Sermon: 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C
Reading: Revelation 5:11-14
It’s amazing how many people, both inside and outside the church, are fascinated by the book of Revelation. Many have had their curiosity aroused by the fact that this book of the New Testament has been widely used and abused by the many doomsday prophets. Every now and again they make a splash by claiming that the book of Revelation (or rather a few short passages in it) gives us a time table for the count-down to the end of the world, complete with blood, fire, destruction and, of course, predictions about world powers and governments toppling.
Many Christians know that this doomsday prediction approach is a misuse and misinterpretation of Revelation, and they ask a good question: what then is the right way to read this book of the Bible?
Of course a complete answer to this question is too big for one sermon! Nevertheless, today’s epistle reading gives us a couple of helpful and important insights for understanding the Book of Revelation, how it fits in with the rest of the Bible and what it is saying to us about the life of the church and our own spiritual lives.
This reading from Revelation chapter 5 is one of several passages throughout the book that give us a glimpse into the core business of heaven. This core business is not the beast, the horsemen of the apocalypse, the plagues or any of the things that are focused on so much, but worship: the worship that is going on around the heavenly throne of God, in eternity, and how this is connected to the worship that is going on all over the world here today, in time. Revelation is exactly that – a revealing, a drawing back of the curtain, for us to see the heavenly reality of our earthly lives. We see especially the heavenly reality of the church’s worship – the church in heaven together with us, the church on earth.
How do you feel about coming to church? The liturgy, the psalm, the readings, prayers, hymns, songs … it might seem to us that, as far as we can see, our weekly church services are fairly mundane and human. It doesn’t feel glorious or heavenly a lot of the time. It might in fact make very little impact on our emotions. It may not stimulate our minds all the time with new thoughts or ideas. It might not be to our taste or we may be sick of this or that, or bored. Or we may find bits of it just plain irritating.
We don’t see anything otherworldly or supernatural going on – nobody gets raised from the dead, there are no miracles or signs or prophecies that make us aware that God is in our midst and that his power is at work among us. There is no visible glory or majesty or power – we cannot see the angels or the living creatures – and, as for the thousands of saints gathered around the throne, well our attendances hardly measure up to that, do they?
This reading shows us a different vision. Do not be deceived by appearances or the lack of them and think that what is visible to the eyes is all that is going on. Ordinary and earthly as it might appear, what goes on in this church Sunday by Sunday is also the business of heaven, the very same business of heaven that we see going on in Revelation.
Today’s reading shows us the saints and angels and elders and creatures all bowing down to worship the Lamb - the liturgy of heaven, and as we gather to sing and pray and praise the Lamb, something amazing is happening: heaven with its heavenly liturgy comes down here and is present on earth; the heavenly hosts come and join in with our worship. The Lamb, who is worthy to receive all honour and glory, is here in this church today to receive honour and praise and glory from us, too.
“This is The Feast of victory for our God” we often sing in our liturgy. The words of this song come from this very reading. They describe what is actually happening as we here on earth join together with heaven to sing His praise. The whole cosmos – saints, angels, martyrs, prophets and apostles, earth, sea and sky – join in to sing with us. And Jesus Christ himself, raised and exalted and Lord of all, comes to bless and give himself to us and for us.
If we really realized this, I wonder if our attitude to worship would be as casual as it sometimes is. If we realized this, would we be watching the clock so closely, and noticing the imperfections or problems with everything quite so much?
There is something bigger going on here! And each one of us is part of it! This is what the Book of Revelation wants to reveal to us: through Jesus Christ the Lamb of God, you and I have been incorporated, swept up, into what is going on in the heavenly realm.
This overflows into our whole lives. As you walk out of the doors of the church into the coming week; as you cook lunch, and mow the lawn and go to work, and brush your teeth and do a thousand other ordinary earthly things, and make a hundred other ordinary earthly decisions, Jesus is with you, living His resurrection life in and through you and the things you do in your daily vocations. This heavenly reality is what is going on in our earthly lives.