“It Looks Like We Win in the End!”
I’m sure many of you have heard
the old story about a youth pastor who took his church youth group to a school
gym for a game of basketball. It was an evening game, and while the kids were
playing, the janitor was sitting patiently on the sidelines, waiting for them
to finish so that he could clean the gym. The youth pastor noticed that the
janitor was reading the Bible while he was waiting; he got a little closer and
saw that the old man was reading the book of Revelation. The youth pastor was
surprised, since Revelation isn’t normally thought of as a waiting-room sort of
book. He mentioned this to the janitor; “Do you understand it?” he asked. “Not
all of it”, the janitor replied, “but I skipped to the last page, and it looks
like we win in the end!”
Well, since you and I were
together last week we’ve done a mighty ‘skip’ across thirteen chapters of
Revelation! We’ve missed plagues and scorpions and war in heaven; we’ve missed
persecutions of God’s people who overcome evil by the blood of the Lamb and the
word of their testimony; we’ve missed natural disasters that kill millions of
people. In fact, we’ve skipped all the things that would give you bad dreams at
night, or keep you from suggesting that your kids read Revelation as bedtime
reading! This, of course, is typical of our Sunday lectionary, which often
tries to keep the nastier or more puzzling bits of the Bible away from us.
On the way, we’ve missed some
interesting characters as well. There’s a ‘Beast’
who rises from the sea; in apocalyptic literature, which is the genre we’re
reading here, beasts almost always represent evil empires. Since Revelation was
written at a time when Rome was the ruling empire, it’s not hard to figure out who
John of Patmos is talking about! There’s also a ‘False Prophet’ who tries to make people worship the Beast; he
probably symbolizes the cult of emperor-worship that was causing Christians a
lot of trouble. Then there’s a scarlet
woman who rides the Beast; she probably refers to the City of Rome itself.
Sometimes she’s called ‘the great whore’, and John goes into great detail about
how she’s drunk the blood of God’s people and how the whole world has become
intoxicated by doing business with her. In Chapter 18 she’s referred to as
‘Babylon the Great’, another code phrase for Rome.
But behind it all, there’s a dragon, and John doesn’t want us to be
in any doubt as to who he is. In chapter 20:2 he says ‘(The angel) seized the
dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a
thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him,
so that he would deceive the nations no more’ (20:2-3a). This is what the
dragon has been doing ever since he first tempted human beings: deceiving us,
trying to persuade us that right is wrong and wrong is right, and trying to persuade
us that important things don’t really matter very much, and that things that
don’t matter are really important.
These are the great enemies in
the Book of Revelation, and as the book draws to a close they are defeated one
by one. In chapter 18 a great angel makes a joyful announcement: “Fallen,
fallen is Babylon the great!” (18:2). When John wrote, the power of the City of
Rome was absolute, but he foresaw a time when that impregnable city would fall
and her empire would be at an end – as all human empires come to an end. Then
in chapter 19 the armies of heaven win a great victory over the Beast and the
False Prophet and their armies; the Roman Empire and its false cult of emperor
worship are at an end. Finally, as we saw a moment ago, the Dragon himself is
bound with a chain and imprisoned for a thousand years, after which, strangely
enough, he’s let out for a last gasp before he, too, is thrown into the Lake of
Fire. We’re not going to get into what those thousand years mean today!
What’s going on here? Well, all
through human history evil forces have preyed on human beings; dictators have
oppressed us, rich and powerful people have exploited us, and generals have
made war on us. The little people, the poor, the powerless, have felt like
pawns, and often they’ve cried out to heaven and said, “How long, O Lord? How
long are you going to let evil triumph over good? How long are the rich and
powerful going to have their own way? How long are the innocent going to be
slaughtered?”
Well, Rome fell in the 5th
century AD, but of course there have been many other evil empires since then. The
Beast has had lots of children, and the False Prophet continues to tell us that
Caesar is god and we must obey our country, right or wrong, even when it tells
us to disobey the teaching of Jesus. Like the Scarlet Woman, lots of cities
since then have become drunk with their own prosperity and with the blood of
the followers of Jesus who they have persecuted.
So it will be a long time, but
not forever. That’s the message of Revelation. “Your kingdom come, your will be
done on earth as in heaven” is a prayer that will be answered one day. Evil
will be judged and condemned. And we all know that’s the right thing. We know
it’s right, even though there are many voices in the Christian world that say
that God shouldn’t send anyone to hell. How can a loving God consign
individuals to centuries of torment? How is that compatible with the teaching
of Jesus?
Well, it’s actually quite
compatible with the teaching of Jesus, as a glance at the Parable of the Sheep
and the Goats will tell you. But there’s another point to be made here. Do we
actually want evil to end some day? Do we actually want the world to be free
from the power of oppressive people, of brutal dictators, of child pornographers
and of people who turn children into soldiers in organizations called ‘The
Lord’s Resistance Army?’ Surely we don’t think that God should let that go on
forever?
Of course not, and that’s what
judgment is all about. Judgment is actually a hopeful idea; it tells us that,
although God is patient, wanting all human beings to repent, the time will come
when he will say ‘Enough! This is where evil ends!’ There will be a world
completely healed from evil and sin, and you and I will see it. And it’s the reality
of judgment that makes this possible. The world cannot be freed from misery
unless God judges evil and puts an end to it.
But of course, as Bruce Cockburn
said in one of his songs, ‘Everybody wants to see justice done to somebody
else!’ It’s very comforting for me to be able to point the finger at someone else’s evil; the great deceiver
has been tempting people to do that ever since the beginning, when the man said
to God ‘the woman, who you gave me, made me do it!’ But the
reality, of course, is that the line between good and evil doesn’t divide
nation from nation, culture from culture, religion from religion, or person
from person. All of us are a mix of good and evil. Every one of us is capable
of acts of love and acts of selfishness, acts of kindness and acts of great
cruelty. If evil is going to be judged, it’s not just Hitler or Stalin or Osama
bin Laden who are going to be judged, it’s me too.
And so John tells us that there
will be a great white throne set up, and the one sitting on it is so majestic
that heaven and earth flee from his presence.
‘And I saw the
dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also
another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according
to their works, as recorded in the books…Then Death and Hades were thrown into
the lake of fire…and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life
was thrown into the lake of fire’ (Rev. 20:12, 14a, 15).
These books are a little
confusing to some people, but in fact they’re quite clear. There are two
categories of books. In the first one, everyone’s deeds are recorded; this is
John’s way of saying that there will be no mistake. This is a frightening book,
because we all know that we’ve done some pretty rotten things in our lives.
Paul says in Romans ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’
(Romans 3:23), and ‘the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 6:23). That’s what the books are
all about. If you’re trying to buy your ticket into the new Jerusalem you’re
doomed to failure, since nothing imperfect is allowed in there, and none of us
are perfect. These books lead to an automatic sentence of death and judgment.
But the book of life is
different. In 21:27 it’s called ‘The
Lamb’s Book of Life’. What does that mean? Well, last week Susan told us
about a great multitude of people who have ‘washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb’ (7:14). That’s impossible, of course: blood will
not make things white! But John is using symbolic language again: Jesus, the
Lamb of God, gave his life for us on the cross, and through his death we are
all offered the gift of forgiveness. So to wash your robe in the blood of the
Lamb means to come to God fully aware that you’ve fallen short, to cry out for
mercy, and to ask to be forgiven. And those who have done this have their names
written in the Lamb’s book of life.
This is the gospel message. Those
who are judged and condemned have all earned it, but no one whose name is
written in the Book of Life has earned it. Forgiveness, salvation, eternal life
– all of these are free gifts. They come from what the Bible calls ‘grace’:
God’s love that you don’t have to earn or deserve. It comes to you as a free
gift, because God is love. So yes, there is a judgment, and we all need to take
it seriously, but the good news is that no one needs to fear it unless they are
unwilling to turn from sin, turn to the Lamb and ask to be forgiven and washed
and set free.
So we’ve reached the point in
Revelation when evil is no more. The powerful forces that have ravaged the
earth have all been destroyed. Now the stage is set for a wedding. The people
of Jesus are his fiancée, and now our bridegroom is going to marry us. Look at
chapter 21:1-7:
‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new
earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was
no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven
from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice
from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will
dwell with them;
they will be his peoples, and God himself will be
with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death
will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the
first things have passed away.’
And
the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’
Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ Then he
said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the
end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of
life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and
they will be my children.
We don’t have
time to explain this in detail, so let me quickly point out a few things and
then come to a conclusion.
First, the city
is not a literal city: it represents a people,
the people of God. We know that, because it’s described as being ‘like a bride
adorned for her husband’, and in the rest of the New Testament the Church is
described as ‘the bride of Christ’. So this city is God’s people through the
ages.
Second, note the
direction: it’s not up, but down. The gospel isn’t about people escaping from
an evil earth and going up to heaven when they die. Yes, for a while we do
disappear from the earth, but it’s a temporary state. The New Jerusalem isn’t
ascending from an evil earth to a perfect heaven: it’s coming down from heaven, to a new earth freed
from evil and sin. In other words, Jesus’ prayer has now been answered: “Your
kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven’.
Third, note what
everlasting life is like. It’s not solitary individuals enjoying private
experiences of God. It’s not even just me being united with friends and family
members. It’s about a community, a
city, God’s people together. Not only the people we love, but the ones we find
irritating; not only our friends, but maybe even our enemies. That’s why it’s
so important to learn to love one another in this life: we’re going to be
spending a long time together in eternity!
Fourth, note what
the ultimate blessing is going to be: “See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with
them” (21:3). Later in the chapter we’re told that the city won’t need a sun or
moon, for ‘the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb’ (21:23).
Nowadays, of course, the sun is often obscured by clouds, and often the
presence of God feels like that, too; we have a sense that he’s ‘out there
somewhere’, but we can’t seem to see through the clouds. One day, though, the
clouds will clear, and we will all experience the immediate presence of God
without fear.
And this is where
I want to end. Those of you who are fans of the old Star Trek series may
remember an episode in which the Enterprise takes on an alien who is so ugly
that the very sight of him will drive humans mad. And Spock accidentally looks
at him and is indeed tormented by the sight, because it’s so horrible.
Can you imagine
the opposite of this? Can you imagine a sight so glorious and beautiful that it
would drive you sane? A sight so
beautiful that just to look at it would give you ultimate joy? In Christian
spirituality this is called ‘the beatific vision’ – the vision of blessing. In
most of the Bible we’re told that it’s perilous for human beings to look at
God, because we are tainted by evil. But that won’t be the case in the New
Jerusalem. Jesus says in the Beatitudes, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they will see God’ (Matthew 5:8). On that day we will all be pure in heart, and so the sight of God won’t be a fearsome
thing but a vision of wonder.
Let’s close with
that. Yes, we’re all looking forward to the day when the dead are raised and we
will be with our loved ones again forever. Perhaps we even think that this will
be the greatest joy that eternal life can offer us. But don’t kid yourself;
it’s not. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a wonderful thing, and I’m looking forward
to it myself. But there’s another blessing, a blessing so wonderful that
everything else will pale into insignificance beside it. That will be the blessing
of seeing God face to face, and not being destroyed by the sight.
Open
the eyes of my heart, Lord, open the eyes of my heart,
I
want to see you, I want to see you.
To
see you high and lifted up, shining in the light of your glory,
Pour
out your power and love as we cry holy, holy, holy.
Holy,
holy, holy
Holy,
holy, holy,
Holy,
holy, holy,
I
want to see you.
Amen.
