Revelation 5:11-14  *  April 22, 2007  *  Easter 3  *  Pastor Leyrer

 

Dear Friends in the Risen Christ,

 

What I’m about to say is a change from the way I originally planned to introduce this text.   I believe this has been a sad, sobering, and thought provoking week for all of us. 

 

If we can use the title of an old rock song, most us have become “comfortably numb” to the events that surround us on a regular basis.  We’re used to a certain amount of bad news serving as the white background noise of our daily existence.   But sometimes things happen that, try as we might, we can’t tune out.  

 

Overseas, it’s been the deadliest week in Iraq since we began our involvement there.  Senseless killing (often in the name of religion) and suicide bombers who believe they are doing a noble deed by randomly murdering men, women, children and American soldiers leaves us mystified.  As the body count rises, we wonder if this kind of inbred hatred can ever be tamed.  Will it ever come to an end?

 

And then, of course, there was the massacre on our own soil at Virginia Tech.  

 

32 students who woke up Monday morning thinking they would be going to class just like every other day were dead before the morning ended.  Those who were wounded and those who escaped have their lives, but they will now live with trauma for who knows how long.  Like Columbine before it, from here on in the mere name Virginia Tech will automatically call to mind not a school, but an event that needs no explanation.

 

The news media has informed us this is a new record in the annals of mass murder and violent crime.  But does anyone believe we’ve seen the last of these kinds of episodes?  This is the latest – and in loss of life the greatest – but probably not the last time we will mourn as a nation because of this type of thing.

 

So, as Christians we try to sort these things out. 

 

There may be a part of us which asks why God let’s such things happen.  In his remarks to the nation President Bush spoke of commending the grieving families into the hands of a loving God.   But there are undoubtedly those who are thinking that if God is indeed so loving, why didn’t He intervene?

 

That’s always the standard line, especially by those who are critical of Christianity.   The conclusion they draw is that if God isn’t powerful enough to jam up the gun of a troubled college student at the appropriate time, what good is He to me?

 

That’s why it is important for us to remember what God really says. 

 

On Tuesday of that first Holy Week Jesus gathered His disciples and told them about the last days and the last things.  In theological terms this topic is called “eschatology,” and these discussions of Jesus recorded in the Gospels are referred to as His “eschatological discourses.”   Among the indicators that tell us we are in the last days, Jesus says this:  “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.”  In keeping with those words, it seemed like a particularly cold week.

 

There is something else Jesus told us during Holy Week.  Speaking to His disciples in the upper room He matter-of-factly stated:  “in this world you will have trouble.”   In other words, Jesus didn’t promise a life free from tragedy and senseless acts of violence and drunk drivers and suicide bombers. 

 

He never said being a Christian will spare us from pain or hardship or terminal diseases or disabilities or car accidents.  Anyone who expects Christianity to be the ticket of immunity from all things difficult would be better off purchasing a rabbit’s foot or some other good luck charm. 

 

Yet, there is an answer.  Life is not just a string of random events.  Because the passage which begins with Jesus stating “in this world you will have trouble” ends with this enormous promise:  “But take heart!  I have overcome the world!”

 

And we are reminded that in the midst of all the senseless things we may not understand or cause us to be scared or shiver with uncertainty, Christ is there.  Our living risen Lord is by our side every step of the way with His promise that He will protect us, or that He will ultimately use even the sad and tragic things for the highest good of His church and His children.  “Surely I am with you always,” says Jesus, “even to the end of the age.”

 

As to why doesn’t God intervene, the answer is:  He did.  The life, death and resurrection of His Son God was the supreme act of intervention.  We live in this sinful world for a time, but we are not citizens here.  Our citizenship is in heaven.  Thanks to the intervention of Jesus Christ, we will not receive what our sins deserve.  One day God will take us to be with Him and the troubles we experience in this life won’t even be a memory…

 

In the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John equates mourning and crying and death and pain with “the old order of things” that will pass away once we are in heaven.  There he speaks of a new order of things that will commence and will last forever.   So, even in the roughest of times, Christians live in a state of perpetual victory. 

 

Our text for today is also from the Book of Revelation.  At its center is a heavenly hymn sung to the praise of Jesus Christ.  Given the week that was, this hymn provides a fitting and timely portion of Scripture to meditate upon and helps put things in perspective.  Using the first line as its hymn title, this is what we are told:

 

“WORTHY IS THE LAMB…”

1.  Why He is worthy

2.  What He is worthy of

 

Let’s set the stage.  The Apostle John is given a glimpse of heaven.  He sees thousands and thousands of angels and other heavenly beings around the throne of God.  They are worshiping and singing.  This is their hymn of praise:

 

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and praise.” The second verse is similar:  “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

 

The Lamb, of course, is Jesus Christ.  He is often referred to in these terms.  Think of John the Baptist’s description of Jesus on the banks of the Jordan River:  “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”  Or the Apostle Paul’s reference to Jesus as our “Passover Lamb.”   Or Peter speaking of Jesus in his first epistle as a “lamb without blemish or defect.”

 

But that’s only half the picture.  This lamb was “slain.”  Here we think of Isaiah’s words in chapter 53:  “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”  And we know why He was slain.  For us.  As our substitute.  In our place.  For our sins before a holy God.  Again the words of Isaiah, “the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”  Through Him we find forgiveness and peace with God.  Jesus is the gate to heaven.

 

How do we know this?  Because the Lamb was slain.  Note the past tense.  He’s not slain anymore.  Now He sits on His heavenly throne.  The message of Easter reverberates as we hear this.  “Jesus lives, the victory’s won” we sing.  And in His resurrection we receive the guarantee that all the promises He’s made to us about eternal life and fulfilled life and a daily life accompanied by Him are valid and true and reliable.

 

And because of all this, He is worthy of certain things.  All power, wealth, wisdom and strength are His by virtue of who He is.   

 

As mentioned earlier, this is important to remember.  When tragedy strikes like it did this week, it does not mean that God is not in control.  He is, because all power, wealth, wisdom and strength are His.  How God chooses to exercise His power, wealth, wisdom and strength we must leave to His divine counsel! 

 

In confusing and difficult times it is comforting and sufficient enough for us to know the promise of Romans 8:28, that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him;” as well as the promise a few verses later that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

But let’s get back to our heavenly hymn.  In addition to what is Christ’s by virtue of His divinity, it also suggests some things that He is worthy of from us.   Specifically, He is worthy of – and we owe Him – “honor, glory and praise.”  Let’s spend just a moment on each of these.

 

Christ is worthy of our honor.  By honor we mean reverence and respect.  We are reminded that we as Christians bear the name of Jesus before a watching world.  How we act and react, how we conduct ourselves, how we talk to and about others – all those things potentially either bring honor or dishonor to the One we say we love. 

 

Christ is worthy of our glory.  Tied into this word is the recognition of majesty.  We give glory to God (that is, respect His majesty) when we keep in the forefront of our minds that we are in the service of our King.  In those countries which still retain a monarchy loyal and grateful subjects wish to do nothing that besmirches the reputation (glory) of their king.  Neither do we.

 

Finally, Christ is worthy of our praise.  When we think of praise we often think of worship.  But praise is not an action we engage in only when we come to church.   Rather it is the continual process that is to define the believer’s life.  In Romans 12 Paul talks about offering our bodies as “living sacrifices,” calling our entire life an act of “spiritual worship.”

 

What do we owe the Lamb who was slain because of what He has done for us?  What is He worthy of?  He is worthy of our honor, our glory and our praise.

 

Let’s close with this thought.   Those opposed to the necessary changes Martin Luther and the reformers brought to the church in the 16th century recognized the important role music and hymns played in solidifying their message, and they didn’t particularly like it.  They lamented that Lutheran (i.e. Biblical) teaching was literally being sung into the hearts of the people.

 

Our text for today is a hymn full of truth worth singing into our hearts again and again.  It reminds us that regardless of what happened this past week and what may happen again in weeks to come, we are safe and secure, because our God reigns. 

 

So together with all the saints and angels, this is also our victory hymn of confidence and consolation and commitment:

 

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and praise.”

 

“To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”  Amen.