Sermon Archives

May 2, 2010
Pastor Jim Bangsund

"The Challenge of Revelation"
Revelation 21:1-6

I hope you listened carefully to our second lesson, because it's one of the neatest passages in the Bible. For any of you who, like me, would absolutely die of boredom sitting on the edge of a cloud with wings and a halo strumming a harp, this text brings really good news:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them."

What's it saying? It's saying that the end may be far more like the beginning than most of us may have imagined. Physical, earthbound. The Bible begins with a garden - the Garden of Eden - and it ends with a city, a city coming down out of heaven onto a "new earth." And when you think about it, it's not surprising that, when all is said and done, God's final plans and location for us are rather like his original ones: a place of beauty, a place with things to do and things to explore. Now that's something I can look forward to.

But, as encouraging as that is, there's more to be said in this challenging book of Revelation. And so this morning, I would like to take a peek at the whole book. It'll have to be a quick peek, just enough to give you a few navigating points so you can go back and tackle the book on your own. And as we do that, we're going to look at two truths, two confusions and three challenges.

First truth: Revelation is a book filled with a kind of picture language that was common in John's day but sure isn't in ours. So, although all the numbers and images of beasts and bowls and trumpets may make us think of a violent video game, they were familiar stuff to John's readers because they knew of a fair number of similar books around.

John is doing something like what the Old Testament prophets often did when they were given a message from God. They then put that message in a style that would get people's attention - a popular love song, for instance - and then once they had drawn the people into it they would take it in a direction that carried the freight - carried the message God had give them. The love song might suddenly go south, for instance, and talk about a bad relationship - that relationship being Israel's relationship with God. And so it is that John uses what, to us, seems to be wild and wooly picture language but which was a style his readers would recognize.

Because Revelation is strange to us, there are a few things to watch when you read it. For instance, there's the play off between a lamb who was slain but lives and a beast who has a fatal wound but lives: the risen Christ vs Satan. Or the harlot vs the bride: the harlot of Babylon, meaning Rome and its culture, vs the bride, the holy city of Jerusalem coming down from the new heaven to the new earth, as we just read.

Then there are cycles that repeat. Seven seals are opened and things happen like the sun being darkened. Then seven trumpets sound, and the sun is again darkened. Hey, didn't that just happen? Yes, because John writes in cycles that overlap and repeat. So these are some of the things to watch for in Revelation, as John uses a popular picture language style.

The second truth is this: unlike the similar writings the people were familiar with, Revelation is also a letter - a true letter, written to seven churches. That's how the book starts, and it's real important but often gets forgotten in all the picture language. You read the messages to those seven churches in chapters 2 and 3 and you'll get to the heart of the real focus of Revelation, because God gave John the message of Revelation to help those congregations face the challenges before them.

So those are our two truths: Revelation is a book of strong picture language, and it's a letter. Then, I said, there are two common confusions. The first confusion: the popular idea among some that Revelation is all about us. The rather ego-centric sense that everything John wrote was ultimately focused on us in the 20^th or 21^st century - which would say that God wasn't really concerned about John's own age, or the time of Augustine, or of Luther, or even of our grandparents. You can see this message in popular books like Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth, back in 1970, or the recent Left Behind series.

So that's the first common confusion: that it's all about us. But the second confusion is just as bad: the sense that it's not about us - that Revelation has nothing to say to us today - that it's an odd and eccentric book best left unexplored. This second confusion - the sense that it's not about us - comes when people get so lost in all the picture imagery that they miss the message. They miss, for instance, what is said in those important opening letters to the seven churches. And I don't think that number is seven just by chance. Numbers are important in Revelation, and seven is the number of completion. John is not only writing to seven very real congregations that existed on the western edge of Turkey - congregations about which he was vitally concerned - but he was also writing for all God's people down through the centuries who he knew would face similar situations, including you and me.

So what should be our takeaway from this letter known as the book of Revelation? It's a long book, and it tells us far more than I could fully cover in one sermon. But, as I said, those letters to the seven churches set the agenda. And they bring us the three challenges I mentioned. Two truths, two confusions, and three challenges. Each of the seven churches faced one of three challenges or threats: complacency within, the culture around, or confrontation outside.

Pop quiz time. Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." Which Gospel is that from? Matthew? Mark? Luke? John? Answer: it's not from the Gospels; it's from the book of Revelation, chapter 3 - one of the seven letters - the letter to the church at Laodicea where the challenge they faced was complacency. That's the first challenge: the challenge within us: complacency.

In Revelation 3:14-16 we read,

"And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: 'The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth."

We're not used to hearing such words from Jesus. Neither were the people of Laodicea. Like us here in Silicon Valley, they were a confident, prosperous people sitting on an earthquake fault. In 60 AD, Laodicea had been destroyed by an earthquake and they had refused disaster relief funds. Rome had offered money to help them rebuild and they turned it down. Said, "Thanks, but we'll handle it." And they did.

Confident, prosperous people, and this attitude had found its way into the church. They'd become quite comfortable and complacent, thank you, and were no doubt rather shocked to hear the words of Jesus: "I will spew you out of my mouth." What about you and me? Could complacency be found in our midst? Even here at St Timothy's? Jesus goes on, and now we get the background of the familiar "stand at the door" quotation:

Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'"

"He who has an ear, let him hear." Dear God, may we listen to that voice. Complacency; the threat within.

But then there is the second challenge: Culture, the challenge around us - the challenge that surrounds. Three of the seven churches were succumbing to the culture around them. With all its spectacular imagery of bowls and trumpets and beasts and harlots, Revelation wants to get your attention - get you to take seriously the fact that our culture wants to claim you for its own. Cultural accommodation and assimilation - going along to get along - going along because we've slowly drifted and little by little taken on values that were quite foreign to us in days past.

You and I are surrounded by things which fascinate and allure. Some are good and wonderful - it's so much easier today to stay in contact with those we love and those who depend on us. But some things massively consume our time in unhealthy ways - did you know children now spend an average of 7½ hours each day watching television and playing electronic games? And then there are those things which will truly make shipwreck of your faith: places on the Internet you know you shouldn't go; styles of life that can at best be described as sub-Christian that are daily promoted in the media and entertainment worlds so much so that we soon accept them as normal. Today's front page of the Mercury News has an article on the increasing use of crude language in public venues - television, politics, entertainment. It notes:

Some wordsmiths warn that we are headed toward a future where nothing is bleep-worthy. They worry that changing how we speak may change who we are. ⁽¹⁾

Take these things seriously, my friends. Already in the first century the book of Revelation did. In Romans 12, Paul writes: "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind," - or, as one version puts it, "Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold." For the contours of that mold can be very hard on faith.

Finally, Revelation warns not only of the challenges of complacency within, and the culture around, but also of Confrontation. Confrontation, the challenge outside us. When John wrote, persecution wasn't yet a matter of being dragged off to the lions. It was more localized. There might be threats to your life, or it might be less intense than that such as threats your employment - still no small matter, obviously.

Do we ever face that kind of thing? Some of us may think of the way ex-Miss California Carrie Prejean was treated after simply answering a question that revealed her Christian convictions. Thus the "ex-" before her Miss California title.

Young people: what's most going to challenge your faith in years ahead? What's going to be the hardest thing for you to deal with? Not science vs the Bible; that's easy; come to see any of us pastors if you run into those kinds of questions. And it won't be the tough questions of college professors. No, the toughest thing you are going to face - the nastiest confrontation that will come your way - is a simple sneer. A fellow student - who knows less about the Bible than you do - who looks at you and says, "You believe that Jesus stuff? Come on, gimme a break" ... and then shakes his head and walks off. Be honest; that's probably the thing you fear the most. And you know what? We adults sometimes don't deal with that so well, either.

That's why Jesus calls us into his church. Not only to hear and learn and understand what he says in the Bible, but also to surround us with this supporting, encouraging family of faith to buck us up when we need it - without which our faith and convictions can soon be ground down. Because for us the greatest challenges to our faith are not the arguments or even the threats; rather, they are our own spiritual complacency, the seduction of culture and the opinions of friends.

Complacency, culture, confrontation. That's what Revelation wants to warn us about right up front, right in those first opening chapters. Revelation will challenge you; it intends to challenge you. Someone once said to Pastor David Housholder, "I love to read the Bible; it comforts me." To which he replied, "What kind of Bible are you reading?! You read the Bible and it will mess with you." For your own sake. Revelation does that in bringing us the challenges of the letters to the seven churches, and then going on to paint graphic images of trumpets and bowls, and of a beast and a harlot named Babylon.

But there is also the Lamb, and the bride called Holy Jerusalem, and God saying "I am making everything new." Strange language to us, we who are so fixated on the present. Strange to think of an end of everything we know, and the beginning of something entirely knew.

Let me close by telling you about a little girl named Kim Lien Pham. You may have read about her on Thursday's front page of the Mercury News in an article commemorating the fall of Saigon 35 years ago. ⁽²⁾ It was a chaotic time. Kim was only 8 years old when her parents, like others, started buying gold as they got ready to flee. They sewed the little gold bars into the clothing of their children, who were blissfully unaware of the terror around them. But Kim recalled, "I knew something was going on when my mom began exchanging money for gold bars. My father said, 'Any day now, if I come home and say, "Run," you run.'" Thirty-five years ago this past Friday, they ran.

I think of the book of Revelation bringing a similar message. Jesus, the risen Christ, speaking through John, saying to his church, "One day this age will end, and I will come and say, 'It's time to go; time to run." And Revelation's words of warning and challenge are to be sewn into us like those small gold bars, keeping us whole and on track while passing through stressful times.

Revelation, you see, is not a terrifying or mysterious book but one that seeks to alert us, to have us take serious note of the world in which we live - to note the challenges, and indeed the threats, of complacency and culture and confrontation - and the dangers of shipwreck along the way. And finally, in the end, it's a book that yearns for the day when, as John said in our second lesson, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth... And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.'" Through John, God has given us the challenge of Revelation to warn and encourage us and to bring us through, complete and whole, to that great day. Amen.

1. Karen D'Souza, "The Coarsening of Public Discourse: Are we becoming a nation of potty-mouths?" San Jose Mercury News, May 2, 2010, page A1.

2. Bruce Newman, "After the fall: Vietnamese remember 'Black April' 35 years later" San Jose Mercury News, April 29, page A1