Birthrights, Birth Responsibilities (1 John 2:22-29)

Sunday, July 27, 2014

          God is light and in Him there is no darkness.  Jesus is the light of the world, a light the darkness cannot overcome.  The Gospel of John and First John both offer a binary faith.  It is an either/or seeing.  As a man, a dad, a Christ-follower – in all of life, I can take the this-or-that as I strive to choose and speak as Jesus would have me choose and speak.  The A-or-B, this or that process is one way of seeing for a disciple of Jesus. 

          Firsy John chapter 2:22 says, “Who is the liar, but the one that denies Jesus is the Christ?  This is the anti-Christ.”  A lot of confusion arises in Biblical reading and Christian literature over that term, ‘anti-Christ.’  Christian fiction like the Left Behind series would have us anticipating one specific future person who is the anti-Christ.  Other villains of history were bad, but until he appears, the anti-Christ has not yet come, so the teaching goes.  First John actually teaches that the anti-Christ is anyone who denies that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the Son of God, and God in human flesh.  Verse 18 says there are many anti-Christs.  It is a way of talking about anyone who denies the divinity and necessity of Jesus.  And of course 1^st and 2^nd John are the only places in the Bible the term ‘anti-Christ’ is used.

          That’s “A” – the liar, the one who denies Jesus is an anti-Christ.

          Then, “B” is seen in verse 29.  “If you know that he is righteous you may be sure that everyone who does right has been born of him.”  Two ideas are asserted.  First, Jesus is just or righteous.  Second, people who work for justice or do the right thing are born of Jesus.  The word for right, as in ‘do the right thing,’ also means ‘justice’ and could just as easily be translated that way.

          So we have “A”, the one who denies Jesus is a liar and is an anti-Christ.  And we have “B”, the one who is righteous, that is who does justice, is born of God through faith in Jesus.  It is this, or it is that.  What a clean way of visualizing Christian thought.

          Unfortunately history shows it is rarely that simple.  In fact, the history of the works associated with John in the New Testament reveal how cluttered theological dialogue can be.  The so called Johanine literature is comprised of the Gospel of John, and 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd John.  And many also include the book of Revelation.  It was also written near Ephesus, where all the other works are supposed to have been written.  And, Revelation is the only book in the collection whose author actually give his name - John.  He does not claim to be one of the 12.  He just claims to be John, a Christ-follower in exile on the Island of Patmos. 

          The Gospel, the Epistles, and the Revelation were written in different contexts, as responses to forces that threatened the Christian community.  A major theme in the Gospel is the tension between Jesus and synagogue leaders who reject the idea that He is the one sent by God.  Throughout John, we read that Jesus was opposed by “the Jews.”  This does not mean all Jews, though tragically, it has been used that way in history.  This evil misrepresentation of the Gospel has been a tool of hate filled anti-Semitism, something God vehemently opposes.  When John was written, most Christ-followers were Jewish and were persecuted by Jews who rejected him.  The Gospel was the voice of a persecuted minority.

          In the Epistles, the opponents are not synagogue Jews that oppose Jesus.  The opponents are fellow church members who believe in Christ but offer a different interpretation of him, an interpretation that minimizes his earthly life and ethical example.  And, in the situation of the book of Revelation, the opponents are Roman authorities who persecute Christ-followers because they refuse to worship Caesar. 

          When we read ‘anti-Christ’ in 1^st and 2^nd John, the only place we’ll find it, we need to realize that those who wrote the term did not anticipate a future evil person who would try to rule the world.  If the writer of the Gospel of John had used the term, he would have applied it to synagogue and temple leaders that reject Jesus as the Messiah.  In Revelation other terms are used, terms like dragon and beast.  IN that work, these terms in refer to the Roman emperor.  And the elder of 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd John used the term to refer to other Christians whose doctrine he opposed. 

          With the context in mind, do we still find the this-or-that method of thinking theologically helpful in our reading of 1^st John?

In our situation, we don’t have another religious group threatening our worship, so whatever our struggles are, they not those faced by the author of the Gospel of John.  We don’t have a powerful government crucifying our preachers or throwing us to the lions.  We aren’t facing the situation in which Revelation was written.  We do understand church splits, but HillSong is not going through that and even if we were, I hope we wouldn’t be calling each other ‘anti-Christs,’ though I have seen that sort of spite in other church splits I have experienced.  What can we make of 1^st John?

          I hope recognizing context keeps us humble in our theology and in our practice of Christian life within the community.  We need to be patient with each other because situations change, get muddled.  Because of our sins we can count messes being made.  In the future, messes will come and we will find ourselves waist-deep in them.  This is why 1^st John uses such harsh language for the opponents who are causing a church split. 

          God is even more dependable than sin.  We can count on human sin bringing chaos, but we can also count on the love of God restoring order and calling us into God’s embrace.  This is why Jesus came – to save the world from itself.  We can be sure God loves us and wants us to have joy.  This truth –that we can rely on God as we know Him in Jesus – helps the binary thought make sense. 

          It is absolutely so: the one who denies Jesus is a liar.  That one is an anti-Christ where ‘anti’ means against.  In that vein, Muslims who refer to Jesus as a prophet but not as the son of God are against him and against our message that salvation is in him.   I am not saying Muslims are worse sinners than Christians and are bent on destroying the world.  Maybe that is true of a few, but most Muslims are just people like Christians, people who need God.  But, if they deny the lordship of Jesus, then they are against the message we preach.

          Similarly those in Judaism who reject Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, are against our proclamation that salvation is in Him and Him alone.  In this respect, they are ‘anti,’ against the idea that Jesus is the Lord. 

          The “A”-or-“B” approach helps clarify this.  When a written work is called a polemic, it means that work is an argument against an opposing doctrine.  Works in the New Testament like 1^st John, 2^nd Peter, and Jude, are polemics, arguments against false statements about Jesus.  These harshly written pieces give us a sense of clarity. We can see why it is absolutely necessary to know the truth about Jesus, speak that truth, and not allow any wiggle room. 

          We cannot accept flaky ideas like the wishful notion that “many paths lead to God,” or “all religions teach the same thing,” or “religious truth is a private thing and we’ll all find out who was right when we get to heaven.”  All religions do not teach the same thing.  We reject pluralism and universalist fluff in matters of theology and expressions of faith.  We insist that Jesus is Lord – the Jesus we meet in the New Testament and in the Holy Spirit.  This is true for all people whether they acknowledge it or not.  Jesus is Lord and must be followed and worshipped. 

          The binary way of seeing gives clarity even when we know our situation is vastly different than the numerous 1^st century environments in which Christianity was born.  There was more than one context then and ours is different than all that existed then.  The world in which we live is not like the world in which the Bible was born.  Yet, we are clear about Jesus and what we need to believe about Him because the Bible, inspired by the Spirit, transcends generations and continents and cultures. 

The “this-or-that” viewpoint also tells us what is true about us.  “He has promised us eternal life” (1^st John 2:25).”  And we are to abide in him because “everyone who does what is right, [read who does justice as the prophet Micah says], is born of him” (2:29).

          The sign that we are his is our treatment of people.  We do the right thing.  Doing the right thing does not earn us salvation.  God gives it.  Our efforts at right-living are the signs that we have received the salvation God gives.  The A-or-B point of view is only somewhat helpful in fully understanding the New Testament but it is extremely important in our lives as Christ followers.

          Our birthright is eternal life.  Jesus rose and we will rise.  Death of the body is coming because the fall has corrupted God’s world, but Jesus has overcome death.  He rose and all who are in him will rise.  Death has been defeated.  We will enter resurrection in bodies that cannot die and will be with God forever.

          Our birth responsibility is to live as Jesus lived.  We are to do the right thing.  No matter how hard the choice is, no matter much easier other choices appear we are to work for justice, to do right, and to obey God in all things.  When you or I say we are in Christ, we are saying we have committed to live life on his terms.  In matters of how we treat people whether it is daily interactions or larger societal issues, we are guided by the same compassionate love that God showed in sending Jesus for us. 

          Or, as 1^st John 4:7 puts it.  “Beloved let us love one another because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God.”  We live with hope and joy because eternal life is our birthright.  We live in love showing compassion to all who hurt as we work for justice because it is the right thing to do.  This is our birth responsibility.

AMEN

Revelation 5:6-14

The Worship of Jesus (Revelation 5:6-14)

Sunday, April 21, 2013

            In a vision, John is taken from his prison on Patmos Island into Heaven, into the throne room of God.  He sees a great throne occupied by one he cannot even describe except to say he resembles precious stones.  Jasper and carnelian are gems whose breathtaking beauty come to John’s mind as he looks on this throne and the God who occupies it. 

            The center throne is surrounded by 24 thrones where there are seated elders, in white robes.  Does John think of 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples who followed Jesus?  Twenty-four thrones. 

            There are strange things here, heavenly creatures likes those described by the prophet Ezekiel.  These beings are all-seeing.  One resembles an ox, one a lion, one a human, and an eagle.  What sort of place is this with a throne where the indescribable is seated and surrounded by lesser thrones and flying, living, all-seeing creatures? 

            It is place full of sound – songs John has never heard.  The living creatures sing and sing and sing – “Holy, holy, holy: the Lord God, the Almighty who was and is and is to com.”  On and on the song goes and it never grows old.  The music is joined by a choir, the 24 elders.  They cast off their crowns putting them at the feet of the one on the center throne and they sing to Him who lives forever.  “You are worthy our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power” (4:11a-b).

            John sees all this.  He sees a scroll in the hand of the one on the center throne.  He knows the fate of the world is written on that scroll.  It just needs to be opened.  But no one is worthy to open it.   No one on earth, no one in the history of earth can open it.  Nothing matters more than what is on the scroll.  It must be read.  And no one can open it.  John weeps.  He looks around.  He is in Heaven and no one is able to open that scroll. 

The tears roll down his face.  He has suffered so much for Jesus’ name.  He has seen friends arrested. Families have fallen apart as the son follows Jesus and the father kicks the son out of the house.  Members of John’s church in Ephesus were stoned – bludgeoned to death by boulders because they would not bow to Caesar.  They were killed because they worshiped Jesus.  His story, Jesus’ word for the world is written on this scroll and no one can open it.  How has it come to this?  John falls, broken, shaking. 

One of the elders comes and lays a gentle hand on John’s sagging shoulder.  The man tenderly raises John to his feet.  “Do not weep.  The Lion of the tribe of Judah … can open the scroll” (Revelation 5:5).  Through bleary John looks up and remembers.  Yes, the Messiah, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the mighty one, the heavenly warrior; of course he can open it. 

But when John turns, he doesn’t see a mighty one at all.  “I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered” (v.6). 

We hear the experience of the visionary – the Christian named John, of 96 AD.  He was sent to exile because he refused to offer cult worship to Roman Emperor Domitian.  The emperor did not care if Christians had church and sang about Jesus.  But they were required to acknowledge and proclaim the divinity of the emperor.  Christians knew that Jesus and only Jesus is Lord.  To proclaim Jesus as Lord, they had to deny Domitian as Lord.  Denying Domitian brought on them the wrath of Rome.  In John’s case that meant hard labor in a penal colony.

There, he met the risen Jesus and was taken into Heaven in a vision – the one described in Revelation chapters 4-21.  I have been imagining the beginning, what we see in chapters 4 and 5.  In these chapters, we see that the best Christian response is worship.

Wait, response to what?  Response to tragedy?  The events at the Boston Marathon served as a rude reminder to our nation.  We were reminded of the horrors of the Newtown school shootings and the Aurora, CO theater shootings; and Virginia Tech; and Columbine; and many others.  We were reminded that a quiet Monday can be violated by the worst kind of news; reminded of 9-11.  We were reminded how fragile life is.  The disillusionment and fear casts a more destructive shadow than the precipitating event. 

How is worship an appropriate response to that? 

The man who received the Revelation lived in scarier times than we do.  He saw friends arrested and executed.  He was imprisoned as an enemy of the state.  He was powerless before the power of his day – Rome.  Every terror story we can recite from our times, John can match.  His response was to write about worship because worship reminds us all that there are powers in the universe that are greater than life and death.  There is God who not only overcomes death, but sees us, small as we are.  In the eyes of Rome, John a Jew in Ephesus, was small, insignificant; just one more political prisoner to be silenced.  But God saw him and was with him.  Yes, worship is one of our responses to the Boston Marathon bombings.  The only one who can bring order to the chaos and comfort to the pain is God.  Our response is to worship Him.

Worship is also a response to times of great joy.  A wedding of two Christians is a time of worship.  Graduation includes a baccalaureate and naming of the graduates in the Sunday morning worship service.  Whenever a new baby is born, the pastor visits and touches the baby and prays, and later the new parents bring the baby to church and the child is dedicated to the worship of God. 

Worship is the way to respond in times of spiritual confusion, frustration, or emptiness.  When we are filled with questions we come together and worship God.  When we are not so sure there is a God, we come together with the church and sing praises and pray together and baptize and commune.  Sorrow, horror, joy, confusion, boredom, anger, doubt – worship is the response to all these things.

Worship is not the only response.  We pray individually and with friends and mentors, silently and out loud.  We question, study, and seek.  We get advice and give it.  We work hard.  We wait.  We do many things.  We spend time doing nothing.  But we always worship. 

John shows us in Revelation that worship is constant and surprising.  He turned to see the Lion that was worthy before God and he saw a Lamb.  Jesus is both.  The raging Lion, roaring God’s power from the dawn of creation; this is Jesus. So too is the lamb, the man who would not fight back when ruffians came and beat him up and dragged him off in the night.  He told his disciples to put their swords away.  Willingly, he went to the cross and was slaughtered. 

So John sees a lamb, the meekest, most vulnerable of creatures, but wait!  All in the throne room worship the Great One on the center throne, but they don’t dare approach.  The living creatures, the 24 elders, they sing to God, but they don’t walk right up to Him.  The Lamb does.  This image of weakness walks right up to the throne and takes that scroll that God is holding. 

Now those living creatures, heavenly beings, aren’t flying around anymore.  They’ve fallen to their knees.  The elders are no longer on their thrones.  All twenty four of them are there next to the living creatures and they too are bowed in humble reverence.  To the Lamb they sing, “You are worthy” (v.9). 

We’ve had our attention on the throne and the Lamb, the elders and the living creatures but they are not the only ones in the picture.  There are all about this throne room of God thousands and thousands and thousands of angels.  And they have all stopped doing whatever it is angels do, and now, with music you’ve never heard, they sing.  “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (v.12).

What more could come than this?  Oh, there is more.  We have not even noticed the uniqueness of this throne room.  We think of it as in some faraway place.  But it is actually close enough that we can see the earth – the whole earth.  Where can one go and see the entire earth – see everything up close?  Here.  And on the earth every living being is singing.  We might expect to see every person, but this is more.  The people are joined by the trees and the waters and the birds and the animals.   When he came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Jesus told the protesting Pharisees that if his followers did not sing “Hosanna,” the rocks would cry out praise.  Here in the throne room of Revelation, John sees the people and the rocks and the mountains all singing together.  All created things add their voice to this song.  “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.”  And when all of creation sang that song, the living creatures shouted, AMEN and the elders fell on their faces and worshiped and it all happened because worship is our response and worship is our response because God is God.

Last week we began our time in Revelation receiving.  Revelation is a letter in which we are given grace and peace, gospel truth, and life.  This is to us from God – the eternal God who is over and over seen in the son, the Messiah, Jesus.  God has something for us and it is good.  When we receive from God, we have abundant, eternal life.  This promise is enough to sustain us through harsh, dark times.

Yet, we don’t live only waiting for the fulfillment of it.  We have activity to which we are called.  As we receive from God grace and mercy, forgiveness and peace, love and hope, we have something to give God.  Worship is our primary vocation.  As living creatures, elders, angels, and every created thing attest, our worship is specifically to Jesus.  Our life is lived to worship Him. 

Worship happens when we gather as a church body, in our songs, in our prayers, in baptism and communion. Even in the time of the sermon, there is worship as the remarks and the receiving of them are all centered on the Word of God.

Worship happens at other times in the life of the church: in small groups; in meetings; in one-on-one get togethers.  It happens with music and without.

Worship happens when we are alone or involved in secular activities.  It can come about while driving or hiking or gardening or golfing.  Even at work, as we pray in the lunchroom, as we glance at the scripture verse we keep in a frame on our the desk, as we utter a silent prayer for a troubled colleague; yes even there worship occurs because it first and foremost proclaims in our hearts and in the loving way we see the world that someone else is in command.  God is over all this and God is Jesus and Jesus is God.  So, in Holy Spirit, Jesus is here and our loyalty is to Him.  There is probably a supervisor to whom we give the respect that is due even if he doesn’t live up to it.  There are rules we uphold except when God tells us to do otherwise.  We live within the world but all the while we are turned to the God who sustains the world and will one day redeem and renew and remake the world. 

So worship is an orientation; it is a heart attitude; and it is activity.  It is worship of God as we know God in Jesus Christ and it is what we are all about.  More than all this definition though, worship is relationship.  There are professional clergy men and women, but he has made us all priests and sons and daughters of God. 

Thus we join the song.  Deep within us, whatever our emotions and experiences, in good times and bad, we seek God, see God, and sing.  This is the best response a Christ-follower can make to all things because all is under the lordship of Jesus.  My friends find your voice.  You are sad?  Meet God in your sadness.  He will give comfort, you give worship.  You aren’t sure?  He will give clarity and answers, you give worship.  You are broken?  He will heal and mend and raise you.  You and I – we worship.

He doesn’t always give what we think He should when we think it should be given.   But God’s gifts are the best and the timing is perfect.  We worship.  Along with the Heavenly chorus we sing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and glory and honor and might forever and ever!”

AMEN

A Letter From God

From God (Revelation 1:4-8)

Sunday, April 14, 2013

            In the Elders meeting this past week, I said, “The sermon this Sunday is about God.”  Responses went like this.  Um … good topic.  What else would it be about?

            Then, I emailed Starlyn.  “This sermon is about God; … Find songs that talk about how awesome God is.”

            Coming to church, one probably expects the pastor to talk about God.  What could be more obvious?  And yet, try it sometime this week.  Describe God to someone.  No matter what you say, something will be left out.  You could talk for days and barely scratch the surface of all you could say about God.

            No matter what you say, something will be incomplete.  In simply reviewing all God has spoken in the Bible, we realize God has not shown us all of Himself and if God did, we could not handle it.

            No matter what you say when you talk about God, someone will argue that you’re wrong.  Within evangelical Christianity, we see numerous not just different thoughts, but competing ideas about God.  Add the ideas of Protestants.  And Pentecostals.  And Anabaptists.  Now, throw in Catholics.  And Eastern Orthodox Christians.  And Coptic believers and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.  That’s just Christianity.  What about Muslims and Jews and Mormons and deists?

            How do we even begin to talk about God in a way that is intelligible?  How do we talk about God in a way that’s helpful?

            Imagine you are a part of one of the churches in Asia Minor in 96AD.  Your congregation is one of the first to hear the Revelation read publically.  As a church, you’re torn from three sides.  Most of the Greeks around you think you are some sort of Jewish sect and in reality, Christianity is the faith that worships the Jewish Messiah.  But Jews who do not believe Jesus was the Messiah strenuously reject Christianity.  Because of this, over the centuries Christians have sinfully persecuted Jews.  There is nothing more Satanic in history than the treatment of Jews by Christians.  It is absolute evil and must be named and condemned. 

            However, in 96 AD, in Ephesus and the other Greek-speaking cities, the synagogue was an established institution within the Roman Empire.  The church was not.  The Jews actually had achieved an exemption from Rome.  Rome required all subjects to acknowledge that the emperor was a god.  Emperor worship and allegiance to the Emperor were laws enforced by pain of death.  The Romans knew the Jews to be monotheists and exempted them from emperor worship.  The Jews rejected the Christians – who themselves were mostly Jews and Jewish proselytes who worshiped Jesus.  So the Christians did not get the exemption.

            Unlike their Jewish cousins, Christians were required to practice emperor worship.  Christians were rejected by Jews, mocked by Pagan Greeks, and arrested by Romans insisting on emperor worship.  Romans did not always persecute Christians, but in the 90’s AD, in Asia Minor they did.  Emperor Domitian demanded allegiance the Christians could not give.  What resulted was a persecuted Church and it is to that church that an early believer named John sent the letter we call Revelation. 

Nowhere does John claim to be the Apostle John, so I don’t identify him that way.   I see him as a late first century Christ-follower who received a visit from the risen, glorified Jesus, and wrote down what Jesus told him to write.

One of the reasons modern believers struggle to understand Revelation is we don’t live in the circumstances of the original audience.  “Revelation is speech by and for the oppressed, those suffering under the sword of Rome.”[i] It is not for the successful, affluent, powerful church.  It is also speech from God and so even though the experience of the original hearers is foreign to us, the richness and truth of the message transcends the original environment.  What spoke to those beleaguered Christ-followers still speaks here and now.  And what is said helps us understand God.  It gives definition and substance and depth to our description of God.  Moreover, we are able to see who we are because of God.  Revelation colorfully demonstrates what it means to follow and worship and serve God.

Revelation is clearly a letter – “Grace and Peace to you from him who is …”.  We don’t see anything novel here, but there certainly is something quite new in this if we are reading it in 96 AD. 

At that time no one began a letter by writing “Grace and Peace.”  Greeks would start their letters with another form of Xaris from which we get the word “grace.”  They typical Greek letters began with the form of the word that means “Warmest greetings.”  It is a nice opening to a letter.  But it didn’t mean “Grace.”  Jewish letters would begin “Shalom,” which means, “peace, wholeness, well-being.”  But the Jewish letters did not begin “Grace and peace,” just “peace.”  Only Christian letter began this way.  It was new invention.  Why?  In 96 AD, we’re asking, “Why does this letter begin, ‘Grace and peace?’” 

Well, who is it from.

“From him who was and is and is to come.”  This can only be a god.  Many religions in 96 AD thought of their god as the one who is and was and will be.  So this new form of Judaism, Christianity, wants its god to offer ‘grace,’ whatever that is, and ‘peace.’

Wait.  There’s more!  “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne.”  Seven spirits?  What does that mean? 

Listen to the uniquely Christian greeting.  “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ.”  The first statement unmistakably identifies God.  Only God could fit that preexistent, omnipresent, futuristic depiction.  This wish of grace and peace is from God.  Seven Spirits and Jesus Christ then are elaborations of God.  Thus we can say about God that God extends to all people grace and peace.  And God exists and presents God’s self to us in three persons – The Eternal Father, the Spirit, and Jesus the Son.  In talking about God, we talk about the giver of grace and peace.  And we talk about God who is three and three-in-one.

This greeting reveals something else that is easy to overlook.  It says God is the one who is and who was and who will be.  … No, that is not what it says.  It does not say God is the one who “will be,” it says, God is the one who “will come.”  God is present but is also coming.  In the future something will happen where the present God will appear in a way that God does not appear now.  A new God-event is surely coming.  To our understanding of God as giver of grace and peace and God as three-in-one, we add that God is to be anticipated.  God is one who is to come. 

The giver of grace and peace, the three-in-one, the coming God is most fully revealed in Jesus, God in human flesh.  Revelation 1:5 says that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah.  Jesus was the faithful witness.  In Revelation the word used for witness is the Greek word ‘martyr.’  One who gave faithful witness held his or her testimony even when threatened with death.  Jesus’ death on the cross showed him to be a faithful witness and after that event many of his followers showed that faithfulness, proclaiming Jesus as Lord even when doing brought suffering and death.

Jesus the Christ, the faithful witness is also called the firstborn of the dead. His death was short lived as the resurrection happened on the third day.  But Revelation does not simply refer to him as resurrected one, but as the firstborn.  There will be more.  His followers will rise from death to eternal life.

The Messiah faithful witness resurrected one is the ruler of the kings of the earth.  This statement was enough to get anyone who made into hot water – or maybe boiling oil.  That would have been one way to deal with someone who declared a king other than Caesar.  John was already exiled on Patmos “because of the word of God and testimony of Jesus" (1:9c).  He knew his writing could get him killed but he wrote on anyway.  Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth – including the Roman emperor; including the American president. 

This Faithful Witness and King of Kings can be known through his actions.  John writes to the end of verse 5 and into 6 that Jesus loves and frees.  Specifically he frees us from the bondage of sin.  John’s writing here is a doxology.  “To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom of priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.”  We don’t have time to explore all the implications of God’s actions.  I urge each one here to go back and read carefully word by word Revelation 1:5-6. 

God is known as he we see him in Jesus and what does God do in Jesus?  He loves us.  He sacrifices himself to free us from sin.  He makes us – not just the clergy, not just the seminary-trained but all of us – to be priests who serve God in the world. 

John emphatically ends his doxology with a declaration that his words are without question true.  That is the meaning of the “Amen.”

Verse 7 reiterates what was said earlier about God – he is one who “is to come.”  This sounds like a prophetic oracle.  “Look!  He is coming on the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of earth will wail.”  And this prophecy is punctuated just as the doxology was. With an emphatic “Amen!”

Do we notice that verse 4 described God as the one who “is to come,” and now in verse 7 Jesus is the one who is to come?  Do we notice that in verse the entire earth sees the coming of Jesus and wails due to complicity in his death?  This verse announces Jesus’ divinity and proclaims that his coming is the coming of final judgment.  Judgment is what caused the wailing of the those who pierced him and now see him resurrected and in gloried form.  This is implied here and laid out more fully throughout Revelation. 

One more reiteration of who God is and also an anticipation of who Jesus is comes along in verse 8.  “’I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.  Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.  God is the A-Z.  God is everything.  In verses 17-18, Jesus appears in his glory before John, probably similar to the form he had in the transfiguration before the disciples, Peter, James, and John.  He says, “I am the first and the last, and the living one.  I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”  Coupled with the introduction to the letter in the verses we’ve been discussing, Jesus here asserts that he is the eternal God, the everything, a member of the trinity and of God; He was incarnated, took on human form, died, and rose.  He is alive forever – that’s a key part of his resurrection.  And he has all authority to judge.  This is who Jesus is and Jesus is who God is.

The book of Revelation is a letter from God.  Even though we are second-hand recipients and not the persecuted first century church that was intimately aware of John’s imagery and the conditions that sparked John’s writing, we see that Revelation is for us too.  The first thing for us to take hold of and never release is that this message is to us from God.  In this letter, we see our God and in seeing and hearing, we start to come to know God. 

I started out with a challenge.  Describe God!  Revelation has given us good starting material.  God is the giver of grace and peace.  God is eternal and is coming.  God is Father, Spirit, and Son.  God is Jesus, the one who died for sin and rose from death, and the one who loves and frees us from sin and who is king of kings.  He is the one who makes us a nation of priests – each and every one of us.  We are all called into God’s service.  Jesus is also judge, the one who will come and at his coming all who have rejected him will mourn.  God is the first and the last, all-knowing, almighty, and omnipresent. 

If you didn’t get this all down, review Revelation 1:4-8.  And this week, talk about God and think and pray about how each and every word that’s been spoken about God affects your life.  In thinking about God, orient life upon God.  Fix all your attention on God.  And next week, we will again talk about God.

AMEN

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[i] Susan Eastman, (2009) http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=11/22/2009&tab=3.

John 7:1-13, Jesus and Opposition to the Gospel

If church fails, who wins? If the church is gone completely, who benefits? These questions draw a Christian into consideration of who might oppose the spread of the Gospel of Jesus in the world. Who are the opponents of Jesus and His followers, and how do these opponents operate?

John 7:1 says, “Jesus did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him.” Two thousand years of violent anti-Semitism force Bible readers to be very careful with passages like this one. When we read the “the Jews,” we have to understand what we are reading. Where the author of John, (the fourth evangelist) says, “the Jews,” he’s referring to the temple leaders in Jerusalem circa 28 C.E. Jesus was Jewish. All his original disciples were Jewish. Most of the people in the crowds were Jews. And so too were those who opposed him. Stating these facts helps clarify what is said (and is not said) in the fourth Gospel when it says “the Jews.”

The leaders wanted to kill Jesus. I believe the fourth evangelist is accurate in reporting this. I think, and history bears this out, there was in fact a movement to kill Jesus and it ultimately succeeded. However, this account from John benefits Christians today in how the story of Jesus being pursued by the authorities is told. The method of telling the story, what is highlighted and how it is framed, reveals much for us as we follow Jesus in our lives in the 21^st century world.

Many Bible readers and scholars believe John was finally compiled by the Christian community in the city of Ephesus around 90AD. The church or grouping of churches possibly traces their roots back to the Apostle John. Whether what is in John’s Gospel or in the three Johanine epistles or in Revelation was originally written by the apostle cannot be determined. But it is likely that the same community produced in final form all five of these New Testament books, and it is possible that the writers of these books received much of their material from those who knew the apostle personally.

What is more pressing for our reading of how the gospel renders the story of Jesus is the situation in Ephesus in the last decade of the first century. If the composition of the Johanine literature coincides with the reign of Roman Emperor Domitian (81-96), then these Biblical writings were brought together by a church under severe persecution. Rome under Domitian did in fact persecute, exile, and execute people for worshiping Jesus and failing to pronounce Domitian as Lord.

Where the fourth evangelist writes “the Jews” (for example John 7:1, 11, 13), he is referring to Jewish leaders who were out to get Jesus in 28AD. But perhaps, he was also referring to Jews in 90AD who believed in Jesus but insisted that all who become Christians adhere to kosher food laws, undergo circumcision, and observe Sabbath. These Judaizers (see Act 15:1; Galatians 3) did not accept Jesus as perfect fulfillment of the law and the prophets, and they did not accept his death and resurrection as sufficient for righteousness. They believed Jesus was Messiah and they believed he rose from death, but they corrupted the Gospel by imposing restrictions that the early church (see Act 10-11, 15) had removed.

The tension John cites between Jesus and Jewish authorities in Jesus’ time also existed between Jesus’ church and Jewish missionaries in the 90’s. John is using a circumstance from Jesus’ ministry to speak to his own situation.

A second correspondence from roughly 28 AD to roughly 90 AD is a phrase also in John 7:1, “[they] were looking for an opportunity to kill him.” No doubt, Jesus’ life was threatened. Again, history shows that threat became reality in the crucifixion. How much influence the Jewish leaders in Jesus’ day had can be debated. What no one refutes is that Jesus died on a Roman cross at the decision of Roman governor Pilate. The threat of death Jesus faced also became reality for Jesus’ followers shortly after Pentecost (Acts 11:58; 12:2), and again at the end of the century where believers died at the hand of Domitian’s government.

I believe in reading John 7, the members of the Johanine churches in Ephesus in 90AD would clearly see their own life experience and faith experience. The Ephesians church was probably a blend of Jewish, Greek, Asian, and Roman believers. They probably experienced much conflict with some Jews who insisted on keeping Levitical ritual. These Easter Christians resisted the call back to Sabbath observance, and their unwillingness to submit to Judaism let to a divide between them and the Jewish missionaries.

Furthermore, in reading John 7, they would see their own story in seeing Jesus’ careful avoidance of the murderous intentions of the authorities. Jesus had to attend the Festival of booths covertly (John 7:10). Surely, 1^st century Ephesian Christians had to also be secretive to avoid situations that would force them to either renounce Christ or die a martyr’s death. At the same time, they, like Jesus had to engage the cultural world around them in order to carry on daily life and also in order to be a witness that nonbelievers might come to know Jesus and believe and have life in his name (John 20:31).

A third point of correspondence from 28AD to 90 was Jesus twice repeated phrase, “my time has not yet come” (7:6, 8). This sentiment is also heard from Jesus when his mother asks him to intervene in Cana (2:4). The idea in the fourth Gospel is that Jesus is always in control of things. When he says “my time has not yet come,” he means his time of crucifixion. The Gospel of Mark presents a Jesus with limited knowledge (13:32). He didn’t know the time of the final judgment. In John’s Gospel, the narrator and Jesus both seem to have unlimited knowledge. Jesus knows what’s coming before it comes in the fourth gospel. And the narrator is looking back on events and thus has the advantage of hindsight.

It is important to see the effect this would have on the original Johanine readers. If those communities were truly persecuted to the point of death, they need to trust an omnipotent God who, in the big picture, had everything in control. They needed to know that Jesus was more powerful than Domitian even if Jesus submitted, for God’s purposes, to a Roman cross. In John, Jesus says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father" (10:17-18). The Ephesians Christians could die martyrs’ deaths because their Lord Jesus had done so also. But, in the resurrection, he showed, paradoxically that his nonresistance actually led to victory over death, not submission to it. Subsequently, believers in 90AD could hold their ground in their confession, “Jesus is Lord,” and they knew their Lord would provide them with resurrection and eternal life.

The other Gospel writers probably believed in Jesus’ knowledge, authority, and power just as the fourth evangelist did. But, it is emphasized more in John because it spoke directly to the needs of the audience for which it was written. Ephesian Christians butted heads with Jews, were persecuted by the authorities, and were waiting for Jesus to act. They knew in the Gospel “Jesus’ time,” referred to his crucifixion and resurrection. But from their vantage point, 60-70 years after those events, they also waited for “his time,” the Second Coming and the Final Judgment. It had not yet come, though they longed for it, because it was not yet the appropriate time.

Thus we see why the fourth evangelist used three phrases in John chapter 7 the way he used them. “The Jews” (7:1), “looking for an opportunity to kill him” (7:1), and “My time has not yet come” (7:6, 8) each show how the Gospel narrative continued to speak in the life of the late first century church.

How doe the countercultural stance of Jesus speak in the 21^st century church?

(1) Churches must be aware of the enemy. Sin is the ultimate enemy and sin confronts the church when forces in the world act as obstacles to the church’s work of sharing Jesus. Forces in the world can include oppressive governments that restrict evangelistic activity; dominant competing religions that rhetorically attack Christians and try to win nonbelievers to other faiths; ideologies like consumerism, relativism, and individualism that are antithetical to evangelical Christian faith; and, pseudo-Christians who pose as believers but use a Christian façade to advance an un-Christian agenda (like Westboro Baptist Church). The enemy is not “the Jews.” The enemy is the group with power that opposes the advance of Jesus and His Kingdom.

(2) Church must be away of how the enemy kills the church. Jesus was threatened by leaders in Jerusalem who wanted him dead for their own political reasons. He was also tempted by his own brothers who like Satan (Matthew 4:5ff) wanted him to show what he could do at the temple. The Ephesian Church of 90AD was tempted to compromise their allegiance to Jesus by proclaiming that “Domitian is Lord.” Many died because they refused such a compromise. Today, at least in America, the church is killed by relativism and apathy. Relativism suggests that Jesus is one among many gods and that the Christian faith is one expression of religious belief that is no more or no less valid than any other. Apathy is the tendency of Christians to think the call of Christ isn’t a very urgent call. We confess Jesus and go to heaven when we die and between now and then, how we live is inconsequential. That’s apathy and the exact opposite of how the Gospel calls believers to live.

(3) The church of Jesus in Christ in 2011 must recognize the unique call of living between the times – in a time of expectation. Yes, Jesus, died and rose again. Yes, he is coming back to call all who believe in Him into His eternal Heaven to live in the New Earth where the home of God is with people (Revelation 21:1-3). Yes, that day is coming. But we do not know when, and so we accept what the Ephesians believers had to accept nearly 2000 years ago. His time has not yet come. While we wait, we worship the Lord and we share his love and his message of salvation with a lost and hurting world just as our predecessors in the faith have done.

In conclusion, I see the context in which the fourth gospel was compiled as a community of bold faith that challenges 21^st century American middle class Christians. They were able to live in the midst of persecution and to produce John, 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd John, and Revelation because those early believers relied on Jesus. We cannot rely on the security we enjoy as Americans. It ensures that we can vote, speak freely, and live in freedom. But our status as U.S. citizens is no protection against sin and no guarantee of eternal life. Nor is being an American in anyway the same thing as being in partnership with the Lord Jesus. We have to look to Him for our security, our calling, and our purpose in life. And we have to live lives that follow wherever He leads as well as living on His time table.

Doing this may at times set us at odds with the culture around us. If we find that we are doing our best to follow Jesus, and the harder we try, the more we are opposed, then it probably means we are doing something right. The affirmation of the surrounding culture is not our goal. We want to follow Jesus in all things.

AMEN