Reveal

Scripture: The Fifth Sunday of Easter, A.D. 2016 C

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I want to talk to you this morning about Revelation, a book so rich and so complex that it can be hard to know where to start. Few books have been more misunderstood in Christian history, and many respectable churchgoers might just assume ignore it. But to those who come to Revelation with an open heart and discerning mind, indeed, all shall be revealed in the light of the Resurrection.

We must remember that Revelation was written during a time of great crisis. Some 30 years after Jesus’ Resurrection, in the 60s A.D., the Church fell under murderous persecution by the mad Emperor Nero. The entire first generation of Christian leadership was wiped out. Peter and Paul fell in Rome. James died as bishop of Jerusalem. And John, the beloved disciple, was exiled to the prison island of Patmos. The Church found herself frightened and leaderless, a confused orphan in a hostile world.

It was at this point that the Risen Christ revealed a vision to John at Patmos: a revelation for the reassurance and rousing of His people. John was to write down the vision for the entire Church, but he dared not do so too openly, too blatantly. He needed to write in such a way that faithful Christians could understand but Roman jailers would not. To the latter, John’s words would seem but a fever dream, mad rantings about fantastic beasts and mystic wonders. But not to Christians. Christians would recognize John’s language and images and wild beasts as taken directly from the Scriptures, from the Prophets of the Old Testament. If you know the Old Testament, Revelation makes sense.

So what did John write to them? What did this Revelation reveal? It revealed to them three things: (1) the truth of what was happening to them now; (2) a warning of impending danger; and (3) God’s promise of final glory at the end of the age.

The present reality of the Church, John wrote, was to be found in worship, in the liturgy of the faithful. It was on a Sunday that John received his vision. And in this vision he was whisked up into Heaven, into the direct presence of Almighty God, and what did he see? He saw worship. He saw an eternal Sunday liturgy. At this worship, Jesus alone could open up the scroll of the Scriptures. Jesus alone could make sense of the Bible, from beginning to end. Now that He had risen from the dead—now that the Firstfruits of the Resurrection had been revealed to God’s people in Jesus Christ—God’s ancient plans had at last become clear.

This had been His intention all along! To defeat death, to shatter the gates of hell, to gather all people into one in Him! Everything found in the Bible, from Adam and Abraham to Moses and David, had been leading to this point, pointing to the Messiah, preparing the way for the Man of God who was God made Man. And before His throne in Heaven, John wrote, were gathered all the people who had ever worshipped Him and who ever will, together, as one, their sins washed away, their life restored, their joy complete.

What does this mean? Does this mean that Heaven will be like one infinitely long church service? Not at all. Precisely the opposite, in fact. What John is saying to his people is that whenever we gather around the Word of God, and the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, Heaven comes down to earth. The eagle has landed. Christ is with us, exactly as He promised, and where Jesus is, that is Heaven. Every Sunday, even amidst persecution and danger, wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus’ Name, Heaven and earth become one. God dwells again with Man. Our sins are forgiven and our tears washed away.

And this worship of God, this oneness of earth and Heaven, is something eternal, something beyond and outside of time. It’s not that there are many liturgies, many Lord’s Suppers, many worship services. There is only one to which we all return. It goes on eternally before God in Heaven. And whenever we gather as the Church, that reality, that Heaven, touches down in our world, in our lives, to raise the dead and give us eternal life. That’s why Jesus in Heaven, according to John, sees everybody at once, those long dead and those yet to be: for to Him, the worship that we share is eternal in the heavens, and all are alive before Him.

Kind of crazy, right? Kind of blows your mind. Yet Jesus gave this vision to John, and he to us, because it is true. And Jesus wills now to reveal to us the astounding reality beneath the mundane form of things. When we gather here, the King of Kings is truly with us. When we eat at this Table and drink from this Cup, Heaven comes down to earth, and we are exulted into the eternal realm of the angels! Take heart, Revelation tells us. You have no idea how deeply God loves you. You have no idea how astounding are His gifts to you. Yet this is only the beginning.

Revelation then goes on to warn its readers about a coming cataclysm. Again, John speaks using prophecies from the Old Testament, but his words would have been clear enough to his immediate audience. Rome, he wrote, was coming. There would be a great uprising in Jerusalem against the Emperor, and the Legions of Rome would march on the Holy City to wipe it out entirely. The Temple would be swept away, not one stone left upon another. And so Christians were commanded to flee the city, to flee from the destruction of Jerusalem, and live to fight another day.

But we were not to fight with fire and sword. Oh, no. Revelation condones no such thing. Jesus, John writes, will conquer Rome and all her territories, but not with armies of religious zealots and hordes of violent men. Rather, Jesus would conquer with an army of saints, slaying His enemies not with a sword of iron but with the sword of His mouth. His Name would be His weapon and the Gospel His blade. And Rome would be conquered, John wrote, but not through vengeance. Rome would be conquered with love. Christ would defeat the empire that crucified Him by forgiving their sins, welcoming them home, and promising new life. In other words, He would make of His murderers His own dear children.

Impossible, they said. Ridiculous, they said. Yet that is precisely what came to pass. Within a decade of John’s Revelation, Jerusalem did fall. Because they heeded his warning, the Christians did survive. And the Church would go on to flourish in Rome, which would become the beating heart of Western Christendom for 1000 years and more.

You see, John wrote, that this is not the end for us. These persecutions will pass. Victory in Christ is assured. And the world has many long ages yet to run. Even so, he added, there is an endgame. Eventually God’s plans will play out in full. On that day, the Resurrection begun in Jesus Christ will come to full harvest. Heaven will descend to earth and together they will become a new Heaven and a new earth. The dead shall rise from their graves. Death shall be no more, sin shall be no more, mourning and weeping and crying shall be no more, for God will be all in all. There will be no more shadows, no more lies. All shall be revealed in the Light of Jesus Christ. This, my friends, is the way that the world ends.

It is the same thing that happens in Communion, only now openly for all the world to see.

What then of the wicked? What of the unrepentant sinner? At this final Judgment, at this end of the old world and beginning of the new, there will be nothing that is not God, nowhere left to hide from Truth. For those who love God and love their neighbor, everywhere they look will be Heaven! But for those who hate God and despise their neighbor, everywhere they look will be hell. In this way, the radiance that delights the faithful and the fires that torment the sinner are revealed as the same flames. God’s mercy and God’s justice are one.

The question then becomes, can anyone endure this forever? Will the wicked eternally resist the life and love of God without the slightest inkling of repentance, or will they relent and open themselves at last to salvation? Well, I suppose that’s rather up to them, isn’t it? For indeed, God is love, and love by nature cannot force. But neither can love ever give up. Neither can love ever stop loving, stop inviting wayward children home. Hell is only locked from the inside. It is quite possible that in the end all may be saved, even as through fire, and God’s victory be then complete.

And that, brothers and sisters, is Revelation, the Bible’s final world. It shows us the truth of things, makes sense of things. For behind all the boredom, all the suffering, all the uncertainties of this world, Christ is with us, bringing Heaven down to earth. And though these wonders be veiled for now, someday soon, in Him, all will be revealed.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.