Keeping the vision alive

So, I've been going through some tough times. Trying to come to grips with some personal failings, some ways in which I knowingly or unknowingly really hurt some people about whom I really care. And trying to understand some pretty big hurts that have been flung at me. The best homiletics professor I ever had once said, "If you don't need to hear your sermon, neither does anyone else." So, although this isn't something I would normally do here, I'm posting my sermon from yesterday. Because we all struggle to keep the Lord's vision in front of us, because we are all tempted to give up, stay in bed and believe that the world is ugly and painful and without redemption. And because we all, most especially me, need to remember the great blessing of Christ's redemption. We are saved, not only from our sins, but from ourselves.


Trinity Episcopal Church, Princeton, NJ
April 29, 2007
Revelation 7:9-17

The Revelation of John is a “trippy” little book. OK, so that’s not the technical term I learned in Seminary, but it is the best word I can think of to describe this oft-misunderstood, and frequently skipped-over last book of our Bible. Revelation is a trip, and it invites to go on that trip, to enter into John’s vision of God’s reign. If we read this text the same way we read a Gospel, or one of the letters, we miss something. Revelation narrates a different reality, one which broke into our world when the word became flesh, and one which is still yet to fully come to be. We live in the time of “already and not yet,” and Revelation is a vision of that reality.

Popular culture has focused on a few sections of the book, mostly those having to do with specific predictions of end-times. Many people have spent time attempting to “decode” the text, to discover the exact day and time this world will end. That activity has no appeal for me, because to look at Revelation that way is to reduce it to facts and figures, to limit a visionary text to pedestrian servitude.

Rather, I look to Revelation for a hint at what Desmond Tutu was talking about when he said of the Bible, “Don’t worry—I read to the end and we win!”

The ‘we” of Revelation is immense. Look at today’s passage: “there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages.” One commentary referred to this text as describing “variety and universality.” Yes, earlier in the book there are references to specific numbers of saved people, but not here, and not as the vision progresses. Here what John sees in his vision of heaven is everybody. So many one cannot count. People who come from every place on the earth, whose skin colors make up the rainbow of creation. Whose tongues form all the sounds of creation. Whose unique selves are recognizable and acceptable. Whose status as beloved children of God is not determined by any human standard but only by this truly divine vision. We are part of this we. We have become part of God’s heavenly realm, and so celebrate with Him the victory.

And the text before us today certainly is triumphant! “Salvation belongs to our God!” Hooray! Did anyone notice what the crowd is waving? Palm branches. An ancient sign of victory and triumph. A sign which we too waved just four weeks ago, before trading them in for nails and sponges soaked with vinegar. But you see, here is the power of Revelation: that same symbol, which the Palm Sunday crowds abandon so quickly, is here waved for all eternity. That which was broken and abandoned is taken up and redeemed. Palm branches no longer signal impending betrayal, but here proclaim the everlasting victory of God.

And the angels sing back in response, and those whose times have been difficult are washed clean and renewed in spirit. It is a party to end all parties! Thanksgiving! Honor! Blessing! Glory! Wisdom! Hurrah!

The celebration breaks forth in the temple, and the great multitude worships God day and night. The Lord recognizes those who have been without shelter on earth—and shelters them from his throne. Recognizes those who have gone hungry and thirsty—and provides food and drink aplenty. The Lamb, Jesus, is at the center of the vision and will guide all the people to the springs of eternal life.

What a beautiful vision. That to me is heaven. The one-ness of all creation, where no one wants or needs. Where all divisions end. Where pain is no more. “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

I would guess that some of you are saying to yourselves, “Yes, that is a beautiful vision, but it isn’t real. And my life is not like that. So what good is this text to me?” I get that question. And I have asked it countless times.

I found myself contemplating this glorious text while I was away in the mountains of Georgia last week. There, among the beauty of peaks and trees and flowers and birds and all the splendor of creation, John’s vision seemed almost displayed before me. I leaned back on a cool rock, looked out over a valley and thought, Yes, I believe. Thank you Lord, I believe.

And then I came back to my room to hear of the tragic events at Virginia Tech. And that mountaintop experience was shattered. Such senseless violence, such pain. Such utter contrast to the glorious kingdom to come. I threw away the preliminary reflections I had written on the mountain that day, thinking I would never preach them.

And yet, you just heard them.

And that, my friend, is the Good News of this strange and wonderful vision of the reign of God. It is a vision that, yes, attempts to describe what is to come, but maybe even more than that, it is a vision of what has already come.

For God so loved the world, that hope cuts through the grief. God’s love transforms this broken world into something whole and healed. The vision of heaven is so written on our hearts that if we try, we can see it even now, even in the pain of the day-to-day world.

Bad things happen. Beloved ones die, friends hurt and betray, children go to bed hungry in wealthy nations, madmen take up arms. And yet we cling to the hope of the Lamb who leads all creation to the water of life. It makes no logical, linear sense. To hope in the face of horror is, perhaps, insanity. But it is our calling and our blessed inheritance.

We can gather ‘round the throne of God today, and be sheltered by Him and fed by Him and loved by Him. Right here, right now. That’s how we win, that’s how John’s trippy little book opens our eyes and our minds and our hearts and points to a vision which is possible and real and for everyone. Gather, be loved, be fed and take the victory to the streets, to the great multitudes. Participate in the vision—bring it about in your piece of creation.