The Fourth Sunday after Easter --- 17 April 2016

Revelation 7:9-17

9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ They cried out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!" ¹¹ And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹² singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." ¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" ¹⁴ I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. ¹⁶ They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; ¹⁷ for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd

·        The Book of Revelation – also known as the Apocalypse of John – is one of the strangest books of the Bible as we have it now. It is surely the oddest book of the New Testament and it has been interpreted and mis-interpreted countless times throughout the history of the Church. It contains strange beasts, odd and often gruesome actions, glimpses of heaven, and frightening views of what people take to be the future of the human race.

·        The book’s Greek title, Apocalypse, means something like “the unveiling”, although the word has come to mean an earth-shattering disaster. It was written at a time of serious persecution of the Church, and like the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible, it was written to encourage and comfort those undergoing persecution, “lifting the veil” on the future so they could endure the present.

·        Isn’t it strange that a book written for the comfort and strength of a group undergoing persecution has come to be a frightening story that more resembles a fever dream’s hallucinations than a book imparting hope?

·        Of course then, it has become one of my favourite books of the Bible.

·        The portion we read today in this Easter season is a vision of heavenly worship. The heavenly host of angels, the elders, and the four living creatures worship before the throne. They are joined by a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, a group who are soon revealed to be the host of martyrs who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

·        The image is quite poetic and imaginative. The symbolism continues to our own day. In Baptism, a white garment may be put on the person baptized, whether it is a full robe or a symbolic white bib, which symbolizes new life in Christ as well as being washed in the blood of the Lamb. The basic vestment I wear and that the acolytes wear – the alb, which means “white” in Latin - is an echo of this great symbol of the salvation given by God in the blood of the Lamb.

·        This vast crowd of martyrs have come out of the great ordeal as the elder who questioned the book’s writer said. They washed their own robes, stained with their own blood, and made them clean in the blood of the Lamb. They survived the great ordeal by their suffering and the suffering of Christ, rather than by their own strength. Of course the Lamb is none other than the Lamb of God, Jesus. Although he is not named, his identity in Revelation is not really hidden; it is quite obvious to the community of believers.

·        The multitude in their white robes came through the so-called great ordeal and did not avoid it. This is not to say that they welcomed the suffering they endued, but they remained firm in their faith and came through the persecution. They might be dead to the world, but they are alive to God through the blood of the Lamb, the Lamb who is now their shepherd.

·        The Lamb… who is both sacrifice and shepherd. The Lamb… who is both slaughtered and alive. The Lamb will be the shepherd of the white-robed gathering of martyrs and will lead then to springs of living water. They will know the four-fold promise given to those who have come through the great suffering – no hunger, no thirst, no sun-stroke, no heat-stroke… and finally all their tears will be wiped away. All that they had endured will be healed.

·        In their martyrdom, they were like Christ. As he was resurrected, so their deaths led to their freedom and renewal.

·        There are a few more things taught in this passage.

·        The first would be that God does not punish or inflict pain on his people. God is and remains compassionate. What the martyrs endured is not something desired by God. Their suffering joins them to the suffering of Christ and in that, leads them to victory over the powers that persecuted them. The bulk of the Book of Revelation speaks of this persecution and only hints at why the persecution took place. The original readers knew and knew very well. The book goes so far as to name their persecutor in a symbolic way. The so-called “number of the beast” that is spoken of elsewhere in the book refers to a person. Most modern scholars agree that the symbolic number used refers to the emperor Nero who persecuted the Church because they would not take on all that the empire desired and required, primarily the worship of the Roman state.

·        Now as then, Christians are not to surrender to the distorted values of the empire of this world, but are to maintain a Christ-like attitude. Even in the face of persecution, Heavenly hope does not turn us away from the world, but enables us to live courageously when all external hope seems to be gone. This is how the martyrs of any time and place could hold fast to the faith despite all they endured.

·        Finally, with God, no loss is final. I count the Book of Revelation as a favourite book of the Bible not because of all the weird and horrible things found there… and there are weird and horrible images. No, what is attractive is the hope it hold out to all Christians of any time and place. Ultimately we are reminded that God is in charge, that death is not defeat, and that the promises made by God and the Lamb will be kept.

·        The Lamb will be our shepherd and we will find our robes of celebration washed clean in his blood. We will join the rejoicing assembly at the foot of the throne of the Lamb, washed clean and made new. And that’s Good News.

“…the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."