Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing,
“To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might
forever and ever!”
And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the elders fell down and worshiped. (Revelation 5:11-14)
The difference between propaganda and genuine praise is the answer to the "Why?" question. Why is someone worthy of our adulation? Why is something regarded as great? If the answer is grounded in the goodness of the character of the one we are talking about, then it's genuine. If we are just puffing up an ego that is starved for attention, it's propaganda. I guess another way to say it simply that the only ones worthy of being called "great" are the ones for whom you don't have to cross your fingers in order to call them "good." And as the book of Revelation tells it, Jesus--the Lamb--is great because he is good. He is worthy of worship because at his core is the self-giving love that went to a cross, not some insecure need for attention.
That's a big deal. It really is, because so many of the other voices around us clamoring for our adulation and our allegiance are just puffed-up placeholders. Jesus, the Lamb who was slain and is now victorious, is different, because the reason for our praise is the depth of his love. You don't find Jesus ordering people, "You should call me great because I'm so powerful, mighty, and rich!" but just the opposite. You see all creation breaking into song (and without a TV producer having to illuminate some celestial "Applause" sign, mind you) and declaring that Jesus is worthy of power, honor, wealth, wisdom, and all the rest, because he is the Lamb who was slain. It is his goodness that makes him worthy of attributing greatness. But Jesus never says, "I'm rich, so therefore I'm awesome," or "I'm powerful, and therefore you should worship me." That's the Standard Operating Procedure for pretenders like Caesar in Rome or Pharaoh in Egypt, but not of the living God. That's the vital difference.
I had a professor back in college who made a point of showing his students how often in the Psalms within the Bible we see the poets and songwriters of ancient Israel pointing to God's character as the reason for praising God. The psalms don't just worship power for the sake of power, but rather they call attention to how Israel's God used power in particular ways--to lift up the lowly, to bind up the brokenhearted, to pull down tyrants, to fill the hungry with good things, and to provide refuge for those who were most vulnerable, like "the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner." In other words, in the Bible, you don't find God needing to put on a self-congratulatory military-style parade to show off divine might or intimidate people into singing God's praises. Rather, you find a God whose goodness and love are so compelling that people, angels, animals, and even the trees of the field break into song. It is because God is good that the Scriptures speak of God's greatness. But the Bible knows no worship of raw and naked power. That's how you can tell you've fallen for an idol.
It is the same here in the great musical number from the fifth chapter of Revelation, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship. All of creation--literally, John says, "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea,"--breaks into praise of the Crucified and Risen Christ (represented here as a Lamb), and all the praise is grounded in who Jesus is. They don't all applaud him for being rich or powerful or glorious, but rather they say, "You are worthy of wealth and power and glory... because you are the One who was slaughtered and rose to life." It is the cross and resurrection that makes Jesus worthy of all creation's worship. It is the genuine goodness and amazing love revealed in the wounds of the Risen One that call forth our praise.
That really is different from the way the systems of the world typically operate, isn't it? We live in a culture that puts CEOS and billionaires on the cover of magazines for no reason other than that they have big piles of money, and pretty much, people think that's the most obvious thing in the world to do. Increasingly, the news media cover how politicians are doing in the polls--as in, their popularity--more than whether their policies are sound, their ideas are good, or their character is decent. We are a society obsessed with who has bigger name recognition, who has larger influence among their social media following, and who commands the headlines, as though that sort of thing is, in and of itself, worthy of our attention and applause. But this scene from Revelation reminds us that it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, from the vantage point of heaven, it isn't that way. At the last, all creation will cease to be fooled by the hype and bamboozled by the hoopla. In the presence of the Lamb, we will finally realize we have been mesmerized by people who were merely famous-for-being-famous and hypnotized by those who had power and wealth, and we'll finally realize what a waste it has all been. At the last, we will fall down in worship of the God we have met in the nail-scarred Christ because we realize God's worthiness of worship comes from God's goodness, and not just from having a good P.R. firm. We will see that Jesus the Lamb is worthy of our praise because he is good, and all the other qualifiers come as a result of that goodness. He is worthy of our love because he has first loved us. He is worthy of our allegiance because he has first laid down his life to claim us as his own. That's what makes Jesus worthy.
Once we realize that, it will change our perspective in the present day, too. We will no longer be swept up in fawning over the list of billionaires (as though having a billion dollars was a worthy goal rather than a waste of your life's potential) or swooning over celebrities. We will no longer let ourselves get caught up in the hype over demagogues like people got sucked into worshiping Caesar or Pharaoh. We will instead give our praise only to the One who is worthy of it--the One who loved us enough to go through death for us. Hearing these words from Revelation will change our perspective that way, and it will reorient the way we step into this day.
Remember, then--Jesus is worthy of our greatest praise, because he is good. He worthy of our worship because of his love.
Lord Jesus, with all that we are and our strongest voices, we worship you because of who you are--your goodness is unending, and your love lasts forever. All praise to you.
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