[This message was shared with the people of Friendship Lutheran Church during worship celebrations on April 14 and 15, 2007. The three truths discussed here were identified in a message written and delivered this weekend by Pastor Paul Gauche, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Burnsville, Minnesota.]Revelation 1:4-8
For the next six weeks, the period that constitutes the Easter season of the Church Year, we’re going to look at the New Testament book of Revelation. And I want to try to take a different approach to Revelation, than two common approaches, both of which are unhealthy.
One is that of what I call the Get Your Kicks on Route 666 crowd. They read Revelation, with its use of imagery and numbers as symbols, and create elaborate schemes that they claim show us how the world will end, when Jesus will return, what we can do about it, and so on. They do this in direct defiance of Jesus Who tells us not to concern ourselves with times or seasons, but to simply remain faithful to Him until He returns at the end of history.
The other approach is that of the Close My Eyes and Maybe It’ll Go Away group. Sadly, Martin Luther, the founder of the Christian movement of which Friendship is a part, took this approach. He wanted to remove both James, which he called "an epistle of straw," and Revelation from the Bible. But this is just as faithless an approach as that of the first group. I must confess that for much of my life as a Christian, I’ve tilted toward membership in this camp.
Revelation is neither a crystal ball for Christian control freaks or an embarrassment for Christians to avoid.
Revelation is part of the Bible. It is the Word of God. It must be treated as such.
So, a few facts about Revelation. It was written by John, traditionally thought to be the beloved disciple and the author of the Gospel of John and of the three letters to churches also found near the back of your Bible, First, Second, and Third John. By the time John wrote Revelation, he was an old man exiled by the Roman Empire to Patmos, a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Even today, the place is so tiny that it has only about 3000 residents. It’s a rocky place that has been likened to Alcatraz.
Paul Gauche writes, “Historians tell us that the trip to Patmos was generally preceded by a scourging--a severe beating [involving the use of a multi-stranded leather whip laced with stone and metal chips].” During his confinement on Patmos, John would have remained constantly shackled, ill-clothed, and barely fed. He would have had no bed other than the rocky ground.
In other words, John didn’t write this book in anything like the comfortable surroundings I enjoyed at my home as I wrote this message. Our English title for this book exactly translates the Greek term, apocalypsis. That’s the noun form of the verb, apocalypto, which means, I reveal or I uncover. Here, John presents a series of messages and images revealed to him by the risen and ascended Jesus. (But ironically, the book is so mysterious that it seems to sometimes conceal more than it reveals!)
Today, I want to focus on three truths that Jesus reveals in the verse just before our lesson, and in the lesson itself.
First: There is a blessing for all who read Revelation and a blessing for those who read it out loud and for those who listen to it being read. In Revelation 1:3, we’re told: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it...”
Let me try to make this promise clear. I love Sauder furniture. It’s solid and attractive and reasonably priced. But for mechanically-challenged people like me, Sauder furniture is particularly wonderful stuff: With a screwdriver and sometmes, a small hammer, I can put together beautiful pieces of furniture. And it’s all easy because of the clear instructions enclosed in every box. A friend of mine who works at the Sauder plant in Archbold, Ohio, explained that simplicity is something at which the company works: Before introducing new products, the company brings in groups of elementary students and hands them the proposed instructions with the materials for the product. If the kids put the pieces of furniture together without a hitch, they know their instructions make sense. But one day, sure I knew the Sauder way of doing things, I got a piece of furniture put together...all wrong. I had to unscrew everything and start over, this time reading the instructions.
Revelation, like the rest of God’ Word, is God’s instruction manual. When we read it, Jesus promises that we will be blessed. This doesn’t mean that if we read and incorporate the truths of Revelation in our daily living, we’ll have a Maserati in our garage, a fat bank account, no health problems, and perfect lives!
The blessing that comes to us from reading Revelation includes a deeper understanding
- of God,
- of His love given to us through Jesus Christ,
- of His wisdom for daily living, and
- of the truth that all who turn from sin and follow Christ have life with God forever.
Revelation also assures us that a future devoid of sin, pain, and death is with God and that when we are with Christ, that future is ours as well.
The second truth we see in the early verses of Revelation are contained in words near the start of our lesson. It’s this: Grace and peace come to us “from Him Who is and Who was and Who is to come.”
In one fell swoop, we’re told that God is the One in control of the past, the present, and the future. This should comfort the person who believes in Jesus Christ.
Years ago, a large Old Testament professor, who was a former football player, made a presentation to leaders from several congregations in Columbus. I was one of these leaders, having just become a Christian, a kid in my mid-twenties, the youngest person in the room. “Let me show you what God’s love for you is like,” he said. He pointed to me and said, “Come up here, young man.” Once I was standing next to him, he instructed, “Push me.” I was reluctant. “Push me!” he insisted. I pushed. The professor didn’t move. “Is that the best you can do?” he asked. “Push me again. Harder.” I pushed as hard as I thought I dared. He didn’t budge. “You’re a young man,” he told me. “I know that you can push me harder than that. Now push!” This time, I took a few steps back and banged into him like a football lineman. And the guy didn’t move a single inch! I practically bounced off of him! “That’s what God’s love is like,” the professor said. “No matter what happens, God’s love for you is strong, steady, and unmoving!”
Here’s a third truth revealed by Jesus in the opening verses of Revelation. It’s found in verses 7 and 8 of our lesson: “Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Jesus Who rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, announces His intention to return to the earth and calls Himself “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.” Alpha, of course, is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and omega its last letter.
Jesus is the beginning and the ending. Jesus is everything in between. Jesus is the One Who can turn our endings, even our endings on this earth, into beginnings. This is a good place to remind you of two other passages in the New Testament. The first is the place in John’s Gospel where Jesus tells His followers, “Without Me, you can do nothing.” The second is where Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.”
Where our strength, talent, courage, hope, money, reputation, resourcefulness, and family end, that’s where Christ begins. We need to rely on Christ more than we rely on any of these things. When Christ is our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and our end,
the past is forgiven,Professor Werner Lemke grew up in Germany during World War Two and tells a story. The Allied forces were advancing, putting an end to Hitler’s Nazi regime. But many German families, like Lemkes, were afraid of what might happen once the Americans, Britons, French, or Russians arrived. His family packed up their things and were ready to abandon their home when one of Lemke’s older brothers said, “Wait a minute!” He went to the family piano, where they all had so often gathered and he played a bit of O God, Our Help in Ages Past. They stuck on the phrase that calls God, “our hope for years to come.” We Christians have a hope that may not be seen. Yet when we dare to lean on Christ, we find a hope for not just the years to come, but for all eternity.
the present is filled with empowerment from God, and
the future, a future spent with God forever, is assured.
So, for this week, three truths:
- Reading and listening to Revelation brings blessings;
- grace and peace comes to those who belong to the One in control of the past, present, and future; and
- Jesus can assure us of these blessings when we allow Him to be our Alpha and Omega, the first, the last, the everything of our lives.
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