Debbie Gish, sermon preached at the Church of the Sojourners, March 11, 2007.
I love Lent. Well, that’s actually kind of a funny thing to say. Rather, I appreciate Lent. I appreciate the focus, the reflection, the pause spiritually to consider myself as a sinner in need of forgiveness and grace. I appreciate the build to Holy Week, the preparation, the anticipation, and even the participation in the story of Jesus’ final days on earth.
But one thing I find difficult about Lent and Holy Week, the reliving and consideration of the story, is that I already know the ending. Not only do I already know the ending, the ending has already taken place as a factual event in history. We may conjure emotions about Jesus’ death on the cross, his suffering, the betrayal, the despair of the first disciples, but we know he’s going to rise on the third day. We know in fact that he has indeed risen, that he is alive, that the suffering has ended, the despair is over; Jesus is no longer in pain and agony. It’s still important, very important to participate fully in Lent and to give Holy Week the attention it deserves, but honestly, Lent is more of a spiritual and emotional exercise than a struggle with real events in real time.
But as we started studying the book of Revelation, I realized that the story of Revelation is our current and actual Holy Week story, the here and now Lenten journey. In the Revelation class, Dale is arguing with Vernard Eller, that we are in the end times. That ever since Jesus rose from the dead, the Church has been living in the times described in the book of Revelation. And just as Israel longed for the messiah to come and never expected him to take so long, the church throughout history has been longing and waiting for the messiah to come again bringing justice, peace and the New Jerusalem to earth, thus ending the havoc Satan is reeking across the planet. I’m not interested in getting into the pre-trib, post-trib, blah-de-blah questions, but as Dale said, all we have to do is look around both currently and historically and we will see that the wars, plagues, starvation, persecution, horrors described in the book of Revelation are taking place and have been taking place and will continue. Nothing John describes should be shocking. It’s old news and it’s current events.
So if this is true, than it is also true that this time of waiting and longing for Jesus’ return is our Lenten journey. The call to repentance trumpeted throughout Revelation is our current call. The promise of peace, fullness, and the coming City of God is our promise. The comfort of knowing the victory will be won by the Slain Lamb is our comfort. The fact that the battle isn’t over, that there’s more pain to come, that there are trails to be faced, that there is testing of faith to be endured and overcome, this is our reality, our milieu, our mission.
So if Revelation is our story, not just a story of a time gone by nor just of one to come – although it is both those things also – Lent is the perfect time to dig deeply into this book. And since we are sin-phobic culture, during Lent we at least give ourselves permission to contemplate sin, our sin, the world’s sin, the Church’s sin. And sin is not a topic Revelation shies away from. It’s not taken lightly and it’s not dealt with lightly. This is a life and death battle-book. Big things are at stake. The consequences of our actions are serious – seriously grand and seriously tragic.
The revelation begins by Jesus giving John seven letters to the seven churches. Like the words of the Epistles, these letters were written to specific churches in specific places in specific times. But interestingly all these letters were sent together to all the churches for all to hear and learn from. Jesus instructs John in Chapter 1:11 “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches.” From there he proceeds to write seven distinct letters. And each letter ends with the line “Let anyone who has an ear to listen to what the Spirit is staying to the churches.” Anyone means everyone. Specific to each church means specific to all the seven churches. Global for all seven churches to listen means global to the church throughout time to listen. Specific to them means specific to us.
As each letter ends similarly, each letter begins similarly. The opening observation in five of the seven letters is “I know your works.” The other two begin “I know your affliction” and “I know where you are living.” Jesus is watching, Jesus is observing. This is about what he sees going on, not just the thoughts and intentions of the heart, but the more daunting realization that God is watching what we do. And he makes it clear in these letters that this is both good news and bad news. Good news for the faithful and bad news for those who are walking in sin or those working in the enemy camps.
But is this bad news? Is it bad news to have our sin pointed out to us? Is it bad news to be called to repentance? It’s felt like bad news many times to me in the past.
As Jesus began his ministry he went about proclaiming, “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Mark 1:14-15 says specifically “Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’" Repent and Good News just don’t go very well together in our minds. “Hey, I’ve got some good news, guys! Repent!” There are some valid reasons why “repent” has lost its good news quality. Revelation particularly has been used as a bible-thumping book to put the fear of hell fire into the hearts of the masses for centuries. But the Revelation of Jesus seen by John is a revelation for the church, as Dale pointed out in our class. The call to repentance here is to us and yes, I believe, or am coming to believe, this is a good news call.
Listen to some of the calls to repentance in chapter 2 and 3:
To the church in Ephesus – “I know your works, your toil and patient endurance… But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first… Repent.”
To the church at Pergamum – “You are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me…But I have a few things against you: you have some who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so they would eat food to idols and practice fornication…. Repent.”
And to Thyatira – “I know your works – your love, faith, service and patient endurance. I know your last works are greater than your first. But I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel…. Repent.”
Really high praise, coupled with really harsh judgment. You are toiling, you are enduring, you are not abandoning the faith under persecution, your last works are even greater than your first! But, but, but.
Is this false praise? What happened to “love covers and multitude of sin?” If these churches are in the midst of some of the times described later in this book, of severe persecution and trial, you’d think patient endurance would be the highest praise one could get. But in the midst of this, in the midst of hanging in there, they are still called to repent from overt sin and lukewarmness of heart. What is this about?
I had a little epiphany about the nature of sin and particularly the nature and allure of sin when we are at our weakest points. Sin isn’t sin just because God was bored and needed to come up with a random list of things to name as “bad” so he would look good. Sin is a tool of Satan, not of God. And to put it crudely, Satan is a clever bastard. And Satan is an advertising mastermind! He wants to twist things around in such a way that God looks like a big party-pooper in the sky who doesn’t want us to have any fun. But one of the fundamental things about sin, which is so clear in the book of Revelation, at least to me, is that sin weakens us and sin distracts us. Like it or not, which often I don’t, we are actually in a battle, in a war. Being strong, being focused, being whole hearted and single-minded are painfully necessary. Satan wants to weaken, divide and conquer. Jesus longs to strengthen, unite and yes conquer. Each of the letters to the churches concludes about the promises of the coming kingdom, and each of these conclusions begins with “if you conquer.” This isn’t a war of survival; this is a war of conquering. And in order to conquer, not just survive, we gotta get the Enemies ways and means out of our system. Not so that we are little pure, shiny angels or something, but because we fighting the Lamb’s war and we’re fighting with the Lamb’s weapons and for the Lamb’s victory. And we aren’t fighting this fight with Satan’s weapons; it’s not fighting fire with fire. It’s fighting fire with water; it’s fighting hate with love; it’s fighting infidelity with faithfulness; it’s fighting darkness with light. We aren’t trying to sneak across enemy lines and steal the enemies weapons and tactics and use them again them. To defeat the Beast we don’t need to study the ways of the Beast; we need to study and live the ways of the Lamb.
That’s why repentance is so great. It’s a turning. It’s a twisting out of the vice grip of Satan’s tactics and lures and ways and means. The call to repentance even when you are weary, trying really hard, being faithful in many ways, should not be discouraging, but instructional and helpful. “Good, you’re hanging in there, but go deeper. Don’t just survive what Satan has to dish out on you, pick of the weapons of love. Get out of the defensive mode and move into the offensive mode. Overcome evil with good.”
Two of my particularly favorite sins and two really tempting ones for those who are feeling beaten down and tired are self-indulgence and self-pity. I don’t know how many of you remember the movie Fame. There’s a scene in that movie where one of the characters is particularly weary and despairing. He’s had enough and can’t take it anymore. He’s in his apartment, alone, overlooking NY city, playing his guitar. The chorus of the song he sings goes “I wanna be bad and not even care. I wanna go out of my head somewhere. I wanna run crazy like the dogs in the yard. I wanna cut the rope. It’s getting so much harder.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sung that song to console myself. It’s my self-pity anthem.
The compassion of Jesus understands self-pity, but it also understands that self-pity is a tool of Satan designed to woo us into cursing God and taking the easy path of his false comforts and false consolations. Indulging anger, indulging self-pity, indulging the desires of the flesh – are the perfect examples of how Satan weakens us. All of these sins reinforce the Satan’s favorite lie that God doesn’t care, God won’t take care of you so you better do it. Satan wants us to believe that God is a cruel tester who just sets up purposeless gauntlet after purposeless gauntlet, not a father who longs for us to be strong and to conquer. By repenting, by turning towards God, by staying in the fight to the end, by taking up the weapons of love even when we don’t think we can lift a finger, we will grow in strength and patient endurance; we will disarm to armies of the enemy.
I think this perspective, this proactive attack on the snare of sin, helps me look differently at all the warnings in Revelation. Warnings always seemed like scare tactics to me. Warning of punishment. But if looked at a bit differently, if looked at in terms of battle tactics instead of scare tactics, we can begin to see that warning is really helpful and actually really compassionate. The other day I was at the park with JD, Alexina and Rebecca. Tim and Jenny were coming by to pick up their kids. When the car pulled up, JD and Alexina ran to be with their parents, leaving Rebecca behind. It was like JD and Alexina had been raptured. There had been no warning. She was totally unprepared. It was not a pretty sight. Warning a child that they will be burned if they touch a flame is compassionate.
But both the Gospels and Revelation say that the Lord will come like a thief in the night. The strategy of a thief is precisely that – come without warning. Catch them off guard. Well, that in and of itself is the warning. The call in that warning is to always be ready. To always be alert. Not just an enduring sort of readiness. But a strong, trained sort of readiness. If the warning is one we fear and we’re always hoping we can stay just under the radar of God’s wrath, enduring but not conquering, then we are living in expectant fearfulness of that thief in the night. Expectant fearfulness is exhausting and ultimately unsustainable. But a disciplined readiness driven by a first love heart and life is strong, proactive, on the offensive and not on the defensive. The warning, the anticipating that something big may be asked of me at any moment, is good news. It makes the calisthenics meaningful. It makes the small victories hopeful signs that we’re more ready today than we were the day before. I think this is what happened for Peggy when she was kidnapped. She had been living a practiced, disciplined, disciple’s life, that when the stakes truly were high, she was able to look her enemy in the eye and say out loud “I forgive you.” Even if he had harmed her, had even killed her, a huge battle in the cosmos had been won in that moment.
Here in Revelation, over and over, Jesus is offering repentance, turning as the way out of Satan’s snare, even in the midst of suffering we have no idea about. Repentance is standing up and facing the enemy square on. Peggy found herself hating her enemy and in facing her hate, received the word of the Spirit and offered “I forgive you” to his face.
Repentance. Sometimes it’s a walking away and sometimes it’s a walking towards. But it’s always a standing up. We are not victims! We need to stand up and say “No, Jesus’ love is triumphant. The Lamb has and will conquer. I can, by God’s grace, and I will, in Jesus’ name, stand up! Again, self-indulgence, self-pity in the midst of trial is a particularly clever tactic of Satan. I believe it truly weakens us. It takes us out of ready mode. It makes us flabby and lazy, unable to fight, unable to run, unable to think on our feet. Satan gains the upper hand very quickly.
But I’m not saying this is all about me trying hard and fighting and working. That’s where the ever-present Sabbath theme comes in. Sabbath is a cruciform, non-violent, faith-in-God grounded, bold and courageous statement and acknowledgment that the Lamb is and will ultimately be triumphant. Yes, we are alert, ready, disciplined, strong and proactive – but with, for and by the grace of God. These are not mutually exclusive. They are mutually dependent. Sabbath is the ultimate declaration that I will not play Satan’s game. And it is the ultimate reminder that in the end we know that the Kingdom of God is coming in victory and glory.
Revelation 21: “Then I was 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 as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away 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.”
In the Revelation, the story of the Passion is being relived. The church, Christ’s body on earth is being asked to walk again to Calvary in these End Times. Jesus told his disciples he would be betrayed, beaten, killed and that he would rise again. They didn’t believe him, they didn’t want to believe him. But he was warning them. They didn’t want to hear. It was too painful. The book of Revelation is too painful, but in the listening, in heeding the warnings, we can see that ultimately this is a book filled with mercy and filled with promise.
‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’