Vision From Patmos
Sermon
Paradise Restored
Sermons From Revelation For Lent And Easter
A cowboy was crossing the desert when his horse bit the dust. He made it to a small desert town after a day's walk. There was no stable, so he wearily put his saddle on the boardwalk in front of the town's only hitching post. A lone rider approached the hitching post, dismounted from a large, gleaming white horse, and tied the reins to the post. "Mister," the tired pedestrian said, "if you'll change that horse's brand, I'll give you enough of these twenty dollar gold pieces for a trip to Dodge." The rider said, "Stranger, if I could change this horse's brand I'd already be in Dodge." (Mosley, Emphasis, March-April, 1998, p. 60)
I admire the fellow who says he has two rules he lives by. The first one is, "Don't tell all you know." And he won't tell me the second rule.
It seems that there is always something hidden. Some obstacle in the paths we ride, such as a horse dying in the desert, or a horse with the wrong brand, or having to be somewhere we don't want to be, or with people we don't want to be with, or wanting to know something but the person who knows can't or won't tell.
Almost all of these apply to John the elder. The Romans have put John on their prison island, Patmos. The Spirit calls John to write to the seven churches in Asia Minor which lie on a circular road, like the round trip an evangelist or missionary would make to end up near his home. He couches his message in symbolic language, cradled in his vision of the risen Lord who transcends anything in human experience.
The main point of his letter is in the three titles for Jesus he gives in verse 5: The vision of Patmos is of Jesus the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of rulers on the earth.
A witness is one who gives evidence of something he has seen or experienced. You can be a witness to an accident, a crime, or an historical event. But the witness has to do more than just see or experience something. He has to tell about it. Jesus is the faithful witness. He tells us about his experience of God. And who better to tell about God than God's son? In John's Gospel, the writer calls Jesus the Word of God, the telling or expressing of God. The vision of Patmos is of Jesus, the faithful witness.
Many of us are uncomfortable with witnessing about Jesus. We might think that we do not know enough and are not sufficiently trained in order to know what to say. As a result, many are quite content to leave witnessing to the professionals, and they seldom say anything about their faith.
And then there's Clay Allison.
Clay Allison fought for the South in the Civil War, was captured as a spy, and escaped, and may have had a run-in with Marshal Wyatt Earp. Once he hijacked the Lone Wolf Saloon in Pecos City for about two hours to have church.
He got fifty or sixty folks into the bar, some at gunpoint, made them sing a hymn, and then said it was time for prayer, everybody down!
He prayed: "O Lord! This yere's a mighty bad neck of woods. Make these fellers see that when they gits caught in the final round-up and drove over the last divide, they don't stan' no sort o' show to git to stay on the heavenly ranch 'nless they believes an' builds a house to pray and preach in. Right here I subscribes a hundred dollars to build a church, an' if airy one o' these fellers don' ante up accordin' to his means, O Lord, make it Your pers'n'l business to see that he wears the Devil's brand and earmark and never gits another drop o' good spring water.
"Of course, I allow You knows I don' sport no wings myself, but I want to do what's right ef You'll sort o' give me a shove the proper way. Clay Allison's got a fast horse an' is tol'able handy with his rope, and he's goin' to run these fellers into your corral even if he has to rope an' drag 'em there. Amen. Everybody git up!" (Mosley, Emphasis, March-April, 1998, p. 50)
In all of today's scriptures, people are groping for ways to say something about what they have encountered, what has happened to change their lives. As they learn and as things become clear to them, they are not hesitant to say it.
Revelation has the reputation of being a hard book to understand. Here's a specific example. There was a noted biblical scholar. A professor at a university. A pastor and a church leader. A man renowned in church history for his deep understanding of the Bible and the way he changed the church forever in the way we look at the message of scripture.
Early in his life he wrote one page about the Revelation of John, saying it was so hard to understand that we might as well throw it out.
Later he revised his thinking. This time the notes about Revelation took up ten pages. The times had changed. Now he reviewed the book in detail. Now he said, "... we can profit by this book and make good use of it. First, for our comfort! We can rest assured that neither force nor lies, neither wisdom nor holiness, neither tribulation nor suffering shall suppress Chris-tendom, but it will gain the victory and conquer at last."
What made the difference? Hard times, opposition, persecution. He had been branded an outlaw, burned in effigy by mobs, chased by posses, kidnapped by friends for his own safety, and exiled to live under an assumed name in disguise. But he put away his safe fortress of stone and his disguise to once again become the church leader he had been, and to find that the church of our Lord does stand victorious in the end in spite of all the world can throw against it.
He was Martin Luther. (Mosley, Emphasis, January-February, 1998, p. 16)
Luther was saying what Jesus means to him. That's all that John of Patmos is saying. What Jesus means to him. He just has many different ways of saying it. But they all come from his culture. It's up to us to speak for our culture. Peter can deny, and Thomas can doubt, but each can also say in his own words what Jesus means to him. He can witness to Jesus.
The vision of Patmos is of Jesus the faithful witness, and the firstborn of the dead.
It's possible that John had some of the letters of Paul, maybe the one he sent to Corinth where he lists the witnesses to the resurrection. In baptism we participate in Christ's death. We participate also in his resurrection. We are made members of a new race with him. Jesus is the firstborn of the new race. Like most races, there is something about us that makes us different from the rest of humanity: we will rise to new life, as Jesus has done before us, the firstborn.
This is the joy of Easter, of waking to the idea that God loves us and there is nothing, not even death, that can stop that love.
The vision of Patmos is of Jesus the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of rulers on earth.
What rules us more than death? Any other threat to us is just a function of death or the fear of it „ or maybe the fear that whatever we wanted to do won't get done before we die. But Jesus has conquered death. That was Easter.
What could Rome do to the early Christians? The only threat any ruler has is some form of imprisonment or death. It's how they assert their power in this earth. John says by his example, "Go ahead and do your worst. I serve a higher power." And he wrote his letter from prison and we have it to read today.
I think the thing that makes Revelation so hard to accept is its theology of the cross: It shows the world taking up the cross of the final tribulations (don't get away from me here, I don't take them literally), and while we might see the theology of the cross of Christ and its gift of salvation for us, we don't want to see the world suffering. Or throwing away its salvation because it won't be the kingdom of priests John sees in his vision.
The vision of Patmos is of Jesus the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of rulers on earth. But it also says, "All tribes of the earth will wail on account of him." Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
The tribes of the earth crucified Jesus, put John in their prison, and tried to silence Luther. Jesus, John, and Luther gave a faithful witness. Can we do any less?
Lord, help us to give a faithful witness, saying no to everything that makes it more difficult to say yes to you.
I admire the fellow who says he has two rules he lives by. The first one is, "Don't tell all you know." And he won't tell me the second rule.
It seems that there is always something hidden. Some obstacle in the paths we ride, such as a horse dying in the desert, or a horse with the wrong brand, or having to be somewhere we don't want to be, or with people we don't want to be with, or wanting to know something but the person who knows can't or won't tell.
Almost all of these apply to John the elder. The Romans have put John on their prison island, Patmos. The Spirit calls John to write to the seven churches in Asia Minor which lie on a circular road, like the round trip an evangelist or missionary would make to end up near his home. He couches his message in symbolic language, cradled in his vision of the risen Lord who transcends anything in human experience.
The main point of his letter is in the three titles for Jesus he gives in verse 5: The vision of Patmos is of Jesus the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of rulers on the earth.
A witness is one who gives evidence of something he has seen or experienced. You can be a witness to an accident, a crime, or an historical event. But the witness has to do more than just see or experience something. He has to tell about it. Jesus is the faithful witness. He tells us about his experience of God. And who better to tell about God than God's son? In John's Gospel, the writer calls Jesus the Word of God, the telling or expressing of God. The vision of Patmos is of Jesus, the faithful witness.
Many of us are uncomfortable with witnessing about Jesus. We might think that we do not know enough and are not sufficiently trained in order to know what to say. As a result, many are quite content to leave witnessing to the professionals, and they seldom say anything about their faith.
And then there's Clay Allison.
Clay Allison fought for the South in the Civil War, was captured as a spy, and escaped, and may have had a run-in with Marshal Wyatt Earp. Once he hijacked the Lone Wolf Saloon in Pecos City for about two hours to have church.
He got fifty or sixty folks into the bar, some at gunpoint, made them sing a hymn, and then said it was time for prayer, everybody down!
He prayed: "O Lord! This yere's a mighty bad neck of woods. Make these fellers see that when they gits caught in the final round-up and drove over the last divide, they don't stan' no sort o' show to git to stay on the heavenly ranch 'nless they believes an' builds a house to pray and preach in. Right here I subscribes a hundred dollars to build a church, an' if airy one o' these fellers don' ante up accordin' to his means, O Lord, make it Your pers'n'l business to see that he wears the Devil's brand and earmark and never gits another drop o' good spring water.
"Of course, I allow You knows I don' sport no wings myself, but I want to do what's right ef You'll sort o' give me a shove the proper way. Clay Allison's got a fast horse an' is tol'able handy with his rope, and he's goin' to run these fellers into your corral even if he has to rope an' drag 'em there. Amen. Everybody git up!" (Mosley, Emphasis, March-April, 1998, p. 50)
In all of today's scriptures, people are groping for ways to say something about what they have encountered, what has happened to change their lives. As they learn and as things become clear to them, they are not hesitant to say it.
Revelation has the reputation of being a hard book to understand. Here's a specific example. There was a noted biblical scholar. A professor at a university. A pastor and a church leader. A man renowned in church history for his deep understanding of the Bible and the way he changed the church forever in the way we look at the message of scripture.
Early in his life he wrote one page about the Revelation of John, saying it was so hard to understand that we might as well throw it out.
Later he revised his thinking. This time the notes about Revelation took up ten pages. The times had changed. Now he reviewed the book in detail. Now he said, "... we can profit by this book and make good use of it. First, for our comfort! We can rest assured that neither force nor lies, neither wisdom nor holiness, neither tribulation nor suffering shall suppress Chris-tendom, but it will gain the victory and conquer at last."
What made the difference? Hard times, opposition, persecution. He had been branded an outlaw, burned in effigy by mobs, chased by posses, kidnapped by friends for his own safety, and exiled to live under an assumed name in disguise. But he put away his safe fortress of stone and his disguise to once again become the church leader he had been, and to find that the church of our Lord does stand victorious in the end in spite of all the world can throw against it.
He was Martin Luther. (Mosley, Emphasis, January-February, 1998, p. 16)
Luther was saying what Jesus means to him. That's all that John of Patmos is saying. What Jesus means to him. He just has many different ways of saying it. But they all come from his culture. It's up to us to speak for our culture. Peter can deny, and Thomas can doubt, but each can also say in his own words what Jesus means to him. He can witness to Jesus.
The vision of Patmos is of Jesus the faithful witness, and the firstborn of the dead.
It's possible that John had some of the letters of Paul, maybe the one he sent to Corinth where he lists the witnesses to the resurrection. In baptism we participate in Christ's death. We participate also in his resurrection. We are made members of a new race with him. Jesus is the firstborn of the new race. Like most races, there is something about us that makes us different from the rest of humanity: we will rise to new life, as Jesus has done before us, the firstborn.
This is the joy of Easter, of waking to the idea that God loves us and there is nothing, not even death, that can stop that love.
The vision of Patmos is of Jesus the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of rulers on earth.
What rules us more than death? Any other threat to us is just a function of death or the fear of it „ or maybe the fear that whatever we wanted to do won't get done before we die. But Jesus has conquered death. That was Easter.
What could Rome do to the early Christians? The only threat any ruler has is some form of imprisonment or death. It's how they assert their power in this earth. John says by his example, "Go ahead and do your worst. I serve a higher power." And he wrote his letter from prison and we have it to read today.
I think the thing that makes Revelation so hard to accept is its theology of the cross: It shows the world taking up the cross of the final tribulations (don't get away from me here, I don't take them literally), and while we might see the theology of the cross of Christ and its gift of salvation for us, we don't want to see the world suffering. Or throwing away its salvation because it won't be the kingdom of priests John sees in his vision.
The vision of Patmos is of Jesus the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of rulers on earth. But it also says, "All tribes of the earth will wail on account of him." Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
The tribes of the earth crucified Jesus, put John in their prison, and tried to silence Luther. Jesus, John, and Luther gave a faithful witness. Can we do any less?
Lord, help us to give a faithful witness, saying no to everything that makes it more difficult to say yes to you.
