"Worthy Is The Lamb"

Revelation 5:11-14

In the lesson today, God holds the scroll which reveals the destiny of the world, and asks, "Who is worthy to unroll the scroll?" In other words, "Who can reveal to us the destiny of the world; who can unfold, for us, the meaning of history?" Everyone in heaven despairs, because there is no one found worthy to open it - until the slain and resurrected Lamb of God steps forward. Then all of heaven cries out in praise: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches, and glory, and blessing...."

The vision seems somewhat surreal to us, and far removed from life. In a sense, it is - it is meant to express a reality that cannot easily be put into words - the final overcoming of the forces of evil, "sin, death and the devil," Luther called them, and the triumph of God. But it is a peculiar triumph - the triumph on One who achieved victory through his apparent defeat, who achieved life by being slain, offered up as a sacrificial lamb.

This is the dichotomy in which we live, as Christians. Our king, our ruler, the One we follow, is not a Christus Victor - a Patton-like Messiah who sends the enemy scattering, the kind envisioned in the Left Behind series. In this world, Christians seems to enjoy few victories, in fact. We don't live in a rose garden. God does not appear to fight on our side. Often times our prayers for deliverance are not answered. God often appears to us as Deus Absconditus - the "hidden God." That is why John writes to his little flock, which is being persecuted, and which awaits deliverance.

I think, this week, of the young men and women who were killed on the campus of Virginia Tech, and the young man who shot them. As I am preparing this, there is a report that his father has committed suicide as well - a sad story, with no good ending, but plenty for grief and heartbreak for all, and more. Where was God in all of that? Couldn't he have stopped the young man? Couldn't he have made his gun misfire? Couldn't someone have intervened in time? Couldn't someone have noticed before it was too late? What about the promise that God can bring good from evil - how is it possible here? did that "good" require the sacrifice of thirty-four lives (now thirty-five)?

There is always a "hiddenness" to God. If Jesus comes as a conquering hero, he also comes as victim. If he conquers sin, death, and the devil, it is only by first becoming their victim. As one ancient put it, "God reigns from a tree."

Eli Weisel once wrote that, when he was in the concentration camp, one day the guards, as was their habit, grabbed a couple of old men and a young boy, at random, and hung them. The old men died quickly, but the young boy struggled, slowly suffocating to death. Finally, someone said, "Where is God? Where is God now?" And Eli Weisel said that he heart spoke to him: "He is there - he is hanging on the gallows!"

The promise of revelation is not the proclamation of an easy victory - that his people will not suffer, not experience pain, that our hearts will not be broken by the world. It's proclamation is a great "Nevertheless:" Nevertheless, God holds the meaning of history in his hand, and it will come to completion. Nevertheless, he walks with us - Jesus suffering and death encompasses ours, gives ours meaning, and gives us cause to hope even in the midst of suffering. "Nevertheless," he says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." "Nevertheless, I conquer, even if through the cross" "Nevertheless, my kingdom shall come and my will shall be done."

Every other philosophy, every other religion fails at this point - no one else is worthy to unroll the scroll of the meaning of history, the meaning of our life. Other religions ask us merely to stoically bear, or blame ourselves for the evil that inflicts itself on us, or else they deny the truth that we know - the power of sin and death over us. Only Christ is worthy to unlock it, to bare it, to overcome the power it has over us, to fill history with its true meaning, and bring it to its true conclusion. As another pastor said, "The things we trust most in are blotted out, and the seemingly weak sister of serving love is made supreme." Because of this, the end of our life is not death, John says, but a passing through death to new life. History is not meaningless, but fulfilled in the love of God, leading us to praise of the One who created us and all things.

The end of all things is praise of the One who created and continues to hold us, that One whose name is written on our foreheads - the One whom the Son, and all of his children, call, "Father."