If you think it s easy to make yourself understood, or to understand others, then

Transcription

1 Revelation 22:12-20 Final Words If you think it s easy to make yourself understood, or to understand others, then you ve never stood on a street corner in Madrid and asked for directions, or in Kingston, Jamaica, where they even speak English for goodness sake, or perhaps even parts of Louisiana. Or if you think it s so simple to express your thoughts in a meaningful way, you have never preached a funeral sermon. I am amazed every time someone comes to me after a eulogy I have preached and says how my words were comforting or appropriate. I am surprised whenever one of you tells me the Sunday sermon was good or helpful. I don t say this to try too convince you that my job is so difficult, but just to say that communication is difficult, even between the very best of friends. I do have some philosophical ideas about how communication happens, but it is remarkable that I am able to accomplish it: in my little mind the ideas I wish to express seem complex, but my words feel so very inadequate. Author and former talk-show host Dick Cavett several years ago published his rules for effective communication. It was mostly for fun, rules like try to have at least one language in common, or try to be in the same room with the person you are talking to. The rules were humorous, but true, because we hear and

2 interpret differently. Words are just words, after all, and we attach our own meaning to them; so how can we know the real meaning behind them? The first requirement must be a desire on the part of the speaker to be clear and on the part of the hearer to understand. But if you were writing a strange and complex religious or literary work, like Revelation, what words would you want to use to make certain your reader gets the main point? As confusing as this last book in the Bible is, I think the ending- these verses I have just read- will help us understand the rest of it- maybe not every little bit of it, not every metaphor and symbol, but at least, understand the purpose of the book. So if this scripture is the author s last statement, I think he would want it to be the truth. That is why it is important to him that no one change what he has written. What we can read on these final pages of the New Testament are true, they can and should be believed because he has witnessed all the eerie and scary and hopeful events of Revelation. Time and again he writes, dozens of times, I saw and I heard. The Holy Spirit shows him the visions, and the truth of Jesus Christ is revealed. It is important that the original readers of Revelation believe the truth of his words so they can be assured of the Lord s power and his love for them amidst the troubles they were facing.

3 Many people have tried to comprehend the words of this book, people smarter than I am, and people who have studied and struggled with the visions and mysteries of Revelation more than I have. And some of their insights are helpful, and some are not. I think many people are no closer to the truth contained in this book than the rest of us because they begin at the wrong place. They probably take seriously this warning in verses 18 and 19 not to add to or take away from the words of the book, and so think that Revelation is the final word for all time, the complete foretelling of the end of time; and do not think we need any more information about the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ. But if we start there, there is one very significant point we do miss: historical context. We must start remembering that it was written to a particular people, or group, at a particular place and time. On Friday, Marilyn Ankenbauer and I were talking about her Old Testament reading from Haggai, and I told her that I had edited that reading, taking out such names as Zerubbabel and Shealtiel and Jehozadak. It is something I often do, if the reading can still be clearly understood, if the editing does no damage to the meaning of the passage. But in one respect the meaning of scripture is almost always affected by editing it: by removing these names I have taken the reading

4 from Haggai out of its historical context. Haggai did not preach to us, he preached to those people of Judah in the time of Zerubbabel and Shealtiel and Jehozadak, and it is our task to try to understand what it meant to them and so apply the words of the prophet to our situation today. It is the same in the book of Revelation. It has a historical context: written to the seven churches of Asia, churches in cities within about 200 hundred miles of one another. Revelation is not the definitive word to every community of faith in every age, it is a word of hope and encouragement and correction to these churches struggling against false teaching and persecutions, to make sure they know that the Lord is with them so they can overcome these temptations, and know that he is coming and bringing joy and peace and victory. Revelation was written for these people who lived in Western Turkey about 1900 hundred years ago- it is relevant for us today, and instructive for us, but it isn t literally true for us in the 21 st century. It was not even literally true for them, either- just look at the descriptions of the beasts and the people of the book; it is a book of symbols and hidden meanings. So, here is the point of Revelation, which we find in the final words of the book. It is an affirmation of the victory of Jesus our Lord, a victory that is shown

5 on these pages as coming at the end of days when the new heaven and the new earth are brought forth; but it is a victory that comes to the faithful of the Lord at all the different end-times of all the tribes and nations, when their world seems to turn upside down, and the foundations give way, and every confidence is destroyed, until the only thing left is the might and love of God; and that is the real victory that comes to us, as members of Christ s church, as we battle against the dragons and demons and plagues that beset us today. These beasts and these trials may not have come up from the darkest abyss of hell, as the Revelation has it, but rather may be the temptation to accede to the whims of a culture that in very subtle ways condones prejudice and injustice and violence against people and the earth, all the while justifying itself and looking for others to blame. For we may often think we have our lives put pretty solidly together, but the truth is, to quote the author in chapter 2, that those who think so highly of themselves are really wretched, poor, blind and naked. And we need to know that truth about ourselves, that we are nothing without the Lord who comes to us. It is important to understand what the Lord is saying to us today in these old writings; to help us trust in the one who is coming, so that we do not give up hope;

6 to cause us to remember that his dwelling place is with us (21:3) even if we suffer; even while we hurt or worry or suffer for his sake, still he is with us. The final word in our passage is this, Come Lord Jesus. It is a confession of confidence in our Lord that he is what we are not, has done what we could not, and by coming makes everything well. It is a word we speak now, if this is our last hour or have many years yet before us, for we believe not just that he is coming, but that he has come. And meets us here at the table. We come back to the meaning of our words. Jesus says, Behold, I am coming soon. What is the definition of those words, Coming soon? It s been something like 1980 years since he left. Did he come and we somehow missed it? Scripture tells us that can t be- that every eye shall see him when he returns. When Jesus comes back in the clouds, I think that will be a great occasion for those who have been faithful to him, but I like to think he is always coming. One writer has it that he comes like ants at a picnic. He doesn t let us alone, he wants to be with us and so, keeps coming, so that he will be there to meet us when we are ready to welcome him. When we come to our personal end-time, our time of hurt or hopelessness- the end of our possibilities, where he can show us the

7 possibilities of his perfect love; can show us who he is and how he cares for us and how he will never forsake us, will never leave us alone.