Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A literary approach to Revelation Chapter 19-21
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to our final message in this extended look at the letter of revelation. And we have put a lot of work in together over the past couple months. And so thank you for sticking with this because I know it has been a heavy series. We have looked at now thrones and lambs and seals and trumpets and dragons and beasts and harlots. And today, finally, we will explore the images of the coming kingdom of God.
Speaker 1:Now there's an old saying that I got from Rob Bell, and it goes like this. At first, the river is a river and the mountain is a mountain. But then, the river is no longer a river and the mountain is no longer a mountain. Until finally, the river is a river and the mountain is a mountain again. And so in some ways, I hope that this has actually been your experience of revelation.
Speaker 1:At first, the river was a river and the mountain was a mountain. You had some ideas about this book coming in. You had an imagination of Revelation that had been formed before the series. Maybe you had read it for yourself and thought about it. Maybe you had never read it, but you'd heard about it, ideas about it, rumors and speculation about it.
Speaker 1:A map of history that was written before time. An enigma wrapped in a riddle that only the most skilled and gifted could possibly ever decipher. Some of you probably grew up afraid of revelation and the end times. Your parents came home late, and you wondered if you had been left behind. But perhaps, as we have worked our way through the text, you have begun to find that the river was no longer a river, and the mountain was no longer a mountain.
Speaker 1:Some of you were surprised to hear that terms like antichrist and rapture never actually ever appear in the letter of Revelation. That the image of a great red dragon was taken from Greek mythology. The images of the Roman imperial cult would find their way into our Bible, and that some of the most bizarre images of living creatures covered in wings and eyes were actually conventional images drawn from the Hebrew scriptures. And so maybe as we've talked about this, this has been unsettling for you. Maybe it was disorienting.
Speaker 1:Does all of this mean that God really isn't in control? This is just a big storybook by John. That the future isn't unfolding according to God's plan, that everything is simply chance. And yet, my hope is that if you have stuck with the conversation and continue to listen and reflect as we kept moving to the book, my hope is that you are slowly beginning to find that the river is a river and the mountain is a mountain again. Because I would suggest that Revelation is in fact deeply a statement about the sovereignty of God.
Speaker 1:And Revelation is in absolutely a statement about the unfolding of history. Revelation is, in fact, truly a reminder that there is nothing left to chance that love and God win. Because the spirit of God is active and present, guiding and shaping and pulling history back towards our creator. And so, even as we have spent a lot of time deconstructing pop interpretations of revelation, let me begin our final conversation with this affirmation. The river is a river and the mountain is a mountain.
Speaker 1:And God is on the throne and this is indeed the foundation for our faith. Now, we do have more ground to cover today as well. And so we need to spend a bit of time looking back to recapture some of what has come before in this series. But instead of recapping last week, what I wanna do is go back to the beginning for a moment. Because in week one, our guidelines for reading the apocalypse, we talked about how the Hebrew prophets spoke in expanding concentric circles.
Speaker 1:And so we looked at how Isaiah starts starts with the people of Israel, but then he expands to the nations that surround his tribe. And then finally, he pushes out to the furthest limits of his imagination. And he invites the entire cosmos, all of creation to be welcomed into the story of his God. This is the model that John is using in Revelation. It is the same story of the goodness of God told three times.
Speaker 1:Each time with expanding scope and magnitude and glory. And so, at the start of this series, we looked at the seven letters to the seven churches. John begins by speaking to his people, his tribe, the church, Christians. And he says, there are challenges and there are blessings, but this is how the story ends. Here I am.
Speaker 1:I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person and they with me. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my father on his throne. Whoever as hears to hear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. So at a personal level, of an individual Christian, that is the end of the story right there.
Speaker 1:This is the point of life. It is the destination of all those who worship the lamb. We sit with our God, and we eat together. So what is God's plan for you? It's that you would find your way to his table.
Speaker 1:And so that's what we will participate in as we close this series together, the table of the Eucharist tonight. But John isn't done with the story because he begins it all over again next. And this time, he turns his attention to the nations. So what is God's plan for the redemption of the world? And first, John tells us what it might look like if God took our advice.
Speaker 1:Advice. What if God tried to punish the world into salvation? But in the end, God says, no. That's not my story. That's not my way.
Speaker 1:It will be grace and witness and sacrifice that will change the world. And so at the end of chapter 11, we reach the end of the story for the second time. We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. So this is not God who is to come anymore. This is God come.
Speaker 1:Now this is God having transformed the world, having redeemed the nations, having judged the dead, and rewarded the faithful, all here in the eleventh chapter of Revelation. But John is not done yet. And so he begins the story one final time. This time with an eye to the victory of God over evil itself, over death itself, over pain and suffering and tears themselves. And God says, this too shall be overcome.
Speaker 1:And so we read in Revelation chapter one, the end of the story for the third and final time. But this time, it is the most grand and expansive and beautiful image that John can possibly attach to what he sees. Because this is the redemption of all things. He says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
Speaker 1:So there's no more chaos in the world. That's what the sea represents in Revelation. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. Remember last week, Rome and Babylon, he described as prostitutes. This city is a bride.
Speaker 1:It is everything the cities of the world are not. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. And he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, no mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
Speaker 1:And so this is where the story ends for the third and final and most expansive time yet. But we still have a gap between the beasts and the harlot we saw terrorizing the world last week and this new glorious expansive expression of God's goodness today. And so that is our agenda. How do we get here for the third and final time? First though, let's pray.
Speaker 1:God, we wanna thank you tonight for the opportunity to explore images and imaginations that challenge us to think in new ways about you, about ourselves, and about your world. And so we thank you for those who have come before, who have put time and research and effort into studying your word. And we are grateful for the wisdom and the insight that we can lean on. But now we ask that your spirit would be present with us, especially as we draw this conversation to a close, close. Yet he would sink the message of this letter so deeply into our bones that it would not only challenge us, it would transform us, and that it would motivate and inspire us because we long to be the people of the lamb.
Speaker 1:Washed of our greed, and our selfishness, and our anger, and our avarice. By the blood of the sacrifice that shows us there is a new way to live in this world. And so we trust in that story. But we ask that your spirit would help us to live in the light of that story. So that we could taste your goodness, so that we could join you at your table as your guests even today.
Speaker 1:And so in the strong name of the lamb who was slain, only to rise to new life, we pray. Amen. Okay. Now, we have a couple more important images to discuss in Revelation before we move to the table of the Eucharist so that we can see how God brings about the scene that we just read from chapter 21. And those are the battle of Armageddon, the millennial reign of Christ, and then finally, the coming of the new Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:So if you thought that since this was the last week of the series, we might take it easy, look out, because we are not going to do that. So let's begin with the battle of Armageddon. And this is a word that actually only shows up once in the entire letter of Revelation. It's actually in chapter 16 verse 16. And it's in a section that we refer to as the seven bowls, which is a retelling of a sort of the seven trumpets that we looked at a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1:And so if you remember back to the sixth trumpet, we read about this great army that was massing for a battle with God. Remember that? Well, in the sixth bowl, we read about all the kings of the earth gathering together for a battle against God at a place called Armageddon. Now Armageddon is a compound word made up of two Hebrew words, Har and Megiddo. So it's Har Megiddo.
Speaker 1:Harar in Hebrew means mountain. Megiddo is actually a small town about a 100 kilometers north of Jerusalem. So Armageddon as a word simply literally just means Mount Of Megiddo. Sorry. If you were, expecting some terrible, dark, and sinister meaning etymology to this world, there's just nothing there.
Speaker 1:It just means Mount Of Megiddo, Armageddon. But there are a couple interesting things here. First is the fact that there is no such thing as the Mount Of Megiddo. In fact, there are only the Plains Of Megiddo. In fact, here is a picture of Megiddo.
Speaker 1:It's also called the Valley Of Jezreel, and you can see that there is clearly nothing like a mountain in that picture, not even a bump or a hill to be called a mount. So John is clearly, as he has been doing all along in this letter, using his language figuratively. It's almost as if John is saying, listen. I wanna talk about Harmaguido, but it doesn't really exist, so don't go looking for it on a map. I want you to start looking, thinking, searching for connections I might be suggesting by using this language.
Speaker 1:And once we do that, we find that Megiddo is an infamous location throughout the history of the Hebrews in approximately 1,500 BC. So likely when the Hebrews were still slaves in Egypt or possibly just coming into Egypt, the Egyptian king, Tutmose the third, took his army and fought an enormous battle against an alliance of Canaanite tribes led by the king of Kadesh. Now this battle doesn't appear in the Bible, because it's very early in Hebrew history, but we do have a number of different ancient records that describe it. And in fact, the battle of Kadesh is the earliest record we have of the body count of an ancient battle. It was so huge, it was said that both armies had over 10,000 troops massed for war.
Speaker 1:So do you remember back in chapter nine when John describes a war with God? You remember what he says? He says that at that battle, there is not twice 10,000 troops. He says there is twice 10,000 times 10,000 masturbate. As if he is saying the battle of Kadesh was nothing to this.
Speaker 1:Then in June, there's another great battle. This time, the Egyptian king, Necho the II, along with the Assyrians goes to battle with the Babylonians. And the Hebrews end up getting pulled into this fight. Egypt comes and says to Israel, can we pass through your lands on our way to Carchemesh where we're gonna fight with the Babylonians? But second Kings tells us that when Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went up to meet with the king of Assyria, king Josiah, the Jewish king at the time, went to meet him.
Speaker 1:But Pharaoh Necho slew him when he saw him at Megiddo. So the Hebrews get betrayed at Megiddo. They get pulled into the battle with Babylon, and eventually, this ends up being the slope that goes to their downfall as Judah is conquered by Babylon after Babylon beats Assyria and Egypt. That's not all though, because the judge Deborah and her military leader Barak battle the Canaanites at Megiddo. Gideon goes to war with the Midianites at Megiddo, and king Saul is killed all at the Plains Of Megiddo.
Speaker 1:Now John tells us that when evil meets God for battle face to face, it will happen at the Mountain Of Megiddo. So this is not a physical location he's talking about. You can't put it on a map. That's not what John is saying. What this is is a very Jewish way of saying evil will meet its ground zero.
Speaker 1:And what happens in your head when I say that? Do you think of New York and the Twin Towers? Of course, you do. Do you think that I'm talking about the Twin Towers and New York when I say that? Of course not.
Speaker 1:That's what John is doing here. He is pulling from the history of Israel to evoke emotion and connection and understanding. He's not describing a place. He's describing a type of scenario. Now if that's the case and this battle doesn't happen at a physical location, how then should we picture it?
Speaker 1:Well, John helps us with that as well. Chapter 19 is where the battle actually happens. We read this, I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true. With justice, he judges and wages war. Now justice here is the word in Greek.
Speaker 1:But justice in Hebrew and in Greek is the same word as righteousness. So not two separate words for that. So how does this rider wage war? It's not with weapons. It's with justice and righteousness.
Speaker 1:And he is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the word of God. So this is Jesus. He's the word of God, and his robe is dipped in blood. But it's dipped in blood before the battle, not after the battle. So whose blood is this?
Speaker 1:This is not his enemy's blood. This is his blood. This is his sacrifice. And coming out of his mouth was a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. On his robe and on his thigh, he has his name written, king of kings and lord of lords.
Speaker 1:So contrary to popular imagination on YouTube or whatever, this king and this lord does not have a sword in his hand. He has a sword in his mouth. And as we have heard over and over and over again in Revelation, victory is won, not with weapons, not with war, not with force, but how? Through the witness and the testimony of those who tell the story of the lamb and his sacrifice. What we have now is an image of the lamb who was slain come to tell the world his own story.
Speaker 1:That's what what's going on here. That's what this is about. This persistent idea that Jesus is going to come back someday riding on a white horse, galloping through town, lopping off heads with a giant scimitar. That is a blatant misreading of what is going Revelation. Because it is fully and completely contradictory to both the lamb that we see in Revelation and to the Jesus that we see in the gospels.
Speaker 1:And so John has already told us that the Jesus we see sacrificing himself for others is the clearest, most true, most accurate, most perfect image of God we will ever see. And so I will say right now that any reading of the bible that contradicts that or diminishes that or takes away from that Jesus who is loving sacrifice, that is anti Jesus. Armageddon is not a physical place, and the sword here is not a physical weapon. This is an image of the power of the story of Christ's sacrifice to overcome evil, violence, terror, anger. Now, there's not even much of a battle when John describes it.
Speaker 1:He says this, then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war. But the beast was captured and with it the false prophet. The two of them were thrown into the fiery lake. The rest were killed with the sword from the mouth of the rider, and the birds gorged themselves on their flesh. And this is why people tend to misread this image, because it is granted fairly dark and a little bit gruesome.
Speaker 1:John does not, for a second, want us to miss the gravity of what he's talking about. But in the larger context of this letter, the way John has been using these images, this is clearly not meant to be a battle that you could put on a map or compile a body count from. This is an image of how the story of Christ disarms, defeats, and destroys who, John has already told us, the destroyers of the earth. So next we read this, that the dragon himself, so evil itself, is locked away, and Christ comes to reign on earth for a thousand years. So what John says, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus.
Speaker 1:They had not worshiped the beast or its image and not received its mark. So they didn't fall for the religion, the economics, and the politics of empire we talked about last week. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. And this is what we often call in theological circles the millennium. And even though John dedicates a total of two verses to the millennium, this has been the center of all kinds of speculation and theological wondering for a very long time.
Speaker 1:And there are basically three different ways that these verses are approached, and I'm just gonna give you all three. The first and the most ancient view, the one that dominated about the first thousand years of the church is what we might call today amillennialism. Now amillennialism basically means no millennium, but that is a bit of a misnomer because this view doesn't say there is no millennium. What it says is that the millennium, and this is the view of the early Christians, was a metaphor for the church. In other words, Christ has defeated evil, and we have been raised with him to new life, and we are reigning with him right now as he works to transform the world.
Speaker 1:That's the view of all millennialism. And that view held sway for a very long time, probably at least a thousand years. In fact, all the way, probably up until the reformers came along in the fifteenth century. And they developed another view, one we call postmillennialism. You see, they saw the return of Christ happening at some point in the distant future, but they believed that Christ would only return once the church had prepared the world for his reign.
Speaker 1:And so reformers like John Calvin and Zwingli took this view and they started setting up actual Christian city states because they believed that if they could create, they could participate, they could work with the spirit of God to bring peace and justice and wholeness to the world, once that had been achieved, then Christ would come and he would take his place, his rightful place, ruling the world. And if you know anything about the enlightenment and modernity, that probably sounds familiar. Right? This is essentially Christian humanism. Now granted, reformed Christians are not humanists, at least not in the sense we generally use the term.
Speaker 1:They're not claiming at all that in and of themselves they can create a just world, but they're saying that by following the Bible, trusting God for salvation, leaning on the spirit for sanctification, and setting up a just world, God can use us to fulfill his purposes and build his kingdom. And when we do, Christ will return. That's postmillennials. Unfortunately, for that view, along comes the first world war and then the second world war. And modernity, along with a lot of our optimism, starts to shake.
Speaker 1:This is where modernity comes from. And so a final view comes into vogue mainly in the twentieth century, and this is what we call premillennialism. This one sees the world as essentially getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And it is waiting and groaning until the time when Christ will finally show up, return, set up his kingdom, and usher in a new era. So the millennium has not yet come.
Speaker 1:We are waiting for it. So amillennialism, Christ is reigning right now. Postmillennialism, Christ will reign when we are ready for him. Premillennialism, Christ will reign when he's good and ready. Just wait for it.
Speaker 1:Now personally, I would probably lean towards amillennialism, or at least that's what I think John has in mind when he's writing. But reasonable Christians can reasonably disagree on this and we do. We have for a very long time. We will for a long time in the future, and that's okay. I would encourage you simply to think and reflect and pray and see what the spirit might speak to you in the light of the conversations we've had about revelation here.
Speaker 1:But this millennium leads us into the final image that we need to discuss in this letter. Evil has met its Megiddo. Christ has assumed his rightful place in the world, and now it is the new Jerusalem or the image of heaven that John sees as his vision finally comes to a close. And so Revelation 20 tells us that we will all stand before a great white throne. And these enormous books that record the history of the world will be brought out and opened before God.
Speaker 1:And these books show all of the choices and decisions and deeds that have made up our lives. This is an image that comes from, the Jewish tradition, this idea that God is recording everything that you do throughout your life. It's an image, that echoes Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew. Did you feed the hungry? Did you give drink to the thirsty?
Speaker 1:Did you invite the stranger in? Did you clothe those in need? Did you visit the sick and those in prison? If yes, welcome into my kingdom. If not, I don't know you.
Speaker 1:And so if you have ever hoped that God would let you skate by into heaven just because you're a Christian even though you really didn't do anything meaningful with your life, this is bit of a wake up call here. Because according to John, everyone will answer for their choices. But lest you think John doesn't understand his Christian theology, another book is then brought out and opened. And this one is called the book of life. And this is the one that actually determines who gets into the new city.
Speaker 1:And this book doesn't record our works. This is the book that records the work of Christ. So to be clear here, John says, we will all be judged for our works. But our works still don't get us into heaven. It is the sacrifice of Christ that does that.
Speaker 1:And so we read that those who reject the sacrifice are given over to fire while everyone else enters into the city by the blood of the lamb. And this is how John describes that city in chapter 21. It has 12 gates named after the 12 tribes of Israel. It has 12 foundations named after the 12 apostles of the church. And so this is the culmination of both the Jewish and the Christian stories.
Speaker 1:Everything points to this image. It's perfect cube, 1,500 miles long and wide and tall. Ezekiel, in the Hebrew scriptures, describes a renewed Jerusalem, but in his imagination, it is a city 1.5 miles square. So this city is a thousand times bigger than what Ezekiel saw, and it is a dimension greater than what Ezekiel imagined. It goes 1,500 miles straight up.
Speaker 1:Now the footings of the city are made with all kinds of precious jewels, and the streets are made of gold. So everything in this world that we give value to is now worth burying underground and walking on top of. Interestingly here, John gives us 12 precious stones that are related to the 12 foundations of the city of Jerusalem, and they are the 12 stones that are associated with the signs of the zodiac. But John lists them exactly in reverse order, as if he is trying to say that Roman numeral has it perfectly backwards. There's no temple in this Jerusalem, verse 22.
Speaker 1:There's no need, no sacrifice, no priests. There's no disconnect between God and his people anymore. We are one. The gates of the city never shut. Verse 25.
Speaker 1:There's no fear of being left out. No concern over being left behind, no uncertainty about your place with God. And perhaps what John means to say is there is no end to second chances. The nations, all of the nations, will come to the city, verse 26. So this is is an expansive and abounding grace that extends beyond our ethnocentric tendencies.
Speaker 1:And then in chapter 22, we're told this, that the city has a river that flows out from the center of it, and it has fruit trees that grow, and they never go out of season. You see, in ancient cultures, they worked for years to build these massive aqueducts that would bring water into the cities. Rome spelt a fortune building roads so people could travel and bring food to the people. That was the pride of Rome, these massive aqueducts and roads that they built to funnel into Rome, and here they are completely unnecessary. In fact, water flows out of the city, food grows from inside the city.
Speaker 1:And then finally, we are told that there is no longer need for lamp or light or even the sun because God has become the light of the world. And we've heard this language before in this letter. So this is an image of creation the way God intended it. Stripped of that which destroys, saved from that which corrupts and decays, we work, we harvest, we come and go from the city because this is not a disembodied spiritual realm that John is imagining here. This is creation.
Speaker 1:It is our world made new. That's the end game for John. There is no I'll fly away, o glory. There is only God come to heal, to fix, to redeem, to save, to transform, to renew, and to reimagine creation. And so when finally, after 20 chapters of waiting, the one on the throne actually speaks to us.
Speaker 1:This is what he says, behold, I am making all things new. Because this is the point of revelation. It is not the destruction of the earth. It is the renewal of all things. That's what God desires to save.
Speaker 1:Everyone, everything, every system, every imagination, every expression of God's creative good, that is the scope of John's hope and vision here. So if you leave this room or this series or this conversation with questions about revelation, that's good. That's fine. We should do that. But if you leave this conversation without having glimpsed something magnitude of God's goodness and his grace, then you have completely missed the point of this letter.
Speaker 1:Because this is individuals and communities and systems and nations and all of creation itself learning what it means to live in harmony with our purpose and in partnership with God's pleasure. That's what revelation is about. But it all starts here. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. And if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person and they with me.
Speaker 1:It starts in our desire, our ability, our invitation as individuals to come and sit with God and eat with him. And so as we bring this eight week conversation on the apocalypse of John to a close, we wanna gather at the table of Christ one final time to begin our transition into Holy Week. No longer to be reminded, but now to experience for ourselves in our hands and in our hearts the goodness of God that he invites us into. Trusting that one day we will be able to do more than just imagine the scope of God's grace the world, but we can hold it in our hearts and our hands right now, the sacrifice of the lamb and the peace that he offers to us in this moment. And so as we bring revelation to a close, I invite you to come to the table and to use this walk and this wait to reflect on the incredible, unimaginable goodness of God.
Speaker 1:But then, to hold in your hands the body and the blood of the one who died to make all things new, knowing that this meal was also for you as an invitation to God's grace and imagination. And so as the band plays, I'm gonna invite you to come, to take the bread, come down the center aisle, move to the sides, dip it in the cup that represents the blood, and then eat as you return to your seats. And we can pray together one final time as we do. Let's pray one final time. God, thank you for this great and expansive, immersive invitation into your imagination for the world.
Speaker 1:Help us to take, stories, images, scriptures that sometimes stretch our imagination, that stretch our understanding and our wisdom and our insight, but to enliven them by your spirit. So that we would be invited, not simply into an understanding of what you would say, but into an experience of who you are. God, help us carry out this vision and this mission of expansive grace and goodness and peace into the conversations that we hold, into the attitudes that we carry with us, and now into a world that is groaning and waiting for you. God, help us to participate fully in your story. And so as we remember your sacrifice, your body, and your blood for us, help us to remember that you were not a king when you come the second time, but you show us what it means to be a king as you allow yourself to be nailed to a cross.
Speaker 1:That in sacrifice, in weakness, you show us what it means to be truly strong. And so help us now to live in the light of that story, to live as disciples of the lamb who carry on with the witness of that. You're a good God. And in the strong name of the risen Christ, pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Okay. Pray that you have a great week, and we will end as we always do with this. Love God, love others, tell the story. We invite you to join us next week for Palm Sunday, to join us at the stations of the cross that week, and then to come back Good Friday and Easter Sunday for resurrection as we celebrate the story of Christ reaching its climax in the Easter season. So go, have a great week, and we'll see you back here next Sunday.
Speaker 1:Thanks everyone.
Speaker 2:This is a podcast of Kensington Commons Church. We believe that God is invested in the renewal of all things. Therefore, we wanna live the good news by being part of the rhythms of our city as good neighbors, good friends, and good citizens in our common life. Join us on Sunday or visit us online at commons church dot org.