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Saturday, January 6, 2018

Introduction to a Revelation

This is the sermon given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, January 7, 2018.  The Bible verses used are Revelation 1:1-20.

            Today we start a new sermon series.  For the next several weeks, we’re going to take a look at the last book in the Bible, the book of Revelation.
            A lot of people tend to shy away from the book of Revelation.  And I have too, at times.  There are reasons why.  For one thing, it’s not a book that’s easy to understand.  In many places, it’s not particularly straightforward.  There’s a lot of symbolism in it, a lot imagery that can put us off if we don’t take the time to try to understand it.
            For another thing, it’s not always a pleasant book to read.  There’s a lot of stuff about battles between good and evil.  There’s a lot of stuff about the end of the world as we know it.  That can be kind of scary.  It can also be a challenge to our faith.  I mean, we like the parts of the Bible that talk about God is love and God is forgiveness and God is mercy.  And those are important parts of the Bible for us to know.  God is all those things.  God is love and God is forgiveness and God is mercy.  But God is also some other things, and those things can kind of scare us sometimes.  Most of us don’t even like to contemplate the end of our own lives.  To think about the end of the world, or at least the world as we know it, is not something most of us want to do.  It makes most of us uncomfortable, to say the least.
            And then, too, there’s stuff in the book of Revelation that strikes us as just plain weird.   You’ve got living creatures with six wings and eyes all around.  You’ve got dragons with seven heads and ten horns.  And we’ll get into that stuff later in the sermon series, but when we first read it, we go “What in the world?  What’s all this about?”  And we’re tempted to just throw up our hands and give up.  We want to go back to John Three, Sixteen and Jesus’ parables and stuff that we feel like we at least have a chance to understand.
            And I suspect the Apostle John, who wrote the book of Revelation, knew that’s how people were going to react.  Because at the start of the book, the start of our reading for today, John goes out of his way to say this “is the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.”  And then he says “blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written it it, because the time is near.”
            In other words, John is going out of his way to tell us that the book of Revelation is part of God’s word.  The book of Revelation is just as important as the book of Genesis or the Psalms or the gospels or Paul’s letters.  It’s a prophecy, just as important as the Old Testament prophecies.  The book of Revelation is just as important as every other book in the Bible.  And if we believe, as we say we do, that the entire Bible is the inspired word of God, then we need to not ignore part of God’s word just because we don’t understand it or because it might scare us.
            And besides, there’s one thing we always need to keep in mind as we study the book of Revelation.  No matter how scary things get, no matter how weird things get, there’s one thing to keep in mind.  God wins.  God triumphs over evil.  God wins.  And if you and I believe in God and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we win, too.  We win salvation and eternal life in the presence of God.  No matter what else happens in the book of Revelation, no matter what we may talk about in this sermon series, remember that.  God wins.  And if we believe in God and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we win, too.
            Verse four tells us that John is addressing this writing to “the seven churches in the province of Asia.”  Those churches are named, and that number seven is going to come up more as we go through Revelation.  In fact, it comes up later in this reading.  But it’s going to be important, as we go through Revelation, to remember that John was originally writing to a specific audience.  The reason that’s important is that it’s part of the reason why Revelation uses so much symbolism and imagery.  It’s believed that at least some of that symbolism is there to address the specific situation the churches in Asia were facing.  It was a dangerous time for Christians.  They were under the rule of Rome, and Rome was cracking down on Christianity.  Christians were being persecuted.  There are messages in Revelation that address that, but they’re written symbolically so the people in the churches of Asia would know what they meant, but the government would not.  
            But really, most of the Bible was originally written to a specific audience.  But still, it contains timeless truth that we can still benefit from.  And so, as we go through Revelation, we’ll again be asking the questions we’ve asked so many times.  Why is this in the Bible?  What does it tell me about God, or about myself, or about faith, or about my relationship with God?  What can I learn from all this?
            There’s almost always more than one answer to those questions, or course.  We can read a passage of the Bible for the twentieth time and suddenly learn something that had never occurred to us before.  But here’s what I want to focus on today, from Chapter One of Revelation.
            John sees Jesus Christ.  But this is not the Jesus Christ we normally picture.  Listen to how John describes Jesus.  He was like a human being, but:
The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.  His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
            We talk a lot about the humanness of Jesus while he was on earth.  I talk about it a lot, myself.  And I love the fact that Jesus did come to earth and live as a human being.  As we’ve said before, that humanness of Jesus is one of the ways we can know that the Lord understands what we go through as human beings.  God went through it Himself, in the form of Jesus.
            But it’s also important that we remember who Jesus truly is.  Jesus is not just the sweet, nice, gentle Jesus we like to think about.  Jesus is God--God the Son.  Jesus has power and glory that you and I cannot even imagine.  I don’t know if what John describes here is truly Jesus in all his glory.  It could be that Jesus had to tone it down, even here, partly so John could recognize him and partly so John could handle it.
            John says that when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet as though dead.  He does not say why.  It may have been fear, it may have been humility, it may have been shame, it may have been worship, it may have been all of those things and more.  But listen to what Jesus says to John:
Do not be afraid.  I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!  And I hold the keys of hell and death.
Jesus establishes for John who he is.  He says “I am the First and the Last...I am alive for ever and ever.”  That echoes what God had said earlier, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is, and was and is to come.”  Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.  Saying God is the Alpha and Omega is another way of saying God is the first and last, just as Jesus is.  God is the one who is and was and is to come.  Jesus is alive for ever and ever.  Jesus is God--God the Son.
But Jesus tells John two other things.  First, he says “Do not be afraid.”  He is telling John, you don’t have to be scared of me.  Even though you are seeing me in a way you’ve never seen me before, even though you are seeing at least some of my glory and power, you don’t have to be afraid of me.  I am still your friend.  I still love you.
That’s an important thing for us to know.  It’s an important thing for us to remember.  And I think it comes in the first chapter of Revelation on purpose.  As we’ve said, there are a lot of scary things that happen in Revelation.  There are a lot of things that we don’t understand.  But as we go through all that, we always need to remember that Jesus is still our friend.  The Lord still loves us.  No matter what happens, that love will always be there.  We need to remember that.
And the other thing Jesus tells John is this:  “I hold the keys of death and Hades.”  I think that comes in the first chapter on purpose, too.  Jesus wants us to know that no matter how scared we get, no matter how many bad things may happen, no matter how many things we don’t understand, the Lord is still in control.  Jesus is the master over death itself.  No matter what happens, in death or in life, Jesus is there.  Jesus is in control of it all.  And because Jesus loves us, Jesus will take care of us through it all, if we only trust him and believe in him as our Savior.
It’s important for us to know that in our lives on earth, too.  Because there are a lot of scary things that happen on earth.  There are a lot of things that happen on earth that we don’t understand.  But no matter how scared we get, no matter how many bad things may happen, no matter how many things we don’t understand, the Lord is still in control.  And because Jesus loves us, Jesus will take care of us through our lives on earth, too, if we only trust him and believe in him as our Savior.
We’ve only scratched the surface of the book of Revelation.  Going through it is going to be an exciting, wild ride.  But as we go through Revelation, and as we go through our lives, let’s remember the things Jesus told John.  Jesus has great power and great glory.  He is the divine Son of God.  But we don’t need to be afraid.  Jesus loves us.  Jesus is in control.  And Jesus will always be there for us, through the end of the world and beyond.


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