? We cannot say we are persecuted
like they were back then. The negative
press we get these days, we’ve largely brought on ourselves because we have
sought to rule our culture as its goodie-goodie, hypocritical morality
police. Only on rare occasions has the
Church in the power of the Holy Spirit by which God raised Jesus from the dead
tapped into the power of resurrection and actually brought forth peace and
reconciliation, and justice, and equity.
Very rarely has the Church as we know it lived for the praise of God’s
glory.
We cannot say we are persecuted in the way Christians in the First
Century were, yet the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka demonstrate this still
happens. Nevertheless, Hell still breaks
lose on us from time to time. We find
ourselves suffering emotionally at home, at work. Diagnoses come to those we love and to
us. When we suffer, worship is the place
we should go to find peace and health.
Whether we live or we die entering into the behind-the-scenes worship
that pervades God’s good creation is where we find our wholeness, our health,
our peace, our salvation, our life in Christ filled with the Holy Spirit.
When I was in seminary I did some hospital chaplaincy work. One evening myself and another seminary
student were the chaplains on duty in a hospital that had the fourth busiest ER
on the east coast of the US. Early in
the evening the pager went off summonsing us to the ER. We entered the ER in time to hear the
attending physician who was the head ER physician shout, “Where’s that G—D---
chaplain.” We stepped to the fore to
where he was standing beside a teenage African American boy who had been shot
in the chest. The Attending continued to
shout. “This boy’s been shot in the
heart. There is nothing we can do for
him. I want you to go in there and tell
the family and in no way are you to get their hopes up.”
We went into the little family room. The young man’s grandfather and uncle were
there. The grandfather was a former
Pentecostal preacher. We gave him the
news and he laid down on the couch facedown and began to pray in tongues. He was entering into that worship. The evening went on. The young man eventually died. The Attending sent a resident along with us
to give the two men the news. We entered
the room. The grandfather got up knowing
what we were going to say and took the news with remarkable composure. As we left the room and went to the main
waiting room at the ER there were a bunch of teenagers. He stopped to tell them that there would be
no retaliation. They were not to make
his grandson’s death serve and evil purpose.
I watched the news the next couple of days. They heeded him.
When all Hell breaks lose, go behind the scenes and worship. There is where we find Jesus and the power of
the Holy Spirit to sustain us. Amen.
