How Triumphant Is the Triumphant Christ?
part 1

Matthew 21:1-9
Revelation 5:9, 11-13

Matthew 21:1-9 "As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away." This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: "Say to the Daughter of Zion, 'See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'" The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Hosanna in the highest!"

Jesus is not what he appears to be.

Jesus is not what he appears to be. In today's gospel lesson, usually read on Palm Sunday, Jesus appears to be a triumphant King. But what kind of triumphant King is he? Jesus appears, as a successor to Israel's King David, to be on the verge of grasping all the strings of earthly power. The people will follow him and he will, inevitably, be victorious over the legions of Rome. He is the triumphant King that everybody wants, that the Israelites wanted, that we want. We understand this kind of King and this kind of power. But Jesus is not what he appears to be.

Five days passed. For the King who was to die, who was apparently traveling a road from victory to defeat, they were agonizing days of spiritual combat, struggle with the principalities and powers, misunderstood teaching, preaching on judgment, denial, betrayal, and the unfolding of an evil plot that eventually would cost Jesus his life. And there he was, looking to all the world like the worst possible kind of loser. Spit upon. Flogged. Crowned with thorns. Abandoned even by God, it seemed. And crucified. Not even his best friends believed in him anymore. Hiding out in dark rooms, the apostles knew that his defeat, and thus their defeat, was absolute. But, once again, Jesus was not what he appeared to be.

The world, and all whose souls were bound to the world, saw crucifixion as utter defeat. Even the principalities and powers of darkness were also utterly convinced that Jesus was finished. Satan had already begun its demented victory celebration. This was the "final solution" to the problem of justice and love. Crucifixion was checkmate on the King of Glory. And that's exactly how it felt to Peter, Andrew, James and John. They were huddled together for fear. There was no other move. End of game. End of story. End of life. But, in the twist to undo all twists of fate, the crucified and dead Jesus was not what he appeared to be.

History is not what it seems to be.

A Triumphant Christ appears to the seven churches of Asia.

Seventy or so years later, the Christians in the seven churches of Asia had been checked. Defeat was absolute. There was no play to be played. End of game. End of story. End of life. As satan saw the defeat of Jesus, so Rome saw the defeat of the fledgling Christian Churches who were the recipients of the letter we call Revelation. As the apostles saw themselves as utterly defeated, the churches of Asia saw themselves as lost beyond redemption. But, once again, God had a hidden move, another resurrection encounter, an appearance of the Risen Christ to the seven churches of Asia. The letter we call Revelation was not what it appeared to be. To all appearances, it was just words, strange words at that, but in reality Revelation was the perfect vehicle, like a Hummer Stretch Limo, to transport the Risen Lord to persecuted Christians. Satan, by way of the power of Rome to slaughter Christians, thought once again that it had the final solution. All satan really had was another defeat at the hands of the ultimately triumphant Christ.

The ultimately triumphant Christ. He is revealed to us in Revelation in a power and a glory unmatched in the rest of the New Testament. Who is Jesus? Listen:

Revelation 1:5: Jesus is...the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

Revelation 3:14: Jesus is...the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation.

Revelation 5:9: Speaking of Jesus…You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Revelation 5:11-13: Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!" Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped."

Nowhere in the scriptures do you find a more lofty image of God, nor a more triumphant vision of Jesus. He is an unconquerable Lord. He is not only undefeated, He is undefeatable. He will accomplish exactly what He sets out to accomplish. If Jesus intends it, He does it. No force on heaven nor on Earth will stand in the way of the Jesus portrayed in Revelation. Not only death, not only hatred and greed and every form of immorality, not only sin and despair fall to his mighty sword, but also all the principalities and powers of darkness. Acknowledged, they appear to be victorious. But things are not as they appear to be. Acknowledged, Jesus looks to be defeated. But Jesus is not what he appears to be. Acknowledged, you could at any moment be martyred, but your life situation is not what it appears to be. Is there a way for you to see that what appears to be happening in your life is not all that is happening? And members and friends and visitors to the First Baptist Church of Springfield, look around you. How do things appear to you? How are you doing? How is the world doing? How is the church doing? Is there any sin, condemnation, danger, despair, hopelessness, sickness, fear, loneliness, hatred, violence, darkness, death, evil? Life is not what it appears to be. Jesus will not lose. He will not lose anything he sets out to save. We will return to this point in a few minutes and again next week.

Luther & Calvin reject Revelation

I promised you that we would come back to the Protestant Reformers today, notably Martin Luther and John Calvin. To them, the spiritual situation of humanity under the sway of the Roman Catholic Church appeared to be hopeless. Martin Luther personally felt lost. He tried every spiritual technique in the monastic repertoire to make himself worthy of salvation. He tried self-deprivation and self-flagellation. He tried obedience. He tried intellectual achievement and disciplined devotion. Nothing made him feel worthy. He could find no way to cross the gap between his sinfulness and God's holiness. In the form of indulgences, the church Luther served sold salvation to the people. Luther found that way repugnant, but a better way eluded him. Darkness threatened to utterly consume Martin Luther. And then, by the mercy of God, his desperate search through the scriptures brought him face to face with:

Romans 1:17: For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

There is nothing any of us can do to earn righteousness, Luther finally understood. And this revelation lifted a dark cloud from his life and became the doctrinal cornerstone of the Protestant reformation. "Righteousness is by faith from first to last..." Those words of Paul are the scriptural ground for the Doctrine of Justification by grace through faith. John Calvin, who is the theological great grandfather of Baptists, also grounded his wing of the Protestant Reformation in the Doctrine of Justification by Grace through Faith. And Calvin and Luther did not like the book of Revelation. They also did not like the book of James, for essentially the same reasons. Luther and Calvin were a long ways from being fundamentalists. And they were definitely not Biblical literalists. They not only felt free to reject entire books of the Bible, they were honest enough to tell everyone about it.

Martin Luther and John Calvin, our spiritual ancestors, rejected the book of Revelation because they believed its teachings violated the Doctrine of Justification by Grace through Faith, which, please remember, was not only an intellectual construct to Luther and Calvin. To both men it was also a belief that had saved them from the pits of certain damnation. However, in rejecting Revelation I believe they made a very bad mistake. And I hope I can show you why.

First we must understand their position. Revelation has numerous passages, intense and agonizing passages, which seem to contradict the Doctrine of Justification by Grace through Faith by making it extremely clear that every human being will be judged by their works. And that judgment will be harsh and decisive. Listen:

Revelation 20:12-14 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.

Everyone is judged by what they have done. That is what Revelation says over and over again. It is a horrifying fate. And just in case anyone thinks they are going to escape this judgment, Rev. 21:8 gives a list of the sins that could cause any one of us to be excluded from the book of life:

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

Somewhere in that list, I fear, we can all find ourselves. Cowardly. Idolaters. Liars. As human beings our sins are legion but they are also finite. But the punishment in store for us is infinite. Infinite punishment for finite wrongdoing. This is what Revelation says again and again. Each will be judged by what he has done.

Revelation proclaims radical accountability. Nothing we do or say or fail to do or say will pass unnoticed. Before the judgment seat of Christ we will undergo a scorching review of our lives. American Christians will be asked, I believe, not only about our personal sins. We will also be required to defend the destruction of the environment brought about by our greedy consumption; the creation of a permanent class of homeless and poor Americans; unending wars that make no one safe; our toleration of domestic violence against women and children--you add your passionate concerns to this list. The Jesus who gave us fair warning in Matthew 25 that we will be judged by our service to the hungry and the thirsty and the naked and the prisoner and the sick will not be patient with our failure. No excuses will be accepted. Each will be judged by what he has done.

Do you want to be judged by what you have done? Martin Luther and John Calvin wanted nothing to do with such a theology. Is it any wonder that they, and scores of other theologians and pastors and teachers and Christians century after century, have relegated Revelation to the backwaters of the Christian life?

The theological error of those who reject Revelation

But they have, I believe, made a fundamental error caused by a misunderstanding of how John presents his theology. Let me remind you of what I said just before I turned this sermon in the direction of Protestant Reformers, John Calvin and Martin Luther.

"And members and friends and visitors to the First Baptist Church of Springfield, look around you. How do things appear to you? How are you doing? How is the world doing? How is the church doing? Is there any sin, condemnation, danger, despair, hopelessness, sickness, fear, loneliness, hatred, violence, darkness, death, evil? Life is not what it appears to be. Jesus will not lose. He will not lose anything He sets out to save."

"Jesus will not lose. He will not lose anything He sets out to save."

One more time; "Jesus will not lose. He will not lose anything He sets out to save."

Nowhere in all the New Testament is there a greater assurance of salvation than we find in Revelation. Jesus does not lose. The ultimately triumphant Christ sets out to save the Christians in the seven churches of Asia and, by the power of the Lamb of God, they are saved. The ultimately triumphant Christ sets out to save Martin Luther and John Calvin and, by the power of the Lamb of God, they are saved. The ultimately triumphant Christ sets out to save you and me and, by the power of the Lamb of God, we are saved. The Jesus of Revelation does not lose.

Certainly, Calvin and Luther and you and I are accountable before the judgment seat of Christ, for what we do. And, whatever we do, Jesus has us covered.

Is there a contradiction here? On the one hand we hear that it is all up to us, what we do. On the other hand we hear that it is all up to Jesus, what He has done on the cross. On the one hand we are overwhelmed with fear because we cannot be good enough. On the other hand we are overwhelmed with hope because, praise be to God, Jesus is good enough. John says it both ways. John believes that he can have his cake and eat it too. How does he manage this culinary miracle?

John is not a systematic theologian. Rather he is a dialectical theologian. That means that he presents in Revelation different and contrasting and seemingly conflicting images of God and we discover the truth by holding those various images in dynamic tension. John doesn't give us dogma and doctrine. Like Baptists, John of Patmos could never have written a creed. He gives us word pictures, visions, colorful snapshots of reality. It is like the old story of blind men exploring an elephant. One touches the trunk, another the tusk, another a leg and another an ear. Only when they put together their experiences do they come up with anything like an adequate concept of an elephant.

If this seems confusing, well, that is because it is confusing. Hoping to make the matter clearer, my intention is to return to the difference between systematic and dialectical theology at the beginning of next week's sermon. For the moment, please believe me when I say that Revelation and its major themes cannot be understood without at least an elementary grasp of how John does dialectical, not systematic, theology. For today I am going to bring this sermon to a close by introducing an example of why it is so important for us to understand how John speaks. Failure to read Revelation as dialectical theology leads to outrageous beliefs about Jesus and tragic conclusions as to what it means to follow Jesus. You will find these tragedies born out in most popular books and preaching on Revelation.

Jesus--The Prince of Peace or the Warring Christ?

Who is Jesus? Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In the battle between good and evil, what are the weapons of Jesus? The weapons of Jesus are sacrificial love and the Word of God. What do Christians do? They follow this way of sacrificial love and they speak this Word of power. Like Jesus, Christians fight by speaking the word of truth and sacrificing their lives. Yes, there are two times in Revelation, 2:16 and 19:11, that refer to Jesus making war. But the way one "makes war" is crucial. How does Jesus make war on sin, for example? How do we make war on injustice? The answer is right there in chapter 19. Jesus kills his enemies with a two-edged sword coming from his mouth. That is certainly a symbol of power but it is not a symbol of violence. We are familiar with this symbol. Ephesians 6:17 says that the sword of the spirit is the Word of God. Hebrews 4:12 proclaims that the Word of God is sharper than any double edged sword. What are the weapons of Jesus in the battle between good and evil? Sacrificial love and the Word of God. What weapons are Christians to use in the battle between good and evil? Sacrificial love and the Word of God. "By far the most frequent image of Jesus in Revelation is the 'Lamb' who 'conquers' not by killing but by nonviolently giving His life." (G. McLeod Bryan, "The Baptist Peacemaker," Winter, 2005, p. 6)

However, contrast this image of Jesus as the Lamb of God with the images of a violent Jesus in most contemporary Christian literature and preaching on Revelation. For example, there is the War-Lord-Jesus in the all-time best selling Christian novel series, Left Behind, by Tim Le Haye and Jerry Jenkins. These books are very popular and they are very wrong, 100% wrong, in portraying Jesus as a Warring Christ. On page after page, the authors of Left Behind portray Christians as "the army of heaven" attacking the enemies of God and shedding blood. Wrong. Christians oppose evil by identifying with the already shed blood of Jesus who was crucified. The popular interpreters of Revelation, LeHaye and Jenkins, and Hal Lindsey, and many others, are just as wrong about who Jesus will be as everyone was wrong about Jesus the day He rode a donkey into Jerusalem. The people wanted a violent Messiah in the first century to destroy the evil nation of Rome. Le Haye and Jenkins believe we will have a violent Messiah in the future, probably our immediate future, to destroy all the evil non-Christina nations. Totally wrong. Jesus is not a Warrior King. Jesus, in Revelation, comes to save the peoples and the nations, all of them. Jesus does not lose. Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, is and will be nothing like they want Him to be.

Conclusion: What to do with the violence?

I would like to change our closing hymn this morning. While we are singing, I would like you to think about the message of this hymn. Is it a call to violence, a call to arms and swords and bombs and whatever violent forces are necessary to defeat evil? Or can the hymn be heard as a call to spiritual warfare against evil and injustice using the weapons of self-sacrifice and the Word of God? Should Christians leave the violent images and hymns and scriptures behind? Should we X out of our religious tradition all references to war and violence and fighting and battles and conquering? Or would it be the better strategy to accept the fact that we are fighting a war, a war that can only be won with the right weapons, the Word and the sacrificial love of Jesus?

For those of you who would like to explore further articles and books that challenge the popular understanding of violence and a war-mad Jesus in Revelation, I have made copies of a couple of articles that are on the table at the back of the sanctuary.

Let us close our service with the singing of "Onward Christian Soldiers," # 617.

Revelation unfolds.

Amen.