"After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
'Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb!'
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,
'Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen!'" [Revelation 7:9-12]
It seems to me that there are two basic kinds of leaders: neon-sign types and keystone types. And it matters a great deal which kind you believe leads you.
Allow me a moment to elaborate. A neon sign's primary job is to draw attention... to itself. As a piece of a building it offers no meaningful support to the rest of structure. In fact, its weight it something the rest of the building has to bear, in addition to the weight of its own bricks and mortar. A neon sign, in other words, is visibly the center of attention, but it gives practically nothing back to the rest of the building on which it is perched. It is prominent, but not productive, and in truth, the whole building could be just as solid and secure without it as with it. It depends on the silent strength of the rest of the edifice while catching the attention of passersby with its gaudy brightness.
By contrast, a keystone is certainly noticeable at the top of an archway, but it is more than ornamentation or showiness. A keystone uses its own weight to hold together all the rest of the pieces of the arch. And oddly enough, even though it might look like all the other stones in the arch are holding the keystone up, it is really the opposite. The keystone's weight is distributed in such a way that it holds the arch together, when without it, the whole thing would fall down. A keystone is still plenty visible, and it is still definitely in a central and lofty position, but for a keystone that is functional. A keystone sits where it sits because only there can it hold the rest of the arch up, and only the keystone can do that job. Neon signs, on the other hand, come and go as a business changes hands.
If you'll grant my rough little analogy, then the question for the followers of Jesus is, "Which kind is Jesus?" Is our leader, our Lord, a neon sign drawing attention but doing nothing to lift the rest of the building up? Or is Jesus more like a keystone, whose presence binds together the whole structure and holds us all in positions that appear to defy gravity?
Think about this scene from the book we call Revelation (although, given the amount of times that figures in the book break into song, it might as well be called, "Revelation: The Musical!"). There is this image of Jesus, the Christ, the Lamb of God. Jesus is clearly front and center--at the very throne of the living God, no less. And clearly, all eyes are on Jesus the Lamb. He is the reason they break into song. He is the reason for their palm branch parade.
But is Jesus there just as an attention getter? Is Jesus the Lamb just starved for publicity and there simply to catch the eye? We have surely all been let down by our share of neon-sign figures in our lives before--is Jesus the Lamb just the heavenly version?
In order to come up with an answer, pay attention to what Jesus the Lamb is praised for here--"salvation." Jesus the Lamb is the One who has rescued, redeemed, and reclaimed all this countless host from all places and languages, all customs and cultures, and drawn all people to himself. The Lamb--who is first introduced in the book of Revelation as "slain, but alive"--has defeated the powers of evil and death, and the Lamb accomplished it, not by sending others out to die in his army, but by laying down his own life for all of creation. The Lamb's act of chosen, self-giving vulnerable love breaks the lethal logic of death and hatred, and the whole of creation, a countless crowd from every corner of the world, is now held together by the Lamb.
Hmmm... holding all things together by his presence in the midst--lifted up, but thereby binding all things together. That sounds like a keystone, rather than a neon-sign. That sounds like a Lord worthy of our allegiance.
As we look toward the cross again--not just in this season but every day--it is worth being clear about this, because it makes a great difference how we see Jesus' victory. The neon-sign figures of history "win" (and I put that in quotes intentionally) by grabbing attention for themselves without actually doing anything, leaning on the sturdy supports behind and beneath them while overshadowing them in their artificial light. But the keystone figures genuinely do something, and they share their victories with all whom they draw into their presence, so that the leader's victory is the victory of all. For the followers of Jesus, there is deep hope for us day by day that the Slaughtered-But-Living Lamb has given us his victory to call our own, and he has bound us together by his presence, without which we would all fall over and crumble.
It matters whom you follow in this life. It matters what kind of Lord you allow to lead you. And the Lamb at the center of God's great musical is the kind who has really done something... and who yet holds all things together in self-surrendering love.
Lord Jesus, Our Lamb, you are worthy of our allegiance--make us over in the light of your self-giving, death-defying love.
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