The Lamb to the Rescue

David Orendorff · Revelation 5 · October 8, 2006

First, a review of last week’s sermon, you remember that John had his Revelation while he was exiled on the isle of Patmos for spreading Christian monotheism at the end of the first century.  And you remember it was written to encourage Christians who were suffering persecution. It was written for the fearful and powerless to offer them hope in the saving love of God.  So where we are suffering, powerless or afraid, the Revelation of John is written to us.

You remember that in Chapter 4 the 24 elders surround the throne of God, sing praises no matter what evil is attacking them.  When there was a new plague the elders sing.  When there was yet another disaster, the elders sing.  When the innocents are slaughtered, the elders sing.  They remove their golden crowns of personal power and throw them before God’s the throne.  The symbolism is clearly that the elders are surrendering all their personal power to God and trusting God and God alone with their lives. It says to us as it said to the early Christians of Turkey, don’t be afraid, sing praises to God, no matter what, for God is already working out your salvation.

Am I ready to sing in the face of the beast and the plagues?  Do I believe God is even now working on my behalf in the face of terrorism, cancer, depression?

When pollsters ask people if they believe in God more than 90% answer yes.  But I think if the question where asked differently and an honest response were given then the numbers would be different.  I think if asked, "When the evil ones of the empire are hot on your trail, do you trust God to save you?" then the answer would be an overwhelming “maybe.  I say “maybe” because that is my experience.  I want to trust God with the whole of my heart, mind, soul and strength, but I always keep a few salvation eggs in my own basket, a spare crown in my pocket just in case the God thing doesn’t work out.

When push comes to shove we are most likely to trust that we are the best ones to take care of ourselves; that we are our own gods.  We hang onto our golden crowns with both hands and respond to evil with evil. We do not surrender our lives to God so much as we hope to use God to make life surrender to us.

As if reading our doubts God sends a hero to the rescue.  In every tale of salvation there is a hero used by the gods to save the people.  In “Star Wars” it is Luke Skywalker.  In “The Lord of the Rings” it is Frodo.  In John’s Revelation it is “the lamb.”

Revelation 5

Now think about it, what kind of hero is the lamb.  Look at your bulletin cover, is this the face of the hero you will trust to save you from terrorists, from disease, disaster and death?  I want the Navy Seals, the medical specialist, and UMCOR on my side, not a big brown eyed, wimpy, powerless, stupid lamb.  It is hard enough to trust the lord of the universe with my life, now God sends a lamb?

Yet a lamb it is.  The Lamb, our champion, goes into the battle the elders cannot win, to fight for them, but instead of killing the enemy the lamb lets the enemy kill it.  The lamb is victorious not by violence, wisdom or magic, but by bleeding and dying.  In the battle imagery of this book, the Lamb saves the earth by dying and by turning the common believer into a lamb and the priest of God.  Whenever there is victory in the battle of good and evil, it is by the blood of the Lamb.  Whenever there is a renewal of faith, it is by the blood of the lamb.  After the final seals of the scroll are broken and death itself is released upon the earth, John sees the people of every nation, dressed in white robes washed clean by the blood of the Lamb, holding palm branches of peace, and singing, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!"

A great red dragon and a ten horned, seven headed beast appear and the persecution of the Lamb's followers is severe.  But the Lamb does not surrender to evil.  Another beast appears, this one has two horns like the Lamb and many believe it to be the Lamb, but they are deceived.  Again the Lamb appears, this time on Mount Zion, the mountain on which Jerusalem sits, God's mountain, with an army of one hundred and forty-four thousand.

Then joining the battle is the great harlot who loves to drink the blood of the martyrs and the saints of Jesus.  The Lamb defeats them all by his spilled blood and the great multitude sings, "Hallelujah!  Salvation and glory and power belong to our God..."  The world is saved, not by its holiness nor by the believer's songs; not by violence or heavenly powers, but by the Lamb who bleeds and dies and lives defeating all evil.

I want to be very clear here.  The Lamb is victorious by dying not by killing.  Luke Skywalker is victorious over the Empire because by the power of his will joined to the power of the Force he is invincible.  Frodo is successful in destroying the ring through the strength of his character backed by the power of the Gandalf’s wizardry.

The Lamb, as the image suggests, is not like the warrior heroes of past or present.  The Lamb is just a lamb, innocent, powerless, and ripe to be slaughtered.  The Lamb does not conquer evil and suffering as the typical hero does but because he dies trusting in God.  And God raises the lamb to victory.

 Placed at the end of the first century this means that the seven headed beast (Rome with its seven hills) will not be conquered by Christian armies that kill, but will be conquered by God through the death of Jesus. God conquers the Roman Empire by the death of martyrs and not by the death of Roman soldiers.  And if you know history this is exactly what happened when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312.

Eventually the Lamb marries the world (more on this next week) and then there is a new heaven and earth, a place devoid of suffering (more on this on October 22).  It is a fantastic and cosmic tale.  It is the story of our salvation, for we are not saved by our holiness, no matter how holy we are.  And we are not saved by the power of our armies, no matter how many we kill.  We are saved by God's action in the Lamb, our hero, whose faithful death brings the victory of heaven and earth over all evil.

On the days that we are full of ourselves, the songs of the 24 elders seem "stupid" (as my children would say) and the Lamb an absurdity spun by desperate wishes.  When the terrorists strike with violence and death we respond, not with singing of praises to God, but with our own violence and death.  We berate ourselves and others saying, "Instead of praising a God who is obviously not present or doing anything to help, why not do something useful.  After all, God only helps those who help themselves."

But on the days when we are fleeing forces greater than ourselves, when the ones we love, more than we love ourselves, are in peril, when the belief in our power is shown by coarse reality to be an illusion, when we are failing and helpless before the tyranny of suffering and have no where to turn, we are ready to throw our worthless crowns before God.

When the 24 elders throw their crowns before God, they throw their self-willed power down and declare to God that they are not the kings and queens of their lives, but that God is.  The elders are prepared to receive the salvation of God brought by the blood of the Lamb.  The victory over suffering they cannot win for themselves, they are prepared to have won for them by the Lamb.

Every life has suffering.  And it is a fatal illusion to think that we can avoid the suffering of our lives.  Each of us will know failure, disease, disaster and, finally, death.  But suffering is not the final meaning or experience of life.  For each of us also knows joy, laughter, courage, success and love.

John’s Revelation calls us to surrender our illusions of control and power to make our own salvation; to throw our crowns to the throne of God.  When we heed John’s advice we find that now is the time of our salvation; that right now is the time of our peace.  Not because suffering has disappeared, nor because of anything we have done to make our world a better place, but because God has made for us and in us a place of shalom.  And by shalom, by the innocence of the lamb, God, is our champion, our warrior, and makes salvation abundant life for us today.

Kathleen Norris, in The Cloister Walk, says it this way:

Dragons within, dragons without.  Evil so pervasive that only the poetry of apocalypse can imagine its defeat.  And to do that takes us to the limits of metaphor, of human sense, the limits of imagining and understanding.  It pushes us against all our boundaries and suggests that the end of our control - our ideologies, our plans, our competence, our expertise, our professionalism, our power - is the beginning of God's reign.  It asks us to believe that only the good remains, at the end, and directs us toward carefully rending it here and now.  We will sing a new song.  Singing and praise will be all that remains.  As a poet, that's a vision, and a promise, I can live with.1 Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996) 220.

God and the Lamb are not ancient and fantastic superstitions, but are the most fundamental truths of reality.  The Lamb of God, known to us as Jesus the Christ, saves us by dying in trust of God and being raised by the love of God.  Trust it and I'll see you next week.

Shalom and Amen.