Revelation Chapter 15

Pentecost 15 year C Sermon

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While I've been gone… …… in case you missed a couple of Sunday’s in the mysterious and disturbing saga of John’s vision which we call the book of Revelation…
I’ll remind you how… back in chapter 12…you met

Dragon slide

the Dragon…the embodiment…
of all evil and rebellion against God…
and we remember how the dragon was enraged
at being kicked out of heaven…
wraps itself around the earth
pursuing the mysterious woman …crowned with stars…
who carries her new born child…

With relief we hear the woman goes underground …
and into hiding… protected by the earth itself…
for God’s good creation… refuses to collude with the Dragon

We remember that in John’s strong symbolism[i]…
the woman Israel…goes to ground…
but not before her children.. are born…the new faithful…
who will continue… to carry out God’s saving purposes on earth

And now woman’s offspring…are the Dragon’s target…

We remember how the dragon wields authority…
over earthly kingdoms
and to maintain its hold on power…
how the dragon raises up two monsters
one from the sea and one from the earth…

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the first and most terrible monster…is symbolic of Rome…
the second represents the toadying sycophantic religious and civil authorities… who collude with Rome…
from one end of the empire to the other…demanding that everyone bow down in worship to Caesar…

As twenty first century Christians looking on…
we’ve learned we’re not merely spectators…
we are participants…even today in this conflict…
as the Dragon operates behind the scenes manipulating the powers and principalities it creates…time and time again …to wreak destruction on God’s good creation.

Along with his first century readers…John wants us to understand …just how evil operates...and how it must be named
and exposed by Jesus witnesses…in order to be defeated …

John wants us to know that suffering
in the service of God’s purposes
doesn’t mean God’s gone to sleep… but our suffering is actually…
an important part of our prophetic witness…
of speaking the truth to power

Dragon slide

We’ve learned that victory in the divine dimension has already been achieved…yet the Dragon’s continues its destructive work on earth…angry at its limited power…
the dragon resorts to lies and accusations and seduction...

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Today its lackeys are still saying…. justice and peace …compassion and mercy… are an illusion…an impossible dream… that Jesus Christ was a deluded and idealistic figure in history past with no impact on the present...

And the dragon’s puppet monsters… continue to invite us…
to self-worship over love of neighbour…to consumption over sharing…to necessary war… over a just peace…and to hate our enemies rather than love them.

Yet to give us hope…John’s vision assures us…
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‘the ones who keep God’s commands and the testimony of Jesus’… will…. in the end prevail...

because the faithful martyrs who follow the Lamb…
well they know they’re already saved…
by his blood and his self-giving… unto death…

And their faithful witness brings them to do the same…
why …because mysteriously and paradoxically…what Jesus achieves on the cross…actually wins the victory over evil…

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And we’ve known from the beginning of John’s vision that we’re all in this battle…whether we choose to be faithful or not.

Caesar slide

We saw how worshipping or not worshipping Caesar…
became the  test… for acceptability in the Roman. Empire

Without the mark of the beast…people could neither buy nor sell… capitulate to the Dragon’s system… or starve…or worse

Today the great lie is still told to ordinary vulnerable people…wealth and status and acceptability depends on your cooperation with the system …

and Christians still have to choose … between the Lamb of God and the inequality, injustice and environmental destruction …created by global economic and political powers…

And the lie we’re told… is that equality and justice
threatens is a threat to our way of life and the poor are not our neighbour…
just bring your sacrifices to Caesar…
and everything will be ok

…except of course your integrity as a follower of Jesus…

Bench slide

for the dragons promise of instant personal satisfaction…

actually destroys our sense of Christ and the love for
one another… to which we are called.

Yes…the dragon creates a world of parody and lies…
a fake world…a sham system from top to bottom…
a world where truth and lies are hard to tell apart…

and this is where we stand…as Christians…

do we collude with the Dragon… or prophesy to the truth that God’s victory in Christ… is about the real world…
about the entirety of God’s good creation.

And by telling us his vision…John wants us to know that the closer we are to God… and to his Lamb…the more clarity we’ll get and the more truth we must tell. [pause]

And over the past weeks we’ve learned the dragon…
aka Satan… does its best work by distracting us from the truth …keeping things out of our minds altogether…
don’t watch that doco on the gap between rich and poor…
keep playing that video game …
keep running on Caesars treadmill and you just won’t need to worry about peace and justice and fairness and compassion …and mercy and forgiveness.

And where distraction fails… the dragon tempts us
to believe and pass on its lies…to rewrite history to fit the sham …to twist the facts…distort reality…
and play down the reality of evil.

But invoking the great prophets… Daniel, Isaiah and Jeremiah …John warns his readers…that following the Lamb means rejecting the lie… now and forever.

To first century Christians and to us…be strong… hang in there …John’s vision encourages us to keep the faith…

for the new Babylon is doomed to topple…
crushed under the weight of its own excesses.

And John is anxious and eager… to prevent any of Jesus’ followers being sucked down into that dark whirlpool of wrath.

Our part is to be patient, obedient and faithful… knowing that in Christ…death itself has been defeated…we do not need to be afraid…

And to inspire us again we have meet the great multitude who kept themselves pure for the battle…where they may suffer and die. And we know they’re only the beginning…the first fruits …not the sum total of believers…

The 144000 in John’s vision last week…are the great advance sign of the even greater harvest to come…and we begin to understand how the faithful people of God… who testify and witness to the truth of Jesus and his teaching…
and they are themselves… the harvest…
the vintage of the Lord…
and their blood becomes a river…

Their persecutions and martyrdom Jesus way of defeating human wickedness. [Pause]

Angels and bowls slide

Today in chapter 15…John’s vision shifts yet again…

I saw in heaven another great and marvellous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues…last, because with them God’s wrath is completed.

and standing beside the sea, those who were victorious over the beast and its image… and over the number of its name  held harps given them by God…
and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:

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“Great and marvellous are your deeds,

    Lord God Almighty.

Just and true are your ways,

    King of the nations.

4 Who will not fear you, Lord,

    and bring glory to your name?

For you alone are holy.

All nations will come

    and worship before you,

for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

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For John…as for all the early Christian…one great act of judgment above all other has already occurred… already compelling people …from many nations….
to worship Israel’s God…

Condemned as a false Messiah and executed on a cross…

God had raised Jesus from the dead…

and in this unthinkable righteous act…God reversed the verdict of the human court …and demonstrates that Jesus was
the Messiah… after all…

And in heart of the heavenly throne room…John sees
the ‘tabernacle of witness’…open… not to let Moses
or anyone else in…but to let the angels carrying the seven last plagues out… plagues intended not for Egypt…
but for the new Babylon
and the world that’s fallen under her spell.

Here as with the Tabernacle in Exodus…and Isaiah’s vision in the Temple…and Solomon’s dedication of the temple…
the presence of God is shrouded in smoke…
making it impossible for anyone to do anything…
but wait in solemn awestruck silence…for God to act.

And we wait…the new song has been sung…
deliverance has occurred…and John’s vision is homing in
on the greatest showdown of them all…

Yes…the dragon and its monsters have drawn many into their destructive ways…

but now it’s time… for destroyers to be destroyed –
with the seven last plagues
and the cataclysmic judgements which follow.

You can see why Jesus command to share his body and his blood remains central for us today…
and why approach with humility and contrite hearts…

For this is his table…

And amidst all the temptations and trials of our lives…

Jesus invites us…not to be spectators…but prophetic participants…in him…and in every act of sacrifice…

which bring about God’s kingdom.

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[i] Again my thanks to NT Wright