Fourth Sunday of Easter

30:19 members pastors and it is just a joy to be with you week by week it is a joy if you have arrived though i wonder i wonder if you would turn to your neighbor and just say congratulations you made it to worship. you made it indeed oh somebody's clapping out there yeah that's right that's the energy would you pray with me oh god we ask that you would send your holy spirit to wash over us that either through these words or despite them that your word would be heard this morning and all of God's people said amen amen a friend of mine once described the book of revelation the book that we will open momentarily as something of a closet I think you know the kind of closet that I'm talking about.

31:29 It's that closet that maybe is in your home just like it is in mine. It's that closet that has a habit of building up more and more and more and more things over time. Some items in this closet might be precious.

31:49 Others may be less so. And when the company is coming over, that's the closet that we just say, oh, just throw it in the closet. But maybe it's also when you're looking for that really important thing that you need right now. Maybe it's that closet that you look and you say, oh, I bet it's in the closet. it's that kind of closet that has a bit of a gravitational pull and you don't even realize it until eventually it is overflowing and you just say whatever you do don't open the closet perhaps it holds the treasures that you have been looking for but maybe it's just not really a project that you feel like you can tackle right now think of all the weird and unexpected stuff that just might fall out of there how embarrassing and unearthing those treasures might just require a kind of archaeological expedition that's just not in the cards for you.

32:59 My friend says that the book of Revelation is something like this. Maybe we know that its theology is profound. Maybe we know that there is something special there waiting for us. That Christ is there. If only we would just pull out our shovels and start digging. but is that really in the cards for us think of all that mythic that fiery that weird stuff that just might fall out if we opened its chapters saints let's let's open it let's see what we'll find a reading from revelation chapter five

36:28 revelation is an amazing exceedingly strange book in the year 1522 martin luther one of our spiritual forefathers he opened a commentary on this book of revelation by saying that within it christ was neither taught nor known for the young reformer this text was something of a fever dream, but it wasn't a coherent picture of the gospel.

37:05 And yet what is interesting about the young Martin Luther is that just years later, that 1522 commentary was written, is that Luther's life would turn upside down, that he would grow into more and more of an outcast in the eyes of the world. The Roman Catholic Church, they would excommunicate him. They would deem him a heretic. There would be peasant revolts that threatened his physical safety. He developed chronic illnesses. And eventually his own movement, that Protestant movement, would turn against him, thinking that he was really not revolutionary enough. Indeed, if you don't die the hero, it is easier to live as the villain. And the rebel, this rebel Martin Luther, would experience a rebellion of his own kind. And so only eight years later, after that first commentary was written, Luther would open up the pages of the book of Revelation a second time. And this time, his whole life had changed, even though not much time had passed. And in this book, a now political and theological exile, he found a new source of hope. He would write these words. He would say our holiness, our purpose, our fulfillment in this text is rooted in heaven, not before the eyes of the world.

38:55 So let this world do what it can, Luther would say, with its offenses and its grievances, its heresies, its faults. And even amidst the worst, amidst the plagues and the beasts and the evil angels, well, Christ is nonetheless present with his saints. Christ has won the final victory. you see it was only it was only after luther's world was turned upside down that these vivid stories began to make sense to him i i wonder if when you think of the book of revelation maybe you think about i don't know rem's 1980s classic it's the end of the world as we know it and yet the Greek word for revelation is the word apocalypsis. Apocalypsis. And it doesn't have anything to do with the end of the world really at all. The word simply means to unveil or to remove something that is covering something else. Maybe that first time in your own life when the the scales fell from your eyes and you beheld the truth for the first time, that, my friends, is apocalypsis.

40:24 That is revelation. And this book, well, it was written to a fledgling Christian community that the Roman Empire in the year 100 was desperately trying to stamp out. you see rumors of this this jesus figure had captivated the hearts and the minds of of the people who lived in the roman empire which once was just a small band of of crazy folk was now a a serious threat you see in a small town like rome the affections of the people well they can only belong to one lord and if jesus is lord then that means that caesar that mighty that glorious that that wealthy caesar well he's not and what we read this morning this this strange and fabulous scene of the whole earth praising this this creature that looks like a lamb it is the central claim that rocked that empire to its core because for all of its strangeness for all of its mythic quality the book of revelation really asks us one question a simple and profound question who is worthy of our worship and maybe today this book opens to us that same question who or what is worthy of your worship but worship and praise can be a kind of strange thing. C.S. Lewis, the famous author, once remarked that before he was a Christian, he used to think that it was very strange that this God asked people to praise them. Didn't this God have to be pretty self-obsessed to desire the praises of the people all the time. But Lewis would eventually write that this is because he misunderstood the nature

42:37 of praise, the nature of worship. You see, we walk around weak at the knees, Lewis says. We love to delight in things. We love to praise things. We love to worship things. We praise the things that bring us joy. And praise is what happens when we invite those around us to delight in something as well. Seriously, if you don't believe me about this, ask some of our young adults who are talking about Broadway's Lost Boys. They don't just want to tell you that they saw it, but they want to tell you that you should see it as well. Oh my gosh, did you know that Ray was just at Radio City Music Hall? Well, the next time she's in town, you should go see her as well.

43:38 They don't just love what they see, what brings them joy, but they want to invite you to share in their joy as well. This is what praise, this is what worship are all about. They're infectious. And while praise might be about the things that we value, worship is about the things that we ultimately value. You see, worship, the things that we worship, those are the things that we are willing to stake our lives on. Worship takes courage because it is when our souls push all of the chips to the center of the table, when we go all in. When we worship something, we say, we say this thing, this person, they aren't just delightful, but this is where I put my hunger, my hope, my happiness. This is where I will find fulfillment. That the things that we worship, it's not just the things that bring us joy, but the things we worship are the things that we strive to become. To become.

45:02 I think this is the philosophical genius of Lil Bow Wow's 2002 masterpiece, piece like Mike. Maybe you know that movie where some young boy finds the sneakers of Michael Jordan and eventually is able to play basketball just like Mike. You see, when I was a kid, I didn't worship Michael Jordan, but I did worship Allen Iverson. He was the greatest basketball player I ever saw, but I didn't just worship him because he was the greatest. I didn't just worship him because he was cool or carefree. No, I worshiped him because one day I wanted to be him. I'll let you decide how that worked out. Why are you laughing?

45:57 And so for these early Christians, they look at that throne and behold, it's not some warlord. No, in the center of this empire that was fueled by militaristic expansion, by materialistic consumption, they look on that throne and they don't see somebody who conquered with a sword riding on a chariot what do they see they look up to that throne and there's a a lamb a lamb that looks like it's wounded from laying down its life for the sake of another and in the heart of that empire in the presence of all of god's creation those christians stand up and they say, this alone is worthy of our worship. This is what we are to become. What? And so from the halls of power, the rulers of that empire, you can almost hear them whispering to those early Christians like a snake in that first garden. Okay, okay, settle down, they say.

47:13 You can have your hour on a Sunday morning, but you don't need to really worship him, do you? think of how nicely this system works for all of us and if you if you really give your life to this to this jesus figure who knows what will happen next but my friends this is why this text is so important it is an adrenaline shot into our a distracted, overstimulated, and unrested selves because this is the gospel right here. And worship is where we come to remember it. Because in worship, we remember who is really on that throne. Even when the worst overtakes the best of us.

48:16 maybe even when your crossover is not as good as Allen Iverson's or maybe just when the Sixers break your heart maybe it's when those heroes that you put on that pedestal don't last a lifetime when the foundations that feel like they hold your life together health wealth maybe a relationship that five-year plan, maybe even on the days where it feels a bit more tenuous, that week by week we come into this space and we remember who is really on the throne. but of course worship it's not just about the things we say to god it's not just about the prayers we offer to god it's not just about the statements that we make the songs that we sing but worship is also about what god says about us Let's go.

49:21 you see I remember the first time that that I saw Jesus sitting on that throne I had been a Christian for a long time my parents were both good church going folk heck my dad is even a pastor but I remember the first time that I saw that lamb sitting on the throne despite it all a dear friend of mine a mentor someone who i deeply loved who i had spent so much time with his name was paul paul was diagnosed with als and and he was battling like hell but slowly started to deteriorate and of course there are all these kinds of speculative conversations that we have as life is coming to an end about life's meaning.

50:16 But one thing I remember more than anything else is that last evening when my parents took me to Paul's home on the night that he was being taken off life support, there were maybe about 15 of us that evening who drew close to Paul. we were good church-going people ourselves we we sat in the same pews every Sunday every Sunday we sang songs about the love that conquers the grave and yet I don't know if I really understood what it was all about until that moment that even as we drew near to Paul, I remember my dad at the top left corner of Paul's bed, and as we were silent, without any correct or appropriate words that could fill that space in that moment, I just remember my dad started to sing.

51:24 Great is thy faithfulness O God my Father There is no shadow of turning with thee Thou changest not Thy compassion fails not As thou hast been Thou forever wilt be my friends, my father's song, it wasn't an incantation that was meant to prevent what we all knew what was coming.

52:10 And like John, like the author of that book, Revelation, in those moments we wept because of all that the world had brought upon our dear friend. And yet in that moment, something in us turned, looked up and saw that lamb sitting on the throne.

52:36 And in those few desperate moments of worship, we knew who really sat upon that throne. and it made all the difference. Amen. Thanks be to God. My friends, I'll invite you to rise in body or in spirit as we say our prayer for the day printed in your bulletin.

53:08 God, who is lion and lamb, you alone are worthy of our life's praise. to you, the one whom death could not hold, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.