April 7, 2013 – Revelation 1:4-8
Revelation 1:4-8
Two Places at the Same Time
Second Sunday of Easter – April 7, 2013
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
I’m gonna preach on the Book of Revelation this Easter.
But before I do that, let’s get one thing straight.
This is not a kooky book.
This is not a scary book.
I am aware that Goethe called it the “Judas of the New Testament.”
I am also aware that Luther said, “My spirit cannot abide this book.”
Thomas Jefferson thought it “the ravings of a lunatic,”
while George Bernard Shaw thought it “a curious record of the vision of a drug addict.”
Okay: not sure what it says about me that I preach on it pretty much every time it comes up.
Whatever.
This is not a kooky scary book; okay: maybe a little kooky. But not scary.
This is a book full of hope, and full of good news.
Our Paschal or Easter Candle up here by the font was lit last Sunday and
will remain lit throughout the 50 days of Easter.
It represents the presence of the risen Christ among us in our assembly.
It represents Christ standing among us in all his shining, risen glory.
Inscribed on this candle are the alpha and omega that
John talks about in the first verses of Revelation.
Alpha and omega are the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet.
To call God the alpha and omega means that God is the first and the last.
God is the beginning and the end.
God brackets all our life from beginning to end and
outside God’s love for us there is nothing greater.
God was, God will come, and most importantly God is right now.
John calls his letter an “apocalypse,” or, in English, “revelation.”
Now, I know apocalypse sounds like a scary word.
But let me make it less scary for you.
It means “unveiling” in Greek, to pull the curtain back on something,
to get a glimpse of reality, of what is really going on “behind the curtain.”
You know how at the end of the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy pulls the curtain back on
the wizard and you see who is really running the show?
That’s an apocalypse, an unveiling, a revelation of reality, of what really is.
Just so: John says he received an “apocalypse” or a “revelation” or
an “unveiling” of Jesus Christ: he was given a vision that showed him
what is truly going on in the universe.
John was in exile on the Island of Patmos, an island in the Aegean Sea.
Well, he wasn’t really in exile: he was in prison for worshipping Jesus instead of Caesar,
and for claiming that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.
Patmos is not a good place to be.
But it was while he was in jail on the island of Patmos that he received a vision.
And the vision transported him someplace else.
The vision pulled the curtain back on reality.
The vision showed him that he was not only in prison on the island of Patmos.
The vision happened, he says, “on the Lord’s day,” in other words, “Sunday.”
The vision happened on the day of Christian worship.
And the vision showed him he was not only in prison on the island of Patmos.
The vision showed him he was also “in the spirit,” he says.
His worship on Sunday on the island of Patmos connects him with what is
really going on in the universe all the time.
His Sunday worship connects him with what is going on in heaven,
where Jesus is reigning as Lord, and Caesar is not,
where Jesus is being worshipped by the multitudes and Caesar is not.
His Sunday worship transports him to the real world,
the world where loves reigns and not hatred,
the world where generosity reigns and not greed,
the world where forgiveness reigns and not vengeance.
John, it turns out, is in two places at the same time.
Now normally we think it is not possible to be in two places at the same time.
How lovely that would be, we think.
Now, I know that none of you would rather be anywhere else this morning,
and that is as it should be, particularly in John’s way of thinking.
But wouldn’t it be nice to be at school and at the same time be snug in bed?
Wouldn’t it be divine to be at work and at the same time be on beach in Tahiti?
And yet, for John, it’s possible.
He’s in his prison, and that is not a good place to be.
But he also recognizes he is at the same time in a much different place,
a much truer place: he is worshipping Jesus who is enthroned in heaven with
the multitudes on Sunday morning.
From his Patmos location, it looks as if Caesar is reigning and as if Caesar has won,
for Caesar has indeed put John there.
But from his heavenly location “in the spirit,” it turns out that Jesus and his love have won.
The final victory, it turns out, has already been won.
In God’s raising Jesus from the dead, Jesus has been enthroned as the victor over all the forces of
death and destruction that assailed John and his communities and that assail us.
Jesus is the alpha and omega, and Caesar is not.
The long and short of what is revealed to John is this:
The victory has already been won and is being celebrated by God’s entourage in heaven.
(Krodel, Revelation, 48)
That is good news. That is very good news.
But the even better news for John and for us is this:
Jesus and his love are reigning not only in heaven now,
but are also ruling here, now, on John’s island and in our assembly on Sunday morning.
John writes his letter and addresses it to the seven churches in western Turkey with which
he was familiar.
And he does so not to scare them,
or to make them wonder about his sanity,
or to get them to speculate on
what kind of psychedelic drugs they were selling on Patmos.
No: he wrote it to them to encourage them in Sunday worship so that they could
keep their focus on God and on the true reality beyond the nuisances of everyday life.
He wrote it because their lives often reflected how they lived only in one place:
the place where Caesar reigned.
He wrote it because they often were living only in the places of their dark prisons.
He wrote it because they often couldn’t see past those prisons to anything greater or beyond.
Well: we can relate to that, right?
Many of us who come this morning are in a Patmos of our own.
And that Patmos may well be a prison for us of some kind.
It may be the prison of something that happened in our past and that has left us scarred.
It may be the prison of an addiction.
It may be the prison of grief or it may be the prison of sickness.
It may be the prison of apathy or it may be the prison of shyness or
it may be the prison of despair.
It may even be the prison of anger or of judgmentalism or of greed.
But the good news is, that like John, and like John’s communities,
we can have our vision . . . expanded.
We can have our vision extended to see that there is more to reality than these things.
We are not only in Patmos: we are also “in the Spirit.”
We need not be slaves to these lesser things: the love of the one on the throne can
free us to serve him and free us to serve one another in love and in perfect freedom.
The good news is that the victory of love has already been won in the resurrection.
The good news is that Jesus is already reigning, right now, in our assembly, in our worship.
The good news is that while you may be in Patmos, you also are in the spirit. Right now.
For our Sunday morning worship joins us with what is already and always going on in the spirit.
The curtain has been pulled back.
Manna-sharing wins. Mercy-giving wins. Justice-doing wins. Peace-making wins.
That is the good news this morning.
Worship at First Lutheran Church is a great privilege.
When you come through those doors on Sunday morning, you are not escaping the real world.
You are entering the real world.
You enter here a world of beauty, where the beauty of the natural world is reflected in
The loveliness of wood, colour, light, and grace,
Where living things grow and are cared for.
Where we have the opportunity to join our voices together in song.
Okay: after last night, I’m thinking that in order to be totally complete,
We should add some dancing to our liturgical repertoire: I’m thinking . . . foxtrot!
Nevertheless, here the gift of words are treated with great care, here food is treated with holiness,
here the sharing of that food is a sacred act.
Here the elements of the earth like water are treated with dignity.
And wondrously this is a place where every person is acknowledged and included and respected
and greeted during worship with warmth and peace and love.
This is not kooky, or eccentric, or an escape:
this is what reality is meant to be: this is what is ultimately real.
There is a breeze blowing through worship at First Lutheran:
it is the breeze of the Holy Spirit of love: it is more real than Caesar and his world.
It reflects the victory of Jesus and his love and it reflects reign of mercy and justice.
This worship is a real gift, and let us never take it for granted.
Instead, let us take it with us when we leave to those places of the world that need it,
so that when we leave, we can continue to be in two places at the same time.
This is great news for this morning.
But, let’s face it, it is also challenging news.
It was for John’s communities. And it is for our community.
For John is not only proclaiming good news to us in this Revelation,
he is also exhorting us to give our allegiance to the one who is truly reigning.
He is challenging us not to compromise with the powers of Caesar: greed, might, death,
apathy, threat, intimidation, and vengeance.
Instead, he is challenging us to worship Christ and his lamb power, the power of
mercy, service, concern for the vulnerable, the power of love.
So: you can be two places at the same time. And that is good news.
As one of Thanksgivings at Table has it,
you are both inhabitants of earth and citizens of the commonwealth of heaven.
You are a steward of the earth, and a member of the nation of God.
You are sitting by the hospital bed and you are also a priest of the kingdom of God.
You are visiting someone in prison and you are also a member of God’s nation.
So the next time you find yourself ruled by the seeming powers of this world –
grief, death, sickness, addiction, and despair – remember:
you can be two places at the same time.
Remember that you are also “in the spirit,” and that right now you are living and breathing in
a realm in which love, hope, peace, generosity and care are reigning.
At our table, you will enter into this realm and participate in it, and join “in the spirit” in
what is in fact going on in heaven right now according to John’s reckoning,
according to what his pulling back the curtain has revealed.
As Christians, we are in both places at the same time.
That is our glory, and that is also our challenge.
But this is what it means to worship one whom God has raised from the dead,
the alpha, and the omega, the one who is, the one who was, and the one who is to come.
So together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
