What and Who They Heard

Revelation 1:1-20

"Hearing Revelation Through the Ears of the Martyrs."

The book of Revelation is a letter that was written to Christians in specific churches in Asia Minor near the end of the first century. When those Christians met to worship and break bread in the home of one of the members, the letter was read aloud. How did they react to this public reading that took at least forty-five minutes? You need to know this; there is absolutely no reason for you to bother with the book of Revelation if you do not know this critical fact. They did not get bored. They listened with an attention and a desperation that you and I can scarcely imagine. If you miss this point everything else I tell you about Revelation will seem to be nonsense. Without the revelation of Jesus that was given to 1st Century Asian Christians in the letter from John of Patmos, the letter we call Revelation, these Christians could only see themselves as dead meat. That is not a metaphor. They were dead meat. They were cannon fodder. That is a metaphor. They were lunch for hungry lions. Again, not a metaphor, a fact. Their infants, wrapped in sheep's clothes, were dinner for ravenous dogs as crowds roared their blood thirsty approval. Not a metaphor. A fact. Every one of these Christians knew that they could, at any moment, be martyred. Their families, already living a perilous existence, could be bereft of a father or mother or both. They were, literally, dead meat, and they were without hope, period, the end of the story, unless, unless, unless...

…Jesus is alive.

If Jesus is alive for them as he was alive for the 12 apostles on the Sea of Galilee or the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, there yet might be hope. If the resurrected Christ reigns, not only in heaven, but also on Earth, there may yet be hope. If Jesus is right here and right now piloting us safely through the murky and turbulent waters of our lives, there may yet be hope. If there is an unconquerable Jesus, a Jesus who reigns in power and glory, we may yet be saved. What the Christians in the churches of Asia received from a public reading of John's letter was a resurrection encounter with the Risen Lord. After forty-five minutes to an hour of listening to John's letter, they were anything but bored. They were, rather, restored, hopeful, powerful, focused on facing whatever the future held--including the possibility of being dead meat-because on the treacherous road of their lives they, like apostles before them on the Emaeus Road, they had encountered the risen Christ.

I encourage you, in the coming week, to find an hour within which you can listen to the book of Revelation. Some of you have tapes of the Bible. Listen to Revelation. Or read it aloud to yourself. See if you can hear what those Christians heard and believe what they believed.

"Prophecy does not equal prediction"

Before beginning to directly address the book of Revelation I need to share some thoughts about the more general topic of Biblical prophecy. In the strict sense, Revelation is not a prophetic book, like Isaiah or Jeremiah in the Old Testament. Revelation is an Apocalyptic book. Later in this sermon series I will take the time to be very clear about the difference. But I have to talk about Biblical prophecy at the beginning of this sermon series because most popular interpretations of Revelation say that it is prophecy and the most popular understanding of prophecy is that it means "prediction". The prophet predicts the future. By way of divinely given foresight, most Christians believe, the prophet is able to speak of events years, centuries or even millennia in the future. And, although it may not be easy to unlock the meaning of prophecy, you can do it if you have the right key. Biblical scholars of every age, including our own, have claimed to have the key. In our historical era these wise men from the west have written many books, selling millions of copies, because millions of Christians are convinced these authors have found the key to predict our future. They are entirely wrong.

The self-understanding of the Hebrew prophets was that they were engaged primarily in forth-telling and not foretelling. They spoke forth, forthrightly, the Word of the Lord. They were honest interpreters of the signs of the times, often provoking the wrath of religious and political authorities who did not want to hear their, "Thus sayeth the Lord!" The prophets were engaged in the enterprise of helping their people to live by the light of God's word. Their value to us is not in predicting events in our world but in pressing us to also live by the light of God's word. As the Prophet Micah spoke forth, "What does God require of us? To do justice, love loyally, walk humbly with God." There is no prediction here. There is ultimate truth.

One reason Christians have trouble with this understanding of Biblical prophecy is that we take it for granted that the Hebrew Scriptures predicted both the arrival and the mission of Jesus. They predicted, it is said, his virgin birth, his birth in Bethlehem, his entrance into Jerusalem on a mule, and his suffering and death on a cross. All were foretold, predicted, in Bible passages such as Isaiah 42.1-3, Isaiah 61.1-2, Hosea 11.1, Zechariah 9.9, Zechariah 12.10. Anyone with the correct key would have known who and what the Messiah would be and exactly when and where he was coming.

To question this assumption might seem like theological suicide, but the pursuit of truth is sometimes a dangerous venture. Doesn't it seem strange to you that no one, absolutely no one, had that key when it came to the birth of Jesus? No Biblical scholars made it to the Bethlehem stable on the first Christmas Eve. Only destitute shepherds, inspired by an angel, and Mary and Joseph, guided by dreams, were there. No great politicians, no soothsaying authors, none among the great and the wise knew when and where the Messiah would come and who he would be. And everyone who thought they knew a lot about who he would be was absolutely wrong. They expected a warrior Messiah from the line of King David, and they got a Baby born in a manger who became a suffering servant Messiah. The supposed experts could not have been more wrong.

It is only in retrospect that the prophetic details of the Old Testament help us to know who Jesus is. We know that Jesus is the suffering servant spoken of by the Prophet Isaiah, but as Jesus began to live out that destiny, no one knew, and none of his close associates approved what he was doing. Only after Jesus came and lived and died and lived again did the people of God, for example the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, have the key-Jesus himself-for interpreting the Old Testament.

There is no mysterious key to unlock the Book of Revelation so as to predict the future. People who attempt to do what God says cannot be done are departing the realm of faith and entering dangerously into the realm of magic and sorcery. They want to:

Be like God, knowing the unknowable--didn't a couple of somebodies called Adam and Eve try that once before?

They want to demystify the mystifying and control the uncontrollable.

If time permitted, and my research skills were far superior to what they are, we could trace such superstitious efforts from the beginning of the Christian era right into our own time. In all cases, no matter what the century, all of these efforts to know the unknowable have one thing in common. They are appealing to the same human interest that keeps fortune tellers and mediums and psychics in business. The need to know the future is not a strength of human beings. It is one of our easily preyed upon weaknesses. Those of you who are interested can trace the results of that weakness through two thousand years of false interpretation and teaching of the book of Revelation, right into our own times and right on to all the Christian best seller lists.

It is now as it has been from the beginning. The Father is still not telling. There is no mysterious prophetic key. "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." (Mt. 24:36) Information on the last days is relegated by God to the realm of mystery. That is where it belongs. God put it there, I suspect, for a very good reason. God doesn't want us to know. How much clearer must God get before His children will trust God and leave the magical stuff alone?

There are, however, two valid uses of Biblical prophecy. One I have already mentioned The Old Testament prophecies had no predictive value for Jews before the birth of Jesus. They had enormous value to Christians after Jesus had lived and died and lived again. They helped to prove and to teach others that Jesus was who he said he was. It is all there in the Old Testament, but until Jesus came there was no key to unlock the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus himself was and is the key.

The second use of Biblical Prophecy--in addition to revealing who Jesus was, in retrospect, the prophecy in the Old Testament created a sense of urgency and expectation and hope that compelled the Jews to look for a Messiah and allowed some of them to see him in the person of Jesus. This function of prophecy is similar to the function of the words of Jesus in Matthew 25.13. "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour." Prophecy exhorts us to watchful waiting and gives us hope, especially in difficult times, that the waiting will not be for naught.

"What is Revelation?"

Reviewing a few thoughts, Revelation, in the technically correct sense of the word, is not a prophetic book like Isaiah and Micah and Jeremiah. Revelation is, rather, an Apocalyptic book, like much of Daniel, and like a few brief passages in the gospels. We will return to the nature and content of Apocalyptic literature in a few weeks. If one forgets the kind of literature Revelation is, a letter written in an apocalyptic style, it is easy to forget that Revelation is not, primarily, about the future. It is not primarily about our historical times. It is not, primarily, about the end times. Its primary message is for the times in which it was written. If we try to understand the book without first understanding what it meant to the author who wrote it and the people who heard it read, then we are holding this portion of the scriptures, as well as its author and its martyred readers, in unholy contempt. The meaning of the book of Revelation is not an elusive mystery available to only someone with a magical key. There is a powerful and a critical word of the Lord to us in the book of Revelation but we will not hear that word until we come to the text on its terms and not our own, until we understand as fully as possible its meaning to the churches and Christians to whom it was addressed. Remember, unlike you and I, their lives were on the line. We are very very comfortable. They were about to be dead meat. They were willing to die for what they believed. Let us pay them the honor-we must pay them the honor--of being willing to hear what they heard as they heard John's letter to the seven churches of Asia.

It has been very common for churches and Christians to refuse to hear what they heard and learn what they learned. Revelation has been controversial in the church from the day it was written. It was regularly and severely abused by various Christian sects. For example, second-century Christian leader, Montanus, wrongly predicted that the New Jerusalem would descend from the sky upon the town of Pepuza. Such abuse of Revelation caused it to fall into disrepute among "mainline" Christians. It was not the last time the book would be rejected because of its misuse by false friends. Revelation barely made it into the New Testament. Reformer Martin Luther kept it in his Bible but denied it functional canonical status because he believed it was theologically inadequate. John Calvin agreed with Luther and neither of them wrote much about the book. Most progressive American Baptists have inherited their theological predisposition to simply dodge Revelation.

The Protestant reformers believed so strongly in the doctrine of Salvation by Grace through faith that they could not tolerate a book that places so much emphasis on good works. To this day, Catholic and Protestant lectionaries have very few readings from Revelation. On the other hand, other great Christian thinkers throughout the centuries have found "Revelation to measure up to its canonical role of providing direction and sustenance for the church's life and mission, especially in extraordinary times." (Revelation, Boring, p. 3) The American Baptist founder of the Social Gospel movement, Walter Rauschenbusch, found the sense of urgency and expectation he needed for the Christian life from the book of Revelation.

I believe that there is in Revelation a word our world must hear if we and our church are to find our way into God's future. I did not always believe that. Having once been of one mind with Luther and Calvin on the book of Revelation--that it should never have made it into the Bible--I now thank God that God's wisdom is infinitely greater than mine. Were we to continue to ignore, or, on the other side, to abuse, Revelation, we might miss altogether a Word of God that has the power to make all things new in our lives.

I hope some of the rest of you will join me in changing your minds about Revelation. I would say that the majority of Christians in churches like First Baptist Springfield have never taken Revelation seriously. And of those who have tried to take it seriously, most have been influenced by points of view that I believe do not respect the text, its author and its original readers. Some of you may disagree vehemently with what I will be preaching about Revelation. That disagreement is extremely important, because it will help us to stand firmly within the experience of the Christian church which, repeatedly in its 2000 year history, has hotly debated the meaning and importance of the last book of the Bible.

I would encourage you, as you try to evaluate the truth of what I am preaching, to use the right key to unlocking the meaning of Revelation. But didn't I say there is no magical or mathematical key to interpreting Revelation? Yes, there is no magical key. But there is the key of Jesus. The Christian faith is about, in a word, Jesus. Revelation is about, in a word, Jesus. Read and remember:

Revelation 1:1 "The revelation of Jesus Christ...,"

What does Revelation reveal? Revelation reveals Jesus. When you read Revelation with an open mind and heart, Jesus will be revealed to you. You will have a resurrection encounter with Jesus. The best way to judge the validity of what I have to say about Revelation is to ask yourself if my interpretation reveals or obscures Jesus. In the final analysis, that is the only question that matters. When these sermons have been preached, will you know Jesus better than you knew Him before? Will you be more convicted than before that you must be about His business and not your own? Will you know more about his power and glory and majesty? Will you know that Jesus is, or can be, the triumphant Christ in your life?

"Jesus as the Triumphant Christ to the First Century Christians"

Jesus had to be the triumphant Christ in the lives of the first century Christians, otherwise they were, as I have said, dead meat. That phrase, dead meat, may offend some of you. I keep using it to make it very difficult for us to avoid the severity of their predicament. To deepen our understanding, listen please to a letter from Pliny, the governor of Bithynia (the province just north of Asia) to the Roman Emperor Trajan, early in the second century.

"I have made it a rule, Lord, to refer everything to you about which I am in doubt....

I have never been present at the interrogation of Christians. Therefore, I do not know how far such investigations should be pushed, and what sort of punishments are appropriate. I have also been uncertain as to whether age makes any difference..., whether repentance and renunciation of Christianity is sufficient, or whether the accused are still considered criminals because they were once Christians....

In the meantime, I have handled those who have been denounced to me as Christians as follows: I asked them whether they were Christians. Those who responded affirmatively I have asked a second and third time, under the threat of the death penalty. If they persisted in their confession, I had them executed. For whatever it is that they are actually advocating, it seems that obstinacy and stubbornness must be punished in any case....

Those who denied being Christians now or in the past, I thought it necessary to release, since they invoked our gods according to the formula I gave them and since they offered sacrifices of wine and incense before your image....I also had them curse Christ. It is said that real Christians cannot be forced to do any of these things....

I considered it all the more necessary to obtain by torture a confession of the truth from two female slaves, whom they called "deaconesses." I found nothing more than a vulgar superstition....The plague of this superstition has spread not only in the cities, but through villages and countryside. I believe a stop can be made and a remedy provided....Improvement can be made in the masses, when one gives room for repentance." (Boring, p. 14)

What choice did the Christians have? Faced with the possibility of being martyrs, we can only imagine how passionately the Christians, gathered at a church meeting, debated their options. They had the following choices. As you listen to them, consider which of these choices were acceptable to the author of Revelation:

1) They could quit. Some Christians chose this way out, with a lot more reason for quitting than many Christians I have known. They had joined to receive life, not to sacrifice it.

2) They could lie. A good "situation ethics" case was made for not throwing life needlessly away. The Romans did not understand the way of Christ. Why die for a misunderstanding? To lie was certainly a lesser evil than to abandon children, spouse and neighbors.

3) They could fight. But what chance did they have?

4) They could protest and change the law. You and I could protest and change the law. But these Christians had zero political and economic power.

5) They could adjust, absorb Christianity into the culture so that it was not so threatening. Christian theology could be rethought to include emperor worship.

6) They could die. John, the author of Revelation, believed this was the only viable choice.

But how were the Christians to know what was right? Jesus was not there to tell them how they were to live and to die in this new historical situation. What was the word for the Lord to a church where the members could, at any moment, become dead meat?

This is where our earlier discussion on the meaning of prophecy becomes critical to the interpretation of Revelation. The prophets of Israel believed that God communicated with them. John of Patmos believed that God communicated with him. God chooses individuals whose authority is not common sense, human experience, religious tradition and not even the interpretation of scripture. Rather, the prophet is given a direct word of the Lord. Christian prophets were men and women who spoke the message of the risen Christ directly to the churches. John spoke such a direct word from Jesus. And that word from Jesus was the word, the only word, that could give Christians the certainty and courage to die for their faith. As they heard the reading of John's letter in their worship service, Jesus was standing there with them. Jesus, and only Jesus, could sustain them in their tribulation.

"Jesus as the Triumphant Christ for Us"

What is my calling as a preacher? What is my number one task? It is to help you to know Jesus, because it is Jesus who saves. I think it would be easier for me if all of us were threatened with martyrdom. After all, who needs Jesus when you have as much political and economic power as we do, when you live as comfortably as we live? In a democracy we can work to change the laws. If all else failed, we could fight. Instead of religious persecution, we have religious freedom. Which makes Jesus more appealing, freedom or persecution? Freedom gives us the illusion that we can take care of our own lives. Persecution gives us no other choice but to turn to Jesus. When we truly hear Revelation through the ears of first century Christians we are forced to consider whether or not we have a need for Jesus as great as their need. We are forced to consider the situation of our world and ask whether or not our world needs Jesus as much as their world.

My perception of the human predicament, both of individuals and our world, is that our need for Jesus is urgent and extreme. A vital Christian faith has never been more threatened than it is in America today. The enemies to Christ centered faith that takes the Bible seriously are legion. The crisis is real. False gods, addictions, materialism, militarism, the pursuit of personal pleasure and power, are legion. The peace is threatened to extinction. Justice and righteousness are not flowing like Amos' "never-failing stream." (Amos 5:24) Instead they are dammed by a staggering greed. And only Jesus can save us. So next Sunday be listening for the answer to the question, "How Triumphant is the Triumphant Christ?" Is He triumphant never, sometimes or always? Does Jesus accomplish none, some, or all of what He sets out to do? Is He the savior of none, some or all of God's children? The answer is found in Revelation like it is found nowhere else in the Bible.

The revelation unfolds…

Amen.