The Letter To Ephesus
Sermon
Paradise Restored
Sermons From Revelation For Lent And Easter
In the season of Lent we prepare for Easter. The forty days before Easter are supposed to be devoted to purification of self, and meditation on the great sacrifice of Christ on the Cross of Good Friday. Most churches begin Lent on Ash Wednesday with the imposition of ashes. You get a black cross drawn on your forehead to remind you of the burnt offerings, of the giving up of life, that you are dust and to dust you shall return. By coming to the altar to have that cross put there, you are surrendering yourself to the discipline of the cross of Christ. It's like forty Good Fridays all concentrating on the cross.
So why are we looking at the book of Revelation this Lent? There's no great hymn to the emptying act of Jesus, such as in Philippians. There's no statement of making the crucified Christ a priority, as in the Corinthian letters. There's no theological homage to salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, as in Romans. And there's no description of the Passion (or outpouring) of Jesus in the last week of his life, as there is in all four of the Gospels.
In fact, young Martin Luther objected to having Revelation in the Bible at all. It seemed to him to be missing the point of the cross but instead was given to triumphalism. He thought Revelation was a book of judgment instead of a book of grace. Young Luther thought that Revelation didn't serve the love of God for the world but instead fed the idea of a wrathful God who delighted in grotesque punishments.
Years later Luther changed his mind about Revelation. That picture from the young Luther is the one most people get when they don't really want to look at the real meaning of the book. And it is the deeper meanings to be found in the book of Revelation that we want to look for this Lenten Season.
The crucified Christ is there, in every verse of the last book of the Bible. The Christ we see in the vision of John is the Christ who became the sacrificial Lamb of God, who gave his life for the salvation of the world, who became the ONE who is worthy before God the Father, and it is because of the cross that God sends Jesus to judge. This Jesus is the Lord of the Church, the Lord of history, the Lord of the New Heaven and New Earth, and all creation gives him thanks and praise. This is the Lord of Lent.
And this is the way to understand this most difficult of New Testament books. There are bizarre visions here, and the devil appears several times in several different forms, but Jesus also appears many times in many different forms. John really believes that the world is in a tumultuous battle between good and evil, and that first appearances can be deceiving. He's warning us to look below the surface. To search for hidden meanings. And in Revelation's vision we find symbols and visions with varying degrees of meaning. Some have one meaning, some have several meanings, some have many meanings, and some have no apparent meaning.
Revelation begins with seven letters, one each to seven churches in Asia Minor. They seem to be churches that John is familiar with, and he knows their personalities and character. The churches are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
To understand these seven letters, we first have to set the stage for how John receives them. The Romans have put John on their prison island, Patmos. The Spirit calls John to write to seven churches. He couches his message in symbolic language, cradled in his vision of the risen Lord who transcends anything in human experience.
It's on the Lord's day that John has this vision. He hears a loud voice like a trumpet saying, "Write this vision and send it to the seven churches by name." He turns to see who is speaking, and sees a magnificent Jesus in a white robe amidst seven golden lampstands and holding seven stars. Jesus explains that the stars are the angels of the seven churches and the lampstands are the seven churches.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to be the light of the world, a city set on a hill, a lampstand that is not hidden under a bushel. Here in Revelation, Jesus stands among the lampstands and he holds the angels of the churches in his hand.
See, the Christ of Revelation is past the crucifixion, but he is looking to encourage the church and Christians who are not past their own sacrifice and suffering. John writes his vision to encourage people who face the persecution of the last part of the first century.
John is writing to a church under persecution, probably that of the Emperor Domitian Caesar, who was assassinated in 97 A.D., so we are experiencing a message given around 95 or 96 A.D. John wants us to know that Christians who face the lions and the fires, whether they survive or not, will see paradise at the throne of God and the Lamb. They won't hunger or thirst, they'll have springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear. Not that they won't have tears, but that they will be comforted.
The first letter is to the church at Ephesus. Now that name should ring a bell in your memory. It certainly would to every Christian in the first century who heard or read this book. Ephesus had a famous church, even then. Paul lived and worked there three years. It was where Paul's letters were first collected, and several people of the New Testament were from there.
In the dictation to John of Patmos, the Lord says this church is pure, but unproductive. They believe but produce no fruit.
He says basically three things to this church at Ephesus.
1. He commends them for their patient endurance. This is a main theme of Revelation. Patient endurance is the Number One virtue in Revelation and is always rewarded. It's even mentioned twice in this very short letter. This church has not grown weary, so it is still living and breathing as a church.
A church tends to have a personality. It gets into habits, maybe even ruts. Lyle Schaller, a consultant on church administration, says a church does what it has the most practice doing. Ephesus has endurance.
2. Secondly, the letter says the church at Ephesus has tested those who call themselves apostles, but are not, and found them to be false. Testing is a theme elsewhere in the Bible. Test the spirits, James says. I think Ephesus must have tested everybody. You have to test the whole bunch to separate out the good from the bad. And testing is no good without rejecting the bad. Why do it just for the fun of it?
I used to work with vinyl siding. On one job we used tan colored siding. It comes in 10-foot long boxes with 24 sheets or panels in each box. The first box had two panels that weren't the right kind. They were made of the same stuff, the same size, the same color, but we couldn't use them. They were a different style. They didn't pass the test. Whoever packed the boxes for shipping made a mistake. Now here's an interesting point: If we had gotten these out first, we wouldn't have been able to tell they were wrong until we came to the right ones. We had to have the right ones to compare. I put the wrong kind in an empty box and wrote on it: BAD.
This is one lesson we will meet again in Revelation: testing, looking to tell the difference between good and bad.
3. The church at Ephesus has endured patiently, has tested for false teachers, but they have abandoned the love and works they had at first. Maybe they hadn't practiced love and works sufficiently to make them a habit, part of their personality. The Lord says, "Repent and return to those good things you were doing." If they don't, the Lord will remove their lampstands.
For John of Patmos, the victory of the Lord at the end of time is sure and certain, and there is comfort for the believers, and uncounted multitudes will be saved, but for some, the lampstand will be removed. They could lose their church. They could lose their salvation. Is this good news? Can this be a message of grace? Well, no. But it is a warning of what happens when you lose the freshness of a faith that brims over with love, generosity, forgiveness, patience, open-handedness, serenity, and good works. Practice these gifts. Make them your habit. For the next forty days, do something every day that strengthens your faith, reinforces your habit.
Some people give up something for Lent. Why not instead, add something? An extra moment of prayer, a little time to read your Bible, maybe in the book of Revelation, or memorize a bit of scripture every day. It will add to your habit of faith, and give you tools for testing the spirits.
For this Lent, we have a vision of the Lord of the Church who knows our suffering because he has given his blood for us, and it is in his name that we have patient endurance, test all who come among us, and constantly renew our enthusiasm in faith.
Lord, help us to know the joy that is ours when we say no to everything that makes it more difficult to say yes to you.
So why are we looking at the book of Revelation this Lent? There's no great hymn to the emptying act of Jesus, such as in Philippians. There's no statement of making the crucified Christ a priority, as in the Corinthian letters. There's no theological homage to salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, as in Romans. And there's no description of the Passion (or outpouring) of Jesus in the last week of his life, as there is in all four of the Gospels.
In fact, young Martin Luther objected to having Revelation in the Bible at all. It seemed to him to be missing the point of the cross but instead was given to triumphalism. He thought Revelation was a book of judgment instead of a book of grace. Young Luther thought that Revelation didn't serve the love of God for the world but instead fed the idea of a wrathful God who delighted in grotesque punishments.
Years later Luther changed his mind about Revelation. That picture from the young Luther is the one most people get when they don't really want to look at the real meaning of the book. And it is the deeper meanings to be found in the book of Revelation that we want to look for this Lenten Season.
The crucified Christ is there, in every verse of the last book of the Bible. The Christ we see in the vision of John is the Christ who became the sacrificial Lamb of God, who gave his life for the salvation of the world, who became the ONE who is worthy before God the Father, and it is because of the cross that God sends Jesus to judge. This Jesus is the Lord of the Church, the Lord of history, the Lord of the New Heaven and New Earth, and all creation gives him thanks and praise. This is the Lord of Lent.
And this is the way to understand this most difficult of New Testament books. There are bizarre visions here, and the devil appears several times in several different forms, but Jesus also appears many times in many different forms. John really believes that the world is in a tumultuous battle between good and evil, and that first appearances can be deceiving. He's warning us to look below the surface. To search for hidden meanings. And in Revelation's vision we find symbols and visions with varying degrees of meaning. Some have one meaning, some have several meanings, some have many meanings, and some have no apparent meaning.
Revelation begins with seven letters, one each to seven churches in Asia Minor. They seem to be churches that John is familiar with, and he knows their personalities and character. The churches are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
To understand these seven letters, we first have to set the stage for how John receives them. The Romans have put John on their prison island, Patmos. The Spirit calls John to write to seven churches. He couches his message in symbolic language, cradled in his vision of the risen Lord who transcends anything in human experience.
It's on the Lord's day that John has this vision. He hears a loud voice like a trumpet saying, "Write this vision and send it to the seven churches by name." He turns to see who is speaking, and sees a magnificent Jesus in a white robe amidst seven golden lampstands and holding seven stars. Jesus explains that the stars are the angels of the seven churches and the lampstands are the seven churches.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to be the light of the world, a city set on a hill, a lampstand that is not hidden under a bushel. Here in Revelation, Jesus stands among the lampstands and he holds the angels of the churches in his hand.
See, the Christ of Revelation is past the crucifixion, but he is looking to encourage the church and Christians who are not past their own sacrifice and suffering. John writes his vision to encourage people who face the persecution of the last part of the first century.
John is writing to a church under persecution, probably that of the Emperor Domitian Caesar, who was assassinated in 97 A.D., so we are experiencing a message given around 95 or 96 A.D. John wants us to know that Christians who face the lions and the fires, whether they survive or not, will see paradise at the throne of God and the Lamb. They won't hunger or thirst, they'll have springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear. Not that they won't have tears, but that they will be comforted.
The first letter is to the church at Ephesus. Now that name should ring a bell in your memory. It certainly would to every Christian in the first century who heard or read this book. Ephesus had a famous church, even then. Paul lived and worked there three years. It was where Paul's letters were first collected, and several people of the New Testament were from there.
In the dictation to John of Patmos, the Lord says this church is pure, but unproductive. They believe but produce no fruit.
He says basically three things to this church at Ephesus.
1. He commends them for their patient endurance. This is a main theme of Revelation. Patient endurance is the Number One virtue in Revelation and is always rewarded. It's even mentioned twice in this very short letter. This church has not grown weary, so it is still living and breathing as a church.
A church tends to have a personality. It gets into habits, maybe even ruts. Lyle Schaller, a consultant on church administration, says a church does what it has the most practice doing. Ephesus has endurance.
2. Secondly, the letter says the church at Ephesus has tested those who call themselves apostles, but are not, and found them to be false. Testing is a theme elsewhere in the Bible. Test the spirits, James says. I think Ephesus must have tested everybody. You have to test the whole bunch to separate out the good from the bad. And testing is no good without rejecting the bad. Why do it just for the fun of it?
I used to work with vinyl siding. On one job we used tan colored siding. It comes in 10-foot long boxes with 24 sheets or panels in each box. The first box had two panels that weren't the right kind. They were made of the same stuff, the same size, the same color, but we couldn't use them. They were a different style. They didn't pass the test. Whoever packed the boxes for shipping made a mistake. Now here's an interesting point: If we had gotten these out first, we wouldn't have been able to tell they were wrong until we came to the right ones. We had to have the right ones to compare. I put the wrong kind in an empty box and wrote on it: BAD.
This is one lesson we will meet again in Revelation: testing, looking to tell the difference between good and bad.
3. The church at Ephesus has endured patiently, has tested for false teachers, but they have abandoned the love and works they had at first. Maybe they hadn't practiced love and works sufficiently to make them a habit, part of their personality. The Lord says, "Repent and return to those good things you were doing." If they don't, the Lord will remove their lampstands.
For John of Patmos, the victory of the Lord at the end of time is sure and certain, and there is comfort for the believers, and uncounted multitudes will be saved, but for some, the lampstand will be removed. They could lose their church. They could lose their salvation. Is this good news? Can this be a message of grace? Well, no. But it is a warning of what happens when you lose the freshness of a faith that brims over with love, generosity, forgiveness, patience, open-handedness, serenity, and good works. Practice these gifts. Make them your habit. For the next forty days, do something every day that strengthens your faith, reinforces your habit.
Some people give up something for Lent. Why not instead, add something? An extra moment of prayer, a little time to read your Bible, maybe in the book of Revelation, or memorize a bit of scripture every day. It will add to your habit of faith, and give you tools for testing the spirits.
For this Lent, we have a vision of the Lord of the Church who knows our suffering because he has given his blood for us, and it is in his name that we have patient endurance, test all who come among us, and constantly renew our enthusiasm in faith.
Lord, help us to know the joy that is ours when we say no to everything that makes it more difficult to say yes to you.
