Ezekiel 36:25-26 Revelation 19:1-21
EZEKIEL 36:25-26
25 I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you 26 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
REVELATION 19:1-21
The Rejoicing in Heaven
After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, 2 for his judgments are true and just; he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” 3 Once more they cried, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” 4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who is seated on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!” 5 And from the throne came a voice crying, “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.” 6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. 9 And the angel said[a] to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” 10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
The Rider on the White Horse
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself. 13 He is clad in a robe dipped in[b] blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses. 15 From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords.
The Beast and Its Armies Defeated
17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in midheaven, “Come, gather for the great supper of God, 18 to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.” 19 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who sits upon the horse and against his army. 20 And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur. 21 And the rest were slain by the sword of him who sits upon the horse, the sword that issues from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.
May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all of our hearts, be pleasing and acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer…
Have you ever woken up with one plan for your day, only to have something happen and suddenly all of your plans go out the window? This past week I had one of those days. I had planned to get a jumpstart on Fall worship planning. Then I got a text message from my friend Alan, one of the pastors working with Charissa and I on our sermon series on Revelation.
His cardiologist found a 95% blockage in one of his coronary arteries and a blockage of 60-70% in another artery. He had to go to the hospital to have two stents put in his blocked artery. He will have to go back to the hospital in two weeks so they can put another stent in his other artery.
God is giving him a new heart. But this whole process has been rather frightening for me to observe. He only learned that his artery was 95% blocked as the doctor was putting the stents in. It was bad. Very bad. He didn’t have a heart attack, but he could have. It was a close call. It’s actually a little more frightening in hindsight.
When I talked to Alan this week, he said that he knew he needed to make lifestyle changes before all of this happened. He’s overweight. His nutrition needs work. He doesn’t exercise enough. All of that got worse during the quarantine. And he has a family history of heart disease. But instead of making changes, he made excuses: I’ll do this when my gym opens back up. I’ll start eating healthier after the quarantine. What else is there to do right now but eat?
He knew he needed to change, but he didn’t want to. Sound familiar?
The book of Revelation is serious—serious as a heart attack. Nobody wants to change and we all dig in our heels when someone else tells us, “you need to change!” That’s why Revelation confronts us with crazy violent images. That’s why it offers broad satire, like the whore of Babylon. John of Patmos is trying to stir the people of the seven congregations—and really, all Christians—out of their complacency. He is shouting: Wake up! Repent!
This is a message we all need to hear. We are all complacent. We are all resistant to change. We want other people to change, but not us. We want new, young families to wander into our churches, where they will be so impressed by how nice we are, that they will want to worship with us. This is what we want, but we have no idea if it’s what they need. And we don’t want to change our own behavior in the process.
I saw a meme on Facebook the other day that kind of sums this up. It said something like: “How to frighten the new generation: put them in a room with a rotary phone, an analog watch, and a TV with no remote. Then write the directions for how to use these items in cursive.”
I’ll admit it: I laughed.
At first.
But then I thought about it.
Many of us are slow to adapt. Many of us refuse to adopt the new modes of communication, refuse to use the new platforms for communication; we resist the chance to learn from young people. Instead, we mock them for not understanding our outdated modes of communication.
And yes, I do think that the human voice is better than a text message, and that relationships are best when we engage each other face-to-face. But we have to be the ones to build those relationships. We have to learn to communicate across the generations and meet people where they are. We can only be in relationship with people if we are able to communicate with them.
Our reading today sketches out a vision of what that looks like. It shows the destruction of the enemies of the faithful: the whore of Babylon, the beast, and all the false prophets. Chapter 19 of Revelation shows the vindication of all those who kept faith, even if it cost their lives. This chapter reminds us that empire will never have the last word.
The first image in Chapter 19 is a heavenly choir, the voices of a multitude of people crying out, “Hallelujah!” They shout “hallelujah” four times as they offer praise to God and to the Lamb. And if you hear Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” as I read this, then you’re on the right page—Revelation 19 is the text for the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
Jesus is represented in two different ways in this part of Revelation. First, Jesus is presented as the Lamb. This is a recurring image throughout the book. Second, Jesus is represented as a rider on a white horse. This is similar to the image of Jesus in Chapter 1: “his eyes were like a flame of fire… and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force” (Revelation 1:15-16).
It’s easy to get fixated on this second image, with the sword and the flames and the face that shines like the sun. We want the Jesus who vanquishes our enemies, but that’s not where we find the grace in this part of the story. The grace is in the image of the Lamb.
The rider on the white horse comes back into the scene to clear the way for the Lamb. Hallelujah!
There’s a celebration in the heavens, “for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7). Hallelujah!
What this story, no, what the entire Book of Revelation is telling us is that we have to stay in this relationship. Through this relationship is grace. Through this relationship is salvation. And we all turn away from this relationship from time to time. We all collaborate with the empire from time to time. We all need to repent from time to time, and then return to a right relationship with God.
What we always need to remember is that sin is not simply a collection of bad or hurtful actions. Sin is a category of relationship. Sin happens when we do things that separate us from God or from one another, and we all do this from time to time. But repentance is not simply stopping the bad acts.
Repentance is the return to relationship—with God and with one another. That means we always need to be working on our relationships with God and with one another. That means that we constantly have to reach out to the people who have left congregations and work on mending relationships.
If we’re going to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with new generations of people, with people who have left the Church, and also with people who have never been a part of the Church, then we have to repent from our old ways of being the Church. We have to repent from our old expectations that people will just wander in and find out how nice and friendly we are. We have to engage in new and different ways.
This is scary, I know. Nobody wants to change. But I have some good news! We’ve already started doing this. We’ve been taking baby steps for the last five months. We have started to get out of our comfort zone, and that’s great! We only begin to grow once we get outside of our comfort zones.
This is how we live into the grace that’s described in Revelation and in the passage from the prophet Ezekiel. This is what it means to be given a new heart and a new spirit. When God grants us a new heart and a new spirit, we are called, we are obligated to put it to use. Repentance is not a single event, it’s a continuous call to relationship and engagement.
This call is for ALL of us—not just us pastors, but all of us. We have to practice relationship and serve as witnesses to Christ’s love for the whole world. We have to engage with people who believe differently and who don’t speak our language. We have to learn to speak to them in ways they can hear and on the platforms they inhabit. Only then can well proclaim to them that Jesus is Lord and he will reign forever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Forever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Thanks be to God. Amen.