Showing posts with label Revelation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Revelation. Show all posts
Thursday, June 06, 2024
Friday, May 10, 2024
Friday, April 05, 2024
Thursday, March 07, 2024
Revelation, Part 4
Here's the latest installment of my podcast. It's the fourth part of a look at the New Testament book of Revelation.
Thematic Arrangement of the Seven Revelation Letters, per Johnson
Thematic Arrangement of the Seven Letters
(Revelation 2:1-3:22)
Dennis E. Johnson. Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation
According to Johnson: “The letters are grouped in two triads, with the longest of the seven, Thyatira, serving as the hinge between the triads.”
First Triad (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum)
Central Letter: Thyatira
Second Triad (Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea)
In all of the last four letters, the order is reversed: promise to the victor precedes the summons to hear.
Within each of the two triads, “the center letter (Smyrna, Philadelphia) contains commendation without rebuke, reference to opposition from those who falsely claim to be Jews, and the promise of a crown.
“The opening and closing letters of the second triad (Sardis, Laodicea) are those in which the dominant tone is rebuke.” (All quotes from Johsnon)
The Sequence of the Seven Letters in Revelation, according to Brighton
The Sequence of the Seven Letters
(Revelation 2:1-3:22)
Louis A. Brighton, Revelation (Concordia Commentary)
There appears to be a sequence of spiritual deterioration, moving toward alienation from Christ, in the seven letters. Of this, Brighton says, “each sin, when encountered in temptation and then, in commission, leads to the following temptation or sin.”
When Christians lose their first love (2:4)
↓ (it leads to)
The sin or temptation to fear (2:10)
↓ (it leads to)
The attempt to serve God and mammon (2:14)
↓ (it leads to)
Syncretism (denying the uniqueness of Christ) (2:20)
↓ (it leads to)
Deadness (3:1)
Template of the Seven Letters in Revelation according to Johnson
Template of the Seven Letters
(Revelation 2:1-3:22)
Dennis E. Johnson Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation1. Address
2. A command to write down what is given
3. “Thus says”
4. Identification of the speaker (Jesus)
5. “I know” description of the individual church’s situation
6. Call to repentance or faithfulness (reinforced by a threat or a promise)
7. A summons to hear
8. A promise to the victor
A note from Pastor Mark: I believe that by this outline, helpful though it is, Johnson may be conflating the two separate ways in which God (Jesus) always speaks to us, either by Law or Gospel. Brighton however, maintains the distinction between the two. The Law is that Word from God that commands us to love God and love neighbor, which we fail to do, preventing us from having life with God. The Gospel is that Word from God that comes to us freely from Jesus that, in Him, all our sins are forgiven. This Word empowers us to repent and to believe in Jesus so that His righteousness covers our unrighteousness.
Pattern of the Seven Letters in Revelation, from Brighton
Pattern of the Letters to the Seven Churches
(Revelation 2:1-3:22)Louis A. Brighton Revelation (Concordia Commentary)
1. The addressee (the angel of a city’s church)
2. A descriptive phrase about the glorified Christ, the Author / Sender
3. Acknowledgment of a particular circumstance or work of the addressed church
4. A danger or dangers confronting the particular church, owing to its sins, flaws, or weaknesses
5. A call to repentance, lest the individual church lose its place in the kingdom
6. A promise of blessing
7. An appeal: “Those with ears…” The appeal explicitly is made to all the churches, meaning that the addresses made to individual churches for all the churches of all time
Brighton sees the seven letters as preparation for the three sevenfold visions Christ will reveal to John and, through John. to us all in the ensuing chapters. The visions that follow are not chronological, but all describe the same era between Christ’s ascension and His return at the end of world history.
Friday, February 02, 2024
Thursday, February 01, 2024
A Bit About Revelation
[This is a document I created to which I refer in my first podcast. It introduces some basics about the New Testament book of Revelation.]
“No other book of the Bible has attracted so much attention and caused so much consternation as the Book of Revelation. No other book has been so widely read and wildly misread.” (Richard L. Jeske
1. The first thing to be understood about Revelation is to understand WHO and WHAT it is about. It’s NOT about the antichrist. It’s NOT about what’s called “the tribulation.” The closest thing we have for a title from the author comes at the very beginning of the book: Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. This literally means: “The unveiling or revelation of Jesus Christ.” In Revelation, Christ and the triumph of Christ for all who believe is revealed. That’s the revelation that it gives to Christians.
2. Bottom line: This book which is so often used to incite fear or a false sense of security placed in one’s own righteousness or right actions, is about Jesus Christ, the only place that hope is found for this life or the next.
3. Who wrote Revelation? The author identifies himself simply as John. There were several notable people among Jesus’ early followers named John:
John the Baptist, who died well before Jesus’ death and resurrection and exhibited a less than full understanding of Jesus’ office and ministry and is, therefore, unlikely to be the author of Revelation;
John Mark, part of the ministry team of Paul and Barnabas mentioned in the Book of Acts, is also traditionally thought to be the author of the Gospel of Mark; and
John, the son of Zebedee and probable younger brother of James. The earliest Church Fathers identified the author of Revelation as this John. The evidence suggests this John lived in Ephesus in what is today Turkey, where he was bishop. He was for a time exiled to the island of Patmos for his faith in Jesus, but returned to Ephesus. He lived through the first seven decades of the Church’s life, living to a ripe old age.
4. Was Revelation always widely accepted as canonical? Some will know that Revelation is often referred to as one of the “disputed books” we today have in the New Testament, along with 2 and 3 John and Jude and even Hebrews. In fact, the evidence suggests that when John first composed Revelation in the late first century, it was received, like other books now in our New Testament, as an apostolic Word from God, equal to both books in the Old Testament and other books accepted in the New Testament. A later-generation Church Father, Dionysus, and others who followed his lead, questioned whether John was the author of Revelation and whether it deserved equal treatment with other books of the Bible. But this was never the prevailing view, nor was it the earliest view, of the Church. We can, I think, safely regard Revelation as the last proclamation of the definitive apostolic Word about Jesus and therefore, part of the canon, the standard for the proclamation of God’s Word today.
Louis A. Brighton writes: “Revelation is…the culmination of the entire salvation contained in the Bible…it draws all of revelation, both prophetic and apostolic, to its final goal: the exalted reign of Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords (19:11-16) and the fulfillment of the promise of the new heaven and earth (21:1).”
He continues: “As the last book of the Bible and the completion of God’s revelation to his church, it is the lens through which the entire Scripture is to be viewed. Revelation reveals and confirms the Christ was prophetically promised and that his incarnation, death, and resurrection happened sp that God’s creation could be restored to its original glory and righteousness.”
5. What kind of book is Revelation? John himself describes Revelation as prophecy. Most scholars, conservative or liberal, would say that Revelation represents a kind of prophecy or a separate genre related to prophecy, apocalyptic.
The term is from the Greek noun that actually begins Revelation, ἀποκάλυψις (apcalupsis). The word means uncovering or unveiling. Apocalyptic literature in the Bible uncovers the truth about God for the benefit of believers. Apocalyptic literature is highly visual. Understanding the visual signs God gives to the recipient of them is completely dependent on God’s Word. Usually, God sends angels to deliver apocalyptic visions to particular recipients, like John.
The most prominent Old Testament example of apocalyptic literature is Daniel. Some apocalyptic elements are seen in Ezekiel and in other Old Testament prophetic writings, including Isaiah and Haggai. There are some places in Jesus’ discourses in the gospels and in the writings of Paul where apocalyptic messages are given.
Revelation is the only book of the New Testament that is almost completely given over to the apocalyptic genre, although in a way, it starts out as an epistle, a letter. The entire book, in fact, is an apocalyptic letter written to the seven churches mentioned at its beginning.
Apocalyptic literature was meant to assure people in uncertain situations that God was still in control and that all who trust in Him have hope that cannot be taken from them. This is why, though Revelation was addressed to first-century people faced with particular circumstances, we too can be comforted by its message.
6. John is clear that in Revelation, the events he refers to are not all centuries removed from his time, but mostly in the lifetimes of his original audience. He tells them that they will be blessed in the reading and hearing of his words–just as he had been blessed in receiving the visions and the accompanying words from God–”for [or because] the time is near.” (Revelation 1:3)
John wasn’t presenting some gnostic puzzle requiring specially trained guides to solve. And he wasn’t giving some obscure playbook for world history. John was sharing the conquering Lamb of God, Who consoled Christians of his own time and Who consoles us still. The events to which John refers in Revelation were imminent the people of his own time.
7. An important point to remember is this: Like John, like every human being who has lived since the resurrection of Jesus, we live in the end times. The “thousand years” referred to in Revelation is not an exact period of time; it’s not literally “one thousand years.” Apocalyptic language is figurative language. Just as we might say things like “a month of Sundays” or “as old as Methuselah” or “forever and a day,” the phrase “a thousand years” is a way of saying a long time.
8. Revelation tells believers, as Jesus did, to be prepared for Jesus’ return when He will judge the living and the dead, send unbelievers to condemnation, and when the new heaven and earth will descend to believers. Believers, who are part of the Church, need to hold fast to Christ (2:10) and complete our mission of sharing the gospel with others (10:11)
9. Revelation reveals two ongoing phenomena, Brighton says, “the terrifying sufferings and horrors on earth, and the reign of Jesus Christ as Lord in his heavenly exalted glory.” Revelation underscores the truth revealed by Saint Paul in Romans, that no matter how horrifying life in this world may be and no matter if death visits us before Jesus’ return to the world, nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39)
Helpful resources:
Johnson, Dennis E. Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation.
Brighton, Louis A. Revelation-Concordia Commentary.
A Bit About Revelation
(Pastor Mark Daniels, January 31, 2024)“No other book of the Bible has attracted so much attention and caused so much consternation as the Book of Revelation. No other book has been so widely read and wildly misread.” (Richard L. Jeske
1. The first thing to be understood about Revelation is to understand WHO and WHAT it is about. It’s NOT about the antichrist. It’s NOT about what’s called “the tribulation.” The closest thing we have for a title from the author comes at the very beginning of the book: Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. This literally means: “The unveiling or revelation of Jesus Christ.” In Revelation, Christ and the triumph of Christ for all who believe is revealed. That’s the revelation that it gives to Christians.
2. Bottom line: This book which is so often used to incite fear or a false sense of security placed in one’s own righteousness or right actions, is about Jesus Christ, the only place that hope is found for this life or the next.
3. Who wrote Revelation? The author identifies himself simply as John. There were several notable people among Jesus’ early followers named John:
John the Baptist, who died well before Jesus’ death and resurrection and exhibited a less than full understanding of Jesus’ office and ministry and is, therefore, unlikely to be the author of Revelation;
John Mark, part of the ministry team of Paul and Barnabas mentioned in the Book of Acts, is also traditionally thought to be the author of the Gospel of Mark; and
John, the son of Zebedee and probable younger brother of James. The earliest Church Fathers identified the author of Revelation as this John. The evidence suggests this John lived in Ephesus in what is today Turkey, where he was bishop. He was for a time exiled to the island of Patmos for his faith in Jesus, but returned to Ephesus. He lived through the first seven decades of the Church’s life, living to a ripe old age.
4. Was Revelation always widely accepted as canonical? Some will know that Revelation is often referred to as one of the “disputed books” we today have in the New Testament, along with 2 and 3 John and Jude and even Hebrews. In fact, the evidence suggests that when John first composed Revelation in the late first century, it was received, like other books now in our New Testament, as an apostolic Word from God, equal to both books in the Old Testament and other books accepted in the New Testament. A later-generation Church Father, Dionysus, and others who followed his lead, questioned whether John was the author of Revelation and whether it deserved equal treatment with other books of the Bible. But this was never the prevailing view, nor was it the earliest view, of the Church. We can, I think, safely regard Revelation as the last proclamation of the definitive apostolic Word about Jesus and therefore, part of the canon, the standard for the proclamation of God’s Word today.
Louis A. Brighton writes: “Revelation is…the culmination of the entire salvation contained in the Bible…it draws all of revelation, both prophetic and apostolic, to its final goal: the exalted reign of Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords (19:11-16) and the fulfillment of the promise of the new heaven and earth (21:1).”
He continues: “As the last book of the Bible and the completion of God’s revelation to his church, it is the lens through which the entire Scripture is to be viewed. Revelation reveals and confirms the Christ was prophetically promised and that his incarnation, death, and resurrection happened sp that God’s creation could be restored to its original glory and righteousness.”
5. What kind of book is Revelation? John himself describes Revelation as prophecy. Most scholars, conservative or liberal, would say that Revelation represents a kind of prophecy or a separate genre related to prophecy, apocalyptic.
The term is from the Greek noun that actually begins Revelation, ἀποκάλυψις (apcalupsis). The word means uncovering or unveiling. Apocalyptic literature in the Bible uncovers the truth about God for the benefit of believers. Apocalyptic literature is highly visual. Understanding the visual signs God gives to the recipient of them is completely dependent on God’s Word. Usually, God sends angels to deliver apocalyptic visions to particular recipients, like John.
The most prominent Old Testament example of apocalyptic literature is Daniel. Some apocalyptic elements are seen in Ezekiel and in other Old Testament prophetic writings, including Isaiah and Haggai. There are some places in Jesus’ discourses in the gospels and in the writings of Paul where apocalyptic messages are given.
Revelation is the only book of the New Testament that is almost completely given over to the apocalyptic genre, although in a way, it starts out as an epistle, a letter. The entire book, in fact, is an apocalyptic letter written to the seven churches mentioned at its beginning.
Apocalyptic literature was meant to assure people in uncertain situations that God was still in control and that all who trust in Him have hope that cannot be taken from them. This is why, though Revelation was addressed to first-century people faced with particular circumstances, we too can be comforted by its message.
6. John is clear that in Revelation, the events he refers to are not all centuries removed from his time, but mostly in the lifetimes of his original audience. He tells them that they will be blessed in the reading and hearing of his words–just as he had been blessed in receiving the visions and the accompanying words from God–”for [or because] the time is near.” (Revelation 1:3)
John wasn’t presenting some gnostic puzzle requiring specially trained guides to solve. And he wasn’t giving some obscure playbook for world history. John was sharing the conquering Lamb of God, Who consoled Christians of his own time and Who consoles us still. The events to which John refers in Revelation were imminent the people of his own time.
7. An important point to remember is this: Like John, like every human being who has lived since the resurrection of Jesus, we live in the end times. The “thousand years” referred to in Revelation is not an exact period of time; it’s not literally “one thousand years.” Apocalyptic language is figurative language. Just as we might say things like “a month of Sundays” or “as old as Methuselah” or “forever and a day,” the phrase “a thousand years” is a way of saying a long time.
8. Revelation tells believers, as Jesus did, to be prepared for Jesus’ return when He will judge the living and the dead, send unbelievers to condemnation, and when the new heaven and earth will descend to believers. Believers, who are part of the Church, need to hold fast to Christ (2:10) and complete our mission of sharing the gospel with others (10:11)
9. Revelation reveals two ongoing phenomena, Brighton says, “the terrifying sufferings and horrors on earth, and the reign of Jesus Christ as Lord in his heavenly exalted glory.” Revelation underscores the truth revealed by Saint Paul in Romans, that no matter how horrifying life in this world may be and no matter if death visits us before Jesus’ return to the world, nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39)
Helpful resources:
Johnson, Dennis E. Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation.
Brighton, Louis A. Revelation-Concordia Commentary.
Revelation, Part 1
Here's the first episode of my new podcast, 'Route 66: A podcast journey through the Bible.' Naturally, we're starting with the last of the Bible's 66 books, Revelation. Please share the podcast with others!
Monday, May 25, 2020
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
"If God Can Do Anything..."
You've probably heard what was called "the parable of the stone" the first time I heard it in a Philosophy class at Ohio State.
It goes like this: "If God can do anything, He can create a stone too heavu for Him to lift. If there's a stone too heavy for God to lift, He can't do everything. Therefore, there is no God."
Any logician will tell you that this formal argument is airtight. Its form makes it "valid" and irrefutable.
Of course, one problem with the argument from a believer's perspective is that it presumes the conditions by which God can "prove" His existence to us. If you are trying to prove or disprove the existence of the creator and Lord of the universe, it's presumptuous to define the parameters by which you'll allow Him to prove Himself to you.
God's preferred method of "proving" Himself and His love to us is through self-disclosure, the persuasions of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of faith. Each of these methods, resulting in faith, are initiated by God. Hard as it is on human egos, theists believe no one can every be argued into or out of faith by valid arguments.
But, for the moment, let's accept that both assertions of the "parable" are true:
Actually, I don't think so.
As a Christian, I accept that God can do anything. But I also accept that this God Who can do anything can create a stone too heavy for Him to lift. And yet, I conclude that God exists.
This is exactly what happened when God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus, submitting to the limitations of being human (even while totally resisting sin) and presumably, during His time on earth, encountering stones that would have been too heavy for Him to lift had He tried. (He could have caused them to cry out, by the way. But that's another story.)
Of course, all supposedly airtight arguments against God's existence have, for the person willing to receive the witness of Scripture and of Christ's Church and so, being willing to believe in Christ, been trumped by Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.
In Jesus Christ, we meet the eternal and infinite God, able to do anything, including incorporate the experience of human weakness into the experience of Almighty God.
In Jesus Christ, we meet the compassionate God Who voluntarily lived with human weakness and limitation to win us back through the submission of His weak body to death.
Those who let Jesus into their lives don't need a counter-argument to the parable of the stone. The crucified and risen Jesus is evidence of the God Who can do anything, including carrying the weight of our sins on a cross and rising from the dead from a tomb once sealed by a stone too big for one person to budge.
God is mighty. God is vulnerable. Therefore God exists. And, therefore, He and He alone can give life to all who believe in Jesus Christ!
It goes like this: "If God can do anything, He can create a stone too heavu for Him to lift. If there's a stone too heavy for God to lift, He can't do everything. Therefore, there is no God."
Any logician will tell you that this formal argument is airtight. Its form makes it "valid" and irrefutable.
Of course, one problem with the argument from a believer's perspective is that it presumes the conditions by which God can "prove" His existence to us. If you are trying to prove or disprove the existence of the creator and Lord of the universe, it's presumptuous to define the parameters by which you'll allow Him to prove Himself to you.
God's preferred method of "proving" Himself and His love to us is through self-disclosure, the persuasions of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of faith. Each of these methods, resulting in faith, are initiated by God. Hard as it is on human egos, theists believe no one can every be argued into or out of faith by valid arguments.
But, for the moment, let's accept that both assertions of the "parable" are true:
1. God can do anything.Are the two parts mutually exclusive? If you say, "Yes" to #1 and "Yes" to #2 or "No" to either proposition, are you conceding that God doesn't exist?
2. God can create a stone too heavy for God to lift.
Actually, I don't think so.
As a Christian, I accept that God can do anything. But I also accept that this God Who can do anything can create a stone too heavy for Him to lift. And yet, I conclude that God exists.
This is exactly what happened when God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus, submitting to the limitations of being human (even while totally resisting sin) and presumably, during His time on earth, encountering stones that would have been too heavy for Him to lift had He tried. (He could have caused them to cry out, by the way. But that's another story.)
Of course, all supposedly airtight arguments against God's existence have, for the person willing to receive the witness of Scripture and of Christ's Church and so, being willing to believe in Christ, been trumped by Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.
In Jesus Christ, we meet the eternal and infinite God, able to do anything, including incorporate the experience of human weakness into the experience of Almighty God.
In Jesus Christ, we meet the compassionate God Who voluntarily lived with human weakness and limitation to win us back through the submission of His weak body to death.
Those who let Jesus into their lives don't need a counter-argument to the parable of the stone. The crucified and risen Jesus is evidence of the God Who can do anything, including carrying the weight of our sins on a cross and rising from the dead from a tomb once sealed by a stone too big for one person to budge.
God is mighty. God is vulnerable. Therefore God exists. And, therefore, He and He alone can give life to all who believe in Jesus Christ!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Understanding Revelation, Part 6 (Revelation 22:12-21)
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Revelation 22:12-21
There’s a simple scene enacted in millions of homes and other places across the country every single day.
It may involve a family with children, sitting before a freshly cooked, multi-course meal together with extended family.
It may entail a single person with a frozen dinner they’ve just microwaved.
Or it might play out among a group of friends grabbing a fast food meal on the road.
In each scene, heads bow and either silently or aloud, a prayer is said: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed.”
I bet you’ve been part of a similar scene yourself many times. It’s likely that you too have said that prayer yourself countless times.
In fact, say that prayer with me again right now: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed.”
Like other well-known prayers we say, this one may have been nearly bleached of personal meaning for us by constant use. But we say this prayer and teach it to our children and grandchildren mostly, I think, because, as we eat and drink and, maybe, visit with others over our meals, we want Jesus to be at that table with us.
A simpler prayer on which this one is based, goes all the way back to the first Christians. Paul offers this it in his first letter to the Corinthian Christians, breaking away from the Greek in which it and the whole rest of the New Testament was written to use a phrase from Aramaic. (Hebrew was a dead language by the time Jesus was born and Aramaic was the language that He and all the people of Judea used back then.) Paul prayed, “Marana Tha,” (Maranatha), meaning, “Come, Lord.”
But I wonder, as we pray this simple prayer, how much do we mean it when we ask Jesus to come to us?
An old joke has a man telling a friend: “I was praying last night and when I did, I sensed God giving me two messages: good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?” “The good news, I guess,” the friend answered. “OK, here's the good news: Jesus is coming back soon,” the man said. His friend was excited. “If that’s your good news,” the friend said, “I can’t imagine any news being bad enough to make me unhappy. What’s the bad news?” The first man answered: “Jesus is really ticked off.”
When we think about the words of that old dinnertime prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus…,” we may wonder that if Jesus really answers it, whether we'll like what happens?
No doubt, we’re sincere in our invitations to Jesus when things are going badly in our lives: When we’re facing health issues, when a teenaged son or daughter is driving home on a stormy night, when we get an audit notice from the IRS. The old saying is true, I think: “There are no atheists in fox holes.”
But when things are going well—when we’re healthy, the kids are home safe, and the tax refund is safely deposited in our account with no questions asked, we may not think too much about Jesus, let alone inviting Him to be our guest.
In fact, having Jesus as our guest may be the last thing that we want. When I was in college, I worked as youth coordinator in an acquaintance’s campaign for the State House of Representatives. I spent a lot of time with Bob*, a guy whose stint in the Army and impending tour of duty in Vietnam were ended when he got into a motorcycle accident that required the amputation of a leg. I was an atheist in those days and Bob told me that he believed in God.
“But,” he told me once, “I don’t want to get too close to God. I don’t want to have to change any of the things I like to do. The way I figure it, I’m going to live it up, do whatever I want to do. And then, when I’m on my deathbed, I’ll ask God to forgive me of my sins—accept Jesus or whatever, and then go to heaven.”
Even then, as an eighteen year old, I remember thinking that a man who’d lost a limb in a motorcycle accident should know that the opportunity for making peaceful deathbed confessions of faith are guaranteed to no one. In this fallen and dying world, anything can happen and it often does, without our plan or approval.
The writer of our second lesson for this morning, John the Evangelist, writing in the New Testament’s last book, Revelation, knew well how nothing in this world can be taken for granted. When he wrote the letter we call Revelation to the Christian churches of western Turkey, John was without freedom, a manacled prisoner exiled on the Mediterranean island of Patmos.
And the believers in Jesus to whom John wrote also knew that life may not go as planned. By the time John's letter had come to them, they had already felt the sting of harassment and pressure from authorities of the Roman Empire demanding that they renounce their faith in Jesus, which those in power saw as a threat to the Roman way of life. Some of these early followers of Jesus had been imprisoned for their faith. And some knew church members who had been killed for believing in Jesus. Their lives were hard. The empire under which they lived was evil. Their prayers for Jesus to come to them or to come to bring down the curtain on this world had an urgency that you and I seldom feel when we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest.”
It was for Christians like these—to give them comfort, hope, and strength—that Jesus, already crucified, risen from the dead, and ascended to heaven, revealed to John the visions that make up much of Revelation.
Jesus wanted His people to know that all who repent for their sin and trust in Him have all that they need in this life and the next.
The last verses of Revelation that make up our second lesson today find Jesus repeating this promise--the promise that is at the heart of Revelation--to John, to those early Christians, and to us: “See, I am coming soon…”
But I’m convinced that even when Christ seems to be far away, He is already with us. There are times when we find that hard to believe. But if we will, as Psalm 46, the psalm whose words inspired the lyrics of Martin Luther's 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God,' tells us, “be still and know that” God is God, we may be surprised by the ways in which Jesus comes to us.
Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian who, along with her family, were imprisoned by the Nazis during World War Two because they helped Jews escape their occupied country, is one of my heroes. During one four-month stretch of her imprisonment at the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, Corrie was placed in solitary confinement. The cell was dark and there was dirty standing water on the floor. At times, she heard the cries of other prisoners and knew that she too could be tortured by the Nazis. Once, terrified beyond all bearing, she cried out to God, “Lord, I’m not strong enough to endure this. I don’t have the faith.”
At that moment, Corrie looked down to see an ant. She noticed that the moment the ant felt water on the floor, it went straight back into its hole in the wall. Corrie realized that when the ant confronted something too big or overwhelming, it went to its hiding place. “Corrie,” God seemed to tell her, “don’t look at your weak faith...I am your hiding place, and you can come running to Me” the way that ant went to its hiding place. When we’re desperate enough to truly mean it when we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” we may take it as a matter of faith that Christ will come to us!
And one day, Jesus will come back in the flesh to bring the old earth and old heaven to an end and the new earth and the new heaven into being. But what will Jesus do when He comes back?
The answer to that question is found in the first verse of our lesson. After promising that He is coming soon, Jesus says, “My reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work.”
Now, every good Lutheran knows, of course, that we are saved not by what we do—by our works—but by the gracious gift of new life God gives to those with faith in Jesus, Who died on the cross and rose from death for us.
So, what does Jesus mean saying that He’s going to repay us according to our work? Is He changing the rules of the game? If He is, we’re in trouble.
No, Jesus isn’t changing the rules. Jesus, the Lamb of God Who takes away our sin, is, as the book of Hebrews tells us, “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”
For those of us who live in the in-between times—the times between our own births and deaths, the times between Jesus’ resurrection and His return to the world, between the mysteries of this life and the triumphant answers of the world to come, the work that Jesus rewards is well-known. Jesus put it this way in words recorded in John’s Gospel: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom [God] has sent.”
Trusting submission to Jesus is the work of the Christian. Allowing ourselves to be washed of all our sin and death in the blood of the Lamb of God: That is the work we do to enter eternity. We are saved by God’s grace through our faith in Christ; that’s our work.
We began this series of sermons on Revelation five weeks ago with the idea of simplifying a book of the Bible that people love to complicate. When all is said and done, the message of Revelation is simple. No matter what trials or uncertainties we may deal with in this life, when we turn from sin and trust in Christ, we have strength for today and hope for tomorrow.
Christ can come to us even now as he did to John on his island of exile. And Christ promises that once our lives here end, He will come to us again. Toward the end of our lesson, near the end of Revelation, Jesus says again, “Surely I am coming soon.” John responds, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
May that be our prayer through all the moments of our lives. And when that is our prayer, we can be sure that the blessing that ends Revelation will be ours every day: “The grace of the Lord be with all the saints. Amen!”
Come, Lord Jesus!
*Not his real name.
Revelation 22:12-21
There’s a simple scene enacted in millions of homes and other places across the country every single day.
It may involve a family with children, sitting before a freshly cooked, multi-course meal together with extended family.
It may entail a single person with a frozen dinner they’ve just microwaved.
Or it might play out among a group of friends grabbing a fast food meal on the road.
In each scene, heads bow and either silently or aloud, a prayer is said: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed.”
I bet you’ve been part of a similar scene yourself many times. It’s likely that you too have said that prayer yourself countless times.
In fact, say that prayer with me again right now: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed.”
Like other well-known prayers we say, this one may have been nearly bleached of personal meaning for us by constant use. But we say this prayer and teach it to our children and grandchildren mostly, I think, because, as we eat and drink and, maybe, visit with others over our meals, we want Jesus to be at that table with us.
A simpler prayer on which this one is based, goes all the way back to the first Christians. Paul offers this it in his first letter to the Corinthian Christians, breaking away from the Greek in which it and the whole rest of the New Testament was written to use a phrase from Aramaic. (Hebrew was a dead language by the time Jesus was born and Aramaic was the language that He and all the people of Judea used back then.) Paul prayed, “Marana Tha,” (Maranatha), meaning, “Come, Lord.”
But I wonder, as we pray this simple prayer, how much do we mean it when we ask Jesus to come to us?
An old joke has a man telling a friend: “I was praying last night and when I did, I sensed God giving me two messages: good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?” “The good news, I guess,” the friend answered. “OK, here's the good news: Jesus is coming back soon,” the man said. His friend was excited. “If that’s your good news,” the friend said, “I can’t imagine any news being bad enough to make me unhappy. What’s the bad news?” The first man answered: “Jesus is really ticked off.”
When we think about the words of that old dinnertime prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus…,” we may wonder that if Jesus really answers it, whether we'll like what happens?
No doubt, we’re sincere in our invitations to Jesus when things are going badly in our lives: When we’re facing health issues, when a teenaged son or daughter is driving home on a stormy night, when we get an audit notice from the IRS. The old saying is true, I think: “There are no atheists in fox holes.”
But when things are going well—when we’re healthy, the kids are home safe, and the tax refund is safely deposited in our account with no questions asked, we may not think too much about Jesus, let alone inviting Him to be our guest.
In fact, having Jesus as our guest may be the last thing that we want. When I was in college, I worked as youth coordinator in an acquaintance’s campaign for the State House of Representatives. I spent a lot of time with Bob*, a guy whose stint in the Army and impending tour of duty in Vietnam were ended when he got into a motorcycle accident that required the amputation of a leg. I was an atheist in those days and Bob told me that he believed in God.
“But,” he told me once, “I don’t want to get too close to God. I don’t want to have to change any of the things I like to do. The way I figure it, I’m going to live it up, do whatever I want to do. And then, when I’m on my deathbed, I’ll ask God to forgive me of my sins—accept Jesus or whatever, and then go to heaven.”
Even then, as an eighteen year old, I remember thinking that a man who’d lost a limb in a motorcycle accident should know that the opportunity for making peaceful deathbed confessions of faith are guaranteed to no one. In this fallen and dying world, anything can happen and it often does, without our plan or approval.
The writer of our second lesson for this morning, John the Evangelist, writing in the New Testament’s last book, Revelation, knew well how nothing in this world can be taken for granted. When he wrote the letter we call Revelation to the Christian churches of western Turkey, John was without freedom, a manacled prisoner exiled on the Mediterranean island of Patmos.
And the believers in Jesus to whom John wrote also knew that life may not go as planned. By the time John's letter had come to them, they had already felt the sting of harassment and pressure from authorities of the Roman Empire demanding that they renounce their faith in Jesus, which those in power saw as a threat to the Roman way of life. Some of these early followers of Jesus had been imprisoned for their faith. And some knew church members who had been killed for believing in Jesus. Their lives were hard. The empire under which they lived was evil. Their prayers for Jesus to come to them or to come to bring down the curtain on this world had an urgency that you and I seldom feel when we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest.”
It was for Christians like these—to give them comfort, hope, and strength—that Jesus, already crucified, risen from the dead, and ascended to heaven, revealed to John the visions that make up much of Revelation.
Jesus wanted His people to know that all who repent for their sin and trust in Him have all that they need in this life and the next.
The last verses of Revelation that make up our second lesson today find Jesus repeating this promise--the promise that is at the heart of Revelation--to John, to those early Christians, and to us: “See, I am coming soon…”
But I’m convinced that even when Christ seems to be far away, He is already with us. There are times when we find that hard to believe. But if we will, as Psalm 46, the psalm whose words inspired the lyrics of Martin Luther's 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God,' tells us, “be still and know that” God is God, we may be surprised by the ways in which Jesus comes to us.
Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian who, along with her family, were imprisoned by the Nazis during World War Two because they helped Jews escape their occupied country, is one of my heroes. During one four-month stretch of her imprisonment at the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, Corrie was placed in solitary confinement. The cell was dark and there was dirty standing water on the floor. At times, she heard the cries of other prisoners and knew that she too could be tortured by the Nazis. Once, terrified beyond all bearing, she cried out to God, “Lord, I’m not strong enough to endure this. I don’t have the faith.”
At that moment, Corrie looked down to see an ant. She noticed that the moment the ant felt water on the floor, it went straight back into its hole in the wall. Corrie realized that when the ant confronted something too big or overwhelming, it went to its hiding place. “Corrie,” God seemed to tell her, “don’t look at your weak faith...I am your hiding place, and you can come running to Me” the way that ant went to its hiding place. When we’re desperate enough to truly mean it when we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” we may take it as a matter of faith that Christ will come to us!
And one day, Jesus will come back in the flesh to bring the old earth and old heaven to an end and the new earth and the new heaven into being. But what will Jesus do when He comes back?
The answer to that question is found in the first verse of our lesson. After promising that He is coming soon, Jesus says, “My reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work.”
Now, every good Lutheran knows, of course, that we are saved not by what we do—by our works—but by the gracious gift of new life God gives to those with faith in Jesus, Who died on the cross and rose from death for us.
So, what does Jesus mean saying that He’s going to repay us according to our work? Is He changing the rules of the game? If He is, we’re in trouble.
No, Jesus isn’t changing the rules. Jesus, the Lamb of God Who takes away our sin, is, as the book of Hebrews tells us, “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”
For those of us who live in the in-between times—the times between our own births and deaths, the times between Jesus’ resurrection and His return to the world, between the mysteries of this life and the triumphant answers of the world to come, the work that Jesus rewards is well-known. Jesus put it this way in words recorded in John’s Gospel: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom [God] has sent.”
Trusting submission to Jesus is the work of the Christian. Allowing ourselves to be washed of all our sin and death in the blood of the Lamb of God: That is the work we do to enter eternity. We are saved by God’s grace through our faith in Christ; that’s our work.
We began this series of sermons on Revelation five weeks ago with the idea of simplifying a book of the Bible that people love to complicate. When all is said and done, the message of Revelation is simple. No matter what trials or uncertainties we may deal with in this life, when we turn from sin and trust in Christ, we have strength for today and hope for tomorrow.
Christ can come to us even now as he did to John on his island of exile. And Christ promises that once our lives here end, He will come to us again. Toward the end of our lesson, near the end of Revelation, Jesus says again, “Surely I am coming soon.” John responds, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
May that be our prayer through all the moments of our lives. And when that is our prayer, we can be sure that the blessing that ends Revelation will be ours every day: “The grace of the Lord be with all the saints. Amen!”
Come, Lord Jesus!
*Not his real name.
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