Victory

The Lamb upon the throne, central panel detail in The Baptism of Jesus by John, art-glass window, First Presbyterian Church Edwardsville.

Sermon Series “Through the Bible,” № 87, Revelation 5:6-13

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” – Revelation 5:12

In our journey through the Bible, today is a final opportunity to look at a portion of Revelation, a complicated and mysterious book.  One thing that makes the book complicated is the way its perspective moves between present time and future time. Depending on how the Holy Spirit speaks to us through this book, there is more than one place that we might end.

Some Bible scholars make a case about the vision that best describes the final movement in the story John tells. They say it’s found not at the end of chapter 22, but rather all the way back in chapter 5. As the text begins, John’s visionary experience takes him to a heavenly room in which a figure sits on a throne. It isn’t surprising that John doesn’t name the figure, for the Jewish tradition always is reluctant to name God out of a great sense of reverence. So John is careful to offer a number of images, suggesting some of the qualities of God, but always leaving room for God to be something other than can be described in human words. 

John describes the scene as being like precious jewels. Twenty-four thrones are seen before which 24 elders kneel down. They seem to symbolize the 12 patriarchs of the Old Testament and the 12 apostles of the New Testament. There are four creatures with the appearance of a lion, an ox, a human being, and an eagle, symbolizing nobility, strength, wisdom, and speed. They act like choir directors leading worship. There is a book with seven seals, representing a deep mystery waiting to be revealed. John weeps because it seems there is no one worthy to open the book. Then an elder says, Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.

Then, something happens that runs contrary to expectations, a kind of surprise rooted in the deep mystery of the Christian gospel.  Based on what the elder said, John might have expected to see a Lion, but instead sees a lamb. The Lamb appears as if it had been slaughtered but is alive again, a symbol of Christ. The lamb has seven horns and seven eyes, seven being the number of completeness or perfection. Professor Eugene Boring says, “Although readers of the Bible may have become so accustomed to it that the effect is lost to us, this is perhaps the most mind-wrenching ‘rebirth of images’ in literature.”[1]

The image of lion-messiah had seemed so right. In John’s time, God’s people were suffering at the hands of the first beast, the enemy empire Rome. Who wouldn’t want a lion-messiah to place himself between the Church and its enemies?  Faithful Christians were subjected to tortures by evil emperors as horrible as being eaten alive by wild animals, and dipped into tar and set on fire. Who wouldn’t want a lion-messiah to rip God’s enemies into shreds?

Instead, John’s vision of Christ the Lion gives way to Christ the Lamb. Remember how, more than once, a lamb was associated with the unexpected salvation of God. The blood of the lamb on the doorpost protected the Hebrews from the angel of death; the sacrifice of the lamb in tabernacle or temple worship was said to atone from sins.  When the prophet Isaiah described the suffering servant of God, he compared him to a lamb led to the slaughter, wounded for the transgressions of others, by whose stripes we are healed. John, the Baptizer, said of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

As John records these visions, he is expressing his belief that victory already has taken place through the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The vision of the lamb and the throne confirms it. No matter the conflict that follows on from chapter 5, in some sense the war is already won, the end no longer in doubt. All the rest of the book is the working out of God’s judgment and suffering, in a movement from evil to good, from death to life, from darkness to light that will surely come.

It’s like a story about what happened in South Africa many years ago. It’s about Desmond Tutu, and I’m sure that I’ve shared it in the past. It happened the day Desmond Tutu led a worship service in St. George’s Cathedral, after the South African government had forbidden a political rally against apartheid. The aisles around the worship space were lined with soldiers and riot police carrying rifles with mounted bayonets, ready to close it down. Bishop Tutu began to speak about the evils of the apartheid system – how the rulers and authorities that propped it up were doomed to fail.

As Tutu contined, what he said and did could only be said and done by someone who understood and believed the fifth chapter of Revelation. He pointed at the police who were there to record his words: “You may be powerful – very powerful – but you are not God. God cannot be mocked. You have already lost.”

Then, in a moment of unbearable tension, the bishop seemed to soften. Coming out of the box of his pulpit, he flashed that radiant Desmond Tutu smile and began to bounce up and down with glee. “Therefore, since you have already lost, we are inviting you to join the winning side.” The crowd roared, the people began to dance, and the police melted away.[2]

The story of this scene challenges me, because I’m quite sure that I couldn’t face soldiers with the sort of confidence and grace displayed by Tutu and his congregation.  But it inspires me, too. It comes as close to the spirit of John’s vision as any that I have ever heard. 

May God bless you and me with such strength. What a difference it would make if we all would live our lives like the worshipping community that day at St. George’s Cathedral, acknowledging the reality of evil and suffering, but smiling, singing, dancing, in the sure knowledge that they no longer determine our destiny. For in Jesus Christ, evil is defeated, and victory is won. Thanks be to God! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

NOTES

[1] Eugene Boring, Revelation, p. 108.

[2] Related by John Ortberg, “Living by the Word,” The Christian Century, 9 Aug. 2003, p. 17.

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