Revelation Chapter 11

Pentecost 11 year C Sermon 

In Chapter 9 the angel… with the key to the abyss…
exposes the monsters that eat away at love in the world……
destroy our lives…… and God’s good creation. 

Hopefully we’re now seriously ready to repent of our own complicity…in the anti-creation harm… these powers and principalities have caused. And we’ve learned
that any suggestion God would collude with the monsters from the Abyss... is contrary to the word of God.

In fact God seeks the restoration of creation not its obliteration.

Last week in chapter ten...after John is handed the bite-sized scroll of God’s purposes… and commissioned as prophet…
we asked ourselves…as individuals…and as the Body of Christ

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are we simply spectators in this divine process…
or do we have a role to play…a prophetic role…
of speaking the truth to power… in our time.

And as we brace for the sound of the seventh trumpet…
are we about to witness the final climactic wave in the book of Revelation… well we could be except for what [Ask]

That’s right….but the second half of the book is still to come…

And I am certain we couldn’t possibly understand part two

until the first eleven chapters had done their work in us…

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So…onward…on our adventure in the book of Revelation
now there are some strong contenders…for the most puzzling chapter of the most puzzling book ever written…but chapter eleven of the Book of Revelation is right up there in ten top ten.

At one level it’s clear what it’s about.

John…is told to measure the temple…then two witnesses emerge doing great and strange deeds… before they’re killed …
and lie unburied in the city square… then raised to new life

But unlike the surrounding verses…instead of epic scenes of
lion headed horses breathing fire, and flesh-eating locusts

We seem to have a strange short story…
about the work… and fate of two specific individuals

And I’ll tell you for free… that biblical scholars have argued about what this chapter means for two thousand years…
of course I’m inclined to agree with my favourite one…and Tom Wright warns

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so first …we need to understand John’s measuring of the temple…has nothing to do with the temple in Jerusalem…
it was long destroyed when Revelation was written. Nor is it about the heavenly throne room at the beginning of the book

The measuring John does…is a symbolic action...
an acted out prophesy… like Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Zechariah

you see  by the time of John’s vision…Jesus’ followers saw themselves as the true Temple…the Body of Christ…
not a building at all …but a people
in whom God lives by the Holy Spirit.

So John is commanded…to mark out the new temple a bit like the seals on the foreheads of God’s people in chapter 7 …
so they can be protected from ultimate harm.

But we’re told the outer court of this new temple…
is still vulnerable…and that pagan nations
will trample it… for three and a half years…

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and here we have a highly symbolic number…that appears again and again…three and a half…is half of the number seven which represents completeness…here it’s broken down into 42 months or one thousand six hundred twenty days… [pause]

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Just as Ezekiel measured his visionary temple where God would dwell… John marks out the new human temple …
thereby signalling God’s solemn intention…
to honour and bless Jesus followers…with his presence.

But God’s people were never to be passive observers
of this process…throughout the book of Revelation…
their call…our call is… always to bear faithful witness
to Jesus instead of compromise…
even if it means… suffering…as Jesus did.

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Now  the short story…
while the vulnerable outer court of the temple is trampled by those who refuse to accept God’s sovereign love…
God appoints two prophets to be his witnesses …

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They put on the sackcloth of mourning in protest
at the evil…the world is bringing on itself…

And the signs of their truth telling…are drought…rivers of blood and world-wide disease… and the story warns…don’t try to harm them…for what comes out of their mouths… their  prophesies…
will burn you like fire if you do. [pause]

And when God’s witnesses have had their say…
when the prophets have finished their testimony…
the beast from the Abyss will attack and kill them…
and leave their bodies in Jerusalem’s public square
where they will lie dead…while the unrepentant of the earth
gloat over their bodies and give each other presents…

In fact the unrepentant are so happy the prophets have been silenced…the celebration goes on… for another
three and a half days again a warning to us of unfinished business

Now notice how the story curiously changes to past tense…

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But after the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying “Come up here.” And they went up in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.

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Their suffering and death…was not the end after all…
and the display of God’s power over death…
over the very worst… the beast could do…
strikes terror once more in the hearts of those who
will… not… repent… of their works of their hands. [pause]

Certainly the first century church can relate to this story...

Their families and friends have met death… at the hands of the beast from the abyss…not too thinly veiled as the might of the Roman Empire…

they remember how the two prophets Moses and Elijah
spoke the truth to powers in their day…they recognise from scripture… the symbols of the olive trees and lampstands… shining their light in witness before the God

John doesn’t mean Moses and Elijah will literally return to earth to carry out the vision…Revelation just isn’t that kind of book…

What John is saying however is...
in the tradition of two great prophetic witnesses…
the church is called to speak the truth to power and perform powerful symbolic actions…that bring dismay to the unrepentant

And what John is saying is that the culmination of their witness will be their martyred death at the hands of the monster who comes up from the Abyss.

And shining hope into the hearts of the persecuted and suffering what John is saying is that the powers principalities don’t get the last word…when the church is acting out its prophetic witness…

God will vindicate them.

Now just in case you’re wondering…in our exploration
of the first eleven chapters of the Book of Revelation…
we haven’t even met the beast from the Abyss …nor visited ‘the great city nicknamed Sodom and Egypt…where the lord was crucified.’ But we will…you can bet on it!

For now…along with the early church… we’re learning something important…something we need to hear. [pause]

The God given… and protected calling…to bear
faithful prophetic witness…….. does not mean…
we… will be spared… from suffering and death…

it means… like Jesus whom we worship and follow…
our suffering and death… will be the ultimate prophetic sign …which brings the world… to glorify God…

How does this work exactly?

Well…for three and a half cosmic days… half of time…
the world will celebrate a victory…over the prophetic church.
But then…God will act in a new and surprising way…
Ezekiel’s vision of the rising of dry bones will become reality. and while their enemies wave the prophets good-by…
Daniels vision of God’s martyred people coming on a cloud comes to pass.

And as the prophets enemies looked on at this new thing God is doing…the earth quakes…a tenth of the city falls and seven thousand more are killed. The survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

John’s message is clear…the martyr-witness of the church…
will ultimately succeed… where every plague has failed.

This is how the nations will come to glorify their creator.
This is how ‘the kingdom of this world’
will become the kingdom of ‘our Lord and his Messiah’.

God’s kingdom will come through faithful prophetic witness
and symbolic action…and yes… suffering…
but it will come… it will come…

So….this most puzzling passage… in this most puzzling book turns out to be one of the most important and central things
John of Patmos…is trying to say to the churches…

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The lamb has opened the seals on the scroll…terrifying things are exposed as he does…six trumpets have sounded…
more terrors are made visible. The bite sized scroll of God’s purposes is handed to John…to prophesy exactly how the Kingdom of God will become a reality on earth… as in heaven.

But unlike Sodom and Gomorrah …where not even ten righteous people could be found…in the telling of salvation history …everyone left repents and turns to God…
and God’s kingdom is complete…

And suddenly out of the smoke and fire of earlier chapters…
a vision is emerging…of the ultimate mercy of God…
yes grieving and angry… over the rebellion and corruption
of the world… but rescuing and restoring
and achieving this purpose… through the faithful death
of the Lamb… and his prophetic followers. [pause]

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The way stands clear for the sounding of the seventh trumpet…

And when it does…a chorus of voices from heaven sing

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The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of YWHW and his Messiah and he will reign for ever and ever.

God is scooping up the entire world and claiming it back [pause]

And isn’t it fascinating…this climatic and decisive moment
in salvation history… comes…not at the end of the book…
but right here in the middle…when God’s kingdom is fully established on earth

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History proves the point. The time of the churches greatest expansion… was the first three centuries…
as the Roman Empire did its best… through torture and death…
to stamp the movement out…to silence the message that God’s love reigns…

And sadly…for seventeen hundred years after that…
the church was unable to fulfil its prophetic calling…

of speaking the truth to power…

why…because the church became the power didn’t it

Today…that is no longer true …

we God’s people…have little power…
but we can be prophets and speak the truth…

with the courage of our forebears…
prepared to take the consequences and trusting the victory of God.

[pause]
And as chapter eleven comes to a close… once again
like a Shakespearian play…the sound effects off stage…
signal the end of the first Act…

And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder,

as the earth trembles at the power of heavenly revelation.

God has taken up his power and begun to reign.