All Peoples and Languages--May 12, 2025

All Peoples and Languages--May 12, 2025

"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!'” (Revelation 7:9-10)

A mentor of mine from decades ago used to insist that his congregation periodically learn hymns and sing songs in other languages written by saints in other countries and from other cultures, because "We'll all have to learn the words one day in glory."  Even now, decades later, that advice has stayed with me and still makes me smile at the thought.

Of course, he knew he was saying it with his tongue a little bit in his cheek. He wasn't worried that there would be some kind of divine punishment for not knowing the Swahili lyrics to "We are Marching in the Light of God" (Siyahamba), and he didn't mean to make anybody afraid and starting out in heaven with demerits for not having taken enough language classes in school. But there is something necessary and vitally true about remembering that the people who gather in the presence of God come from "every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages," and that they will not all speak English.  It is worth that God is not just interested in saving "Me and My Group First." And it is important--if also humbling--to realize that people who look, speak, and think like me may well be just a small minority of the "great multitude that no one could count" who are centered on Christ the Lamb in glory.

That realization is probably both comforting and provocative at the same time.  These words come from the book of Revelation, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday. And I'll admit that when I hear them, I feel both embraced and disarmed simultaneously.  It is a deep word of hope to hear the assurance that the assembly of God's people in glory will be so numerous that no one could ever count them all.  But it is also a humbling thing to be reminded--by someone who has glimpsed the heavenly throne room first-hand in the Scriptures, no less--that the guest list won't just be limited to people I approve of, people I agree with, people who speak my language, or people from my culture.  It is a much-needed corrective for many of us, to hear that heaven isn't simply defined as "whatever things I liked most about earth," but rather, "the gathering of all peoples, all languages, and all cultures" before the God who has redeemed us all.

I say that because I don't know how many times I have heard people describe heaven as their own personal reward that must be filled with their favorite things, as though the point of heaven were merely individual wish-fulfillment.  "It won't be heaven for me unless there's good fishing!" I've heard.  Or, "I picture heaven as a long walk in the woods by myself, because that's when I feel most at peace in life now."  Or even, "I can't stand the idea of heaven being one unending church service where we sing forever beside other people--if it's like that, I'm not sure I want to go."  Sometimes I've even heard people confess which particular other people they don't want to see in heaven, and how they don't want to go if it would mean having to live beside or potentially cross paths with "that person" or "those people."  And of course, that whole way of thinking is glaringly self-centered, as though I am the center of what heaven is about, rather than the God revealed in Jesus.

This passage from Revelation reminds us that I am ultimately not the center of the picture... and neither are you... and neither, it turns out, is our particular group, whether we label ourselves "Americans" or "Lutherans" or "Protestants" or "Catholics" or "folks with my values" or "members of my political party" or "conservative" or "progressive." And as John the narrator of Revelation makes it abundantly clear, it is the living God, made known in Jesus the Lamb, who is both the center of all things and the One in charge of the guest list.  The moment we think that God only cares about the interests of the United States, or English-speakers, or people who look like me, is the moment it is clear we have missed the point and lost the plot of the whole story of the Bible.

In fact, this scene from Revelation 7 isn't really saying anything different from the visions of prophets like Isaiah, who wrote more than five hundred years before even Jesus' ministry.  Isaiah is constantly giving us pictures of "all nations" being drawn to worship God and learn God's covenant ways of justice and mercy (see Isaiah 2).  He talks about God throwing a party for "all peoples" at which faces from every land and people will be invited to a feast and will have their tears wiped away by the hand of the living God (see Isaiah 25).  He talks about old enemies being reconciled so that they can be gathered into one, and even of a whole new heaven and earth being created, where all can live in peace in the presence of God.  In other words, John's vision in Revelation isn't a one-off or a strange exception; John shows us that God is doubling down on the already-announced diverse and inclusive vision of all nations and languages being gathered together in glory.  

Now, once we have heard John (or Isaiah, or the other such visionaries of the Scriptures) tell us that God is drawing an innumerably large gathering from every language and nation, we can't just push that notion off into the future as a dream for a distant future. It becomes our way of life now.  When John first wrote down the visions (and musical numbers) that we now call the Book of Revelation, the early church was still figuring out for itself who and what it really was.  The very first disciples of Jesus were all ethnically Jewish and all basically came from places within a fifty mile radius; but soon enough, people from distant nations, diverse languages, and strikingly different cultures began to follow Jesus and join the community of the church.  And that was not always easy--in fact, it was often a real challenge to make sure that nobody got pushed to the margins as unimportant or "not really our kind of people." Go ahead and read Paul's letters to see just how often the tensions between Judean and Gentile groups flared up enough that he had to remind his readers that they were all brought into the humanity God was making in Christ, and that the old "dividing wall" had been pulled down.  So even while John writes Revelation, closer to the end of the first century, there were the growing pains of a community that had moved beyond the single site of Jerusalem to a sprawling web of fledging congregations across the eastern Mediterranean.  There was the question of whether they really could all belong to the people of God, even if people in, say, Corinth, never got the chance to meet the members in Laodicea or Capernaum.  And John here insists, yes, they all belonged, because in fact, they were all part of an even larger collection of people from even further away and even more distinct cultures, tribes, and tongues.  To hear Revelation tell it, there was--and is--no room for racism, ethnic prejudice, or language requirements among the people of God.  God has not made a mistake in gathering people from every tribe and tongue; it is deliberately God's choice to do so.  From God's vantage point, you belong not because of where you were born or where you came from, but because Christ the Lamb has claimed you.

And apparently, God is not worried at all about being overrun by too many different groups to care for, overwhelmed by too many needs, or overtaken by too many people.  The scene here in Revelation is not one of chaos, where God scrambles to find room for all the nations gathering, or where God has to round people up and remove them from the throne room because they don't know the language for the words of the heavenly praise songs.  Rather, God is glorified by the presence of all these peoples, nations, and groups.  Their diversity by itself exalts God as the Lord of all peoples and all creation, rather than being just a tribal deity or local god.  If we take that seriously, it will change our priorities, too.  And it will change the way we treat other people, especially those who come from different backgrounds, ethnicities, home countries, or cultures.  God isn't interested in a homogenous group of cookie-cutter people, but in assembling all peoples and all nations... even if that means we all have to learn each other's languages to sing their songs.

Lord Jesus, enable us to see our place among the vast multitude of your beloved from every people, time, and place.

In Light of New Creation--May 9, 2025

 

In Light of New Creation--May 9, 2025

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. (Acts 9:10-19)

To be a follower of the risen Jesus is to live your life now in light of a promised future--even when it seems crazy or sounds like utter nonsense to the rest of the watching world.  And it will mean daring to live as if the Jesus way of life really is the best possible way to live our lives, even when it violates the world's rules of common sense and conventional wisdom.

This scene, from the story many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, is a case in point.  We looked yesterday at how Saul of Tarsus was on his way to go round up Christians in Damascus because he saw them as dangerous religious heretics (worshiping Jesus) and political dynamite (since Rome executed Jesus as a would-be king).  And even when Saul was literally trying to wipe out the fledgling movement of Christianity (so young, we were still just called "the Way"), the risen Jesus got a hold of Saul, revealed himself to the zealous persecutor, and called him to be a part of the Jesus movement, too.  Jesus--whose community Saul was actively trying to eradicate--chose Saul in love, precisely at the moment that Saul was Christianity's worst enemy.  You can't read the Damascus Road story without at least acknowledging that much.

Now, from one standpoint, this is precisely the sort of thing we should expect from Jesus, since a cornerstone of his Sermon on the Mount is the call to love our enemies.  And of course, when Jesus says things like that, he grounds it in the way God loves even God's enemies, "making the sun to shine on the righteous and the unrighteous" as well as giving rain to both the well-behaved and to stinkers.  Maybe we could also say that the risen Christ can see into Saul's future and knows the kind of person he can become once Jesus gets through to him.  But of course, Jesus is Jesus--he's the Son of God, and we tend to assume that he has the capacity for infinite love or the perspective of the future.  The hard part is here in this later scene in the story when an ordinary Christian disciple is called upon to love Saul even while he's an enemy, too.

And that is a tall order.  When "the Lord" appears to Ananias and tells him to show compassion to Saul and to help him regain his sight, Ananias does a double-take.  He can't believe that he's being asked to help out an obvious enemy.  He protests to Jesus, "Lord, I've heard about this man..." and you can tell he is looking for any way out of the difficult calling to show compassion for this person who has been so cruel to the nascent church.  It's a perfectly reasonable response; he's basically saying, "I'm not suggesting that I should hurt him further now that he's lost his sight, but come on--do I have to actively help him?  Won't that just enable him to hurt us more?"  But Jesus' response to him is clear and unambiguous: this is a time to take seriously the call to love enemies.  This is a time to live now in light of the full and future Reign of God when enemies are reconciled and evil is overcome by goodness.  It is not enough for Ananias to believe that "some day in the future, in the sweet by and by" we will have peace; rather, he is called to do good for his enemy Saul in the present moment, because of that promised future.  Those are the stakes.

This is one of the things I love about this story.  It faces with full honesty just how difficult it must have been for the early Christians to help Saul, much less to welcome him into the body of Christ given all the blood on his hands.  And then the story says, "But as hard as it was, they did it.  The early church made the choice to take Jesus seriously and they loved their enemies, even Saul." This wasn't some abstract or hypothetical concept of an enemy, and it wasn't just about being nice to slightly irritating coworkers or the family member who always gets you in a mood.  This was about full refusal to answer evil with evil and completely commitment to show good to the ones who were causing them harm.  And they early church stepped up and did it, even though it surely must have looked like utter foolishness to the surrounding culture.  Surely the Respectable Religious Authorities back in Jerusalem must have thought that the Christians had made a categorically stupid error in letting Saul live.  Surely the average citizen of the Empire would have thought it sounded ludicrous to help your enemy out.  But even if everyone in the surrounding culture thought they seemed like losers for doing it, the early Christian community committed to loving their enemies and seeking good even for those who wished them harm.  This was not an optional thing for Ananias and the rest of the First Church of Damascus--this was a matter of taking Jesus seriously.

In our lives as well, we are called to live in light of what Jesus says about how God's Reign operates, even when it sounds laughable to the world around.  Because we believe that there will be a day when wolves and lambs lie down together in peace and swords are beaten into plowshares, we commit to answering evil with good and hatred with love.  Because we believe that God's promised new creation has begun in Jesus' resurrection, we do not seek to destroy our enemies but to love them.  Because we believe that God can transform death into life, we hold onto the hope that God can also turn our fiercest adversary into a friend, through the power of self-giving love.  In other words, like Ananias before us, we are committed to the difficult but indispensable work of living now in light of the new creation that has begun with the empty tomb.

We should be prepared, however, for the world (which is still woefully behind the curve) to ridicule us or call us losers and weaklings for not insisting on killing our opponents or fighting their hate with more hate.  We should be prepared for people to say that enemy love "just isn't how the real world works" and "It's just not practical" to extend compassion to those who have been labeled a threat to you.  Of course the world will say it's foolish--that's always how Caesar reads reality.  Empires cannot conceive of a new creation in which brute force isn't the driving engine.  Emperors, kings, pharaohs, and demagogues cannot possibly imagine a world in which love wins the day without resorting to hatred or evil.  The powers of the day cannot think of anything more permanent or final than death, and they insist on having and using the tools to dole it out whenever they feel threatened.  And to the conventional wisdom of the world, you've gotta hit your opponent before they hit you, rather than even consider the possibility that an enemy could be transformed into a friend.  But here from the earliest memories of the church onward in the book of Acts, even to the present day, the church has been called to live in light of the future--that future in which death itself is destroyed, enemies are reconciled, and weapons are beaten into farm tools.  We live now in light of that future, the same way we believe that Jesus' own resurrection is the beginning of resurrection for all of us, and the in-breaking of God's new creation.

Who might the living Jesus call you to show compassion to today? And where might our Easter hope lead us to the edge in the day ahead? Who might be the Saul we are called to be Ananias for right now?

Lord Jesus, give us the strength, the courage, and the hope to live today in your kind of love, even for enemies.

The New Creation In the Mirror--May 8, 2025

The New Creation In the Mirror--May 8, 2025

Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts 9:1-6)

When we talk about God's new creation, it's not just "out there" in the world beyond us--it's within each of us.  The resurrection of Jesus not only promises that one day God will make "a new heaven and a new earth," but also a new you and a new me.  Just ask Saul.

These verse, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, begins the well-known story of Saul of Tarsus being commissioned by the risen Christ while he was literally on the way to Damascus to round up Christians and detain them in Jerusalem far away from their homes.  This is sometimes called the "conversion" of Saul, because he really is turned 180-degrees around, from being dead-set against Jesus to becoming one of his most vocal apostles and devout disciples, going by his Greek name Paul  in that new chapter of life. And what gets me every time about this story every time I read it is that Jesus doesn't wait for Saul to change on his own.  Rather, Jesus initiates this transformation precisely while Saul is turned away from Jesus, convinced that this executed rabbi was a fake, a fraud, or a liar.    The risen Jesus, however, is not offended or insulted by all of that--instead, he simply sets Saul's hostility aside and seeks him out anyway, in order to transform him into something new.

That's so different from the way popular piety usually talks, isn't it?  So often, the loud voices of Respectable Religion put the onus on each of us to get ourselves "right with God" by showing some moral improvement, demonstrating our devotion, or showing how much we have changed as a precondition for having Jesus come into our lives.  We love a good story of a reformed sinner who sees the error of his ways and then turns back to God. The more drama, the better, right?  "I hit rock bottom, and then I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, quit drinkin', and started coming back to church--and then I invited Jesus into my heart, and everything's been great since then!"  And without a doubt, I applaud folks who are able to change course after seeing their lives in a downward spiral or a vicious circle.  But what I think that standard narrative misses is that God isn't waiting for us to get our act together first before entering into our lives.  Jesus doesn't wait until we've started going to church to reach out to us, and the pull of grace doesn't wait for our action to kickstart it.  In other words, Jesus doesn't wait until we've started to re-make ourselves first before helping us along into becoming a new creation.  He seeks us even when we are turned completely away from him or are actively hostile toward him, and gets through to us even then.  Even if we couldn't recognize it at the moment, Jesus is always the one taking the first step to bring us into relationship and pulling us out onto the dance floor rather than waiting for us to work up the nerve to leave the other wallflowers.  If the risen Christ can seek out the murderous Saul while he is on a mission to make more innocent people disappear into detention cells, then he can seek us out even at our worst when we are turned away from him and covering our ears with our hands.  And if that same Christ can make of Saul a bold witness to the expansive and inclusive love of God, just think what sort of new creations he can make of us.

The hitch to all this, however, is that it will mean each of us will have to admit we are in need of just that kind of re-creation.  It will mean we face the uncomfortable truth that we are not just spiritual fixer-uppers in need of a little TLC and a fresh touch-up coat of paint, but that even we--even we church-going, creed-reciting, cross-wearing Respectable Religious People--are in need of complete and total renewal.  Like Robert Farrar Capon put it, "Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works."  And it's hard for us to admit that we Sunday-morning-pew-sitters need resurrection and re-creation.  We would like to tell ourselves that we're already mostly on the right track and just need a little spiritual pick-me-up from time to time.  Jesus instead shows us that even people like Saul (who was absolutely certain that he was doing God's work and pleasing the Lord by rounding up those he suspected of following Jesus) need a top-to-bottom renewal... and that we need to be made new creations, too.

It's easy for church folk to shake our heads in criticism of "the outside world," and to say, "You all need Jesus," as though it's just people "out there" who need to be transformed.  The challenging thing the Scriptures keep telling us, though, is that each of us needs to be made into a new creation, re-oriented, and transformed in the light of Christ.  Before we draw a rigid line between "those sinners" and "us saints," Jesus comes along to knock each of us off our high horses and to say, "I've come to transform, you, too.  Now watch what you become in my presence and love."  He doesn't wait for us to take the first step ourselves, but rather his presence is what allows us to turn in the first place.  And he doesn't only have it in mind to reach "those people out there, once they get their act together," but will seek us out, too.

Don't be surprised, then, if at some point you find the living Jesus taking you (and me) by surprise and making something completely new out of us.  Don't be surprised, either, if in that moment he shows us how many ways we were still pointed away from his kingdom agenda in the world, before he turns us around again to walk in his way.

Who knows what surprises, what transformations, and what signs of new creation might be in our path today?

Lord Jesus, make of us what you will today--make us new creations in your likeness.

Why Jesus Is Worthy--May 7, 2025

Why Jesus Is Worthy--May 7, 2025

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. 

A New Song for a New World--May 6, 2025

A New Song for a New World--May 6, 2025

"When [the Lamb] had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sing a new song:
'You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,
for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God
saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;
you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God,
and they will reign on earth.'" [Revelation 5:8-10]

The lines are imaginary. Sometimes we forget that.

I remember a couple years ago finding an old globe somewhere in our accumulated treasures and noticing with a blush how dated it was. The continents hadn't changed, of course, but a good number of the countries had. This particular globe labeled a large pastel yellow shape sprawling from Europe to Asia as "the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics," and it had two Germanies, East and West, as well as a solid light-green shape labeled "Yugoslavia." There were, of course, other countries with different names and boundaries, as well--Zaire, rather than Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Sudan was still just one, instead of a North and an independent South (ever since 2011). I never even thought to check how that globe handled Hong Kong, Crimea, or Gaza.

Of course, when that globe was first purchased, it was accurate. It is only the passage of time that has made its lines and labels increasingly incorrect. And it would be an interesting article of history, showing not how the world is, but how the world was just a few short decades ago, when we were steeped in a Cold War (and Pluto was still regarded as a planet).

But looking at that globe, and thinking of the change in where those pastel colors would fall now, it occurred to me--the lines are all imaginary. They are our inventions, not fixed and rigid things in the world. The boundary, for example, that separates green Mexico from the pink United States of America  on my globe is our human creation, and, aside from the natural lines of Rio Grande or the Gulf of Mexico, that line is basically determined by our human fascination with straight lines. And that's just it--some of the lines between countries on an outdated globe follow natural phenomena like rivers or coasts, but we are the ones who arbitrarily assign the pastel yellow of "us" here, and the light orange of "THEM" there.

We have done the same, we line-drawing human beings, not just on maps and globes and pieces of real estate, but also between groups of people. In the years since my old globe was printed, the Hutus massacred Tutsis in Rwanda after decades of building tensions, the Rohingya have been victims of violence in southeast Asia, the Uighurs in China, and that once-united shape called Yugoslavia eventually fell back apart into separate lands for Bosnians, Serbs, Croats, and the more. Human history is, sadly, all too often the story of humans drawing lines and then forgetting that we were the ones who drew them in the first place, and instead assuming that they have always been eternally carved in stone. That's the same old story, the same old song.

So we need a new song.

We need a new song like the one John the Seer overheard and scribbled down the lyrics for in what we call the book of Revelation. It is a song that reminds us what we should have known and remembered all along--the lines between us are imaginary and invented. They did not come from God, and they will not last forever, either.

And at its heart, this new tune is a love song. It is our love and worship of the Lamb who lays down his life for the world, sure; but it is first and foremost the love of the slain-yet-living Lamb for "every tribe and language and people and nation." And in that vision, the heavenly singers make it clear--the lines between us are our temporary inventions, and they are not ultimate. The vision John sees here is of a future in which the living God erases the boundaries we have drawn, like a sweep of your foot can wipe away the line drawn in the sand. At the last, John says, every single classroom globe will be out of date, as the Lamb gathers together every tribe and language and people and nation and pronounces, "You are my beloved" over all of it.  It is a new song for a new world--the new creation God has begun already in Christ.

Now, that kind of a vision--as sweeping and expansive as it is--gives the people of Jesus a particular kind of hope for the future... but it also does something powerful to the way we see the world right now. Listening to the Lamb's Love Song in Revelation 5 reminds us that the lines the world takes as permanent right now are not ultimate. The world likes to say, "This is how it is, and this is how it always has been and always will be... these lines will never change." But we blink, and the globes are out of date again. Much like Orwell's fictional Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia in 1984, which keep switching alliances and hostilities and then telling their citizens, "No, nothing has changed--we have always been at war with these people over here and always been at peace with those people over there," all of human history has been the drawing and re-drawing of lines on globes, and then our arrogant insistence that the lines are fixed and definitive. But that is a lie. The lines are imaginary. The love of the God who binds us all together is real.  And if that God says all nations are gathered into God's Reign of justice and mercy, then it is so.  No more "us-and-them" estrangement.

Considering the lyrics of the new song in Revelation is a lot like staring at a Cold War-era globe in the 21st century: it brings home the humbling, joyful realization that the lines we have drawn and keep drawing will not last. Part of the hope nurtured in the Christian tradition is the admission that for all of our attempts to divide ourselves from one another, whether by language or skin color, culture or background, national origin or splintering tribes, or just plain old straight lines drawn on a map, at the last, the lines will be erased, because Love has ransomed the whole lot of us. We won't stop being ourselves in all of our uniqueness. We just will finally have realized that the lines we kept drawing in between were imaginary all along.

O Lamb of God, grant us the honesty of vision to see how you have gathered all nations, peoples, and languages together in your love.

Only the Lamb--May 5, 2025

Only the Lamb--May 5, 2025

“And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’ Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne.” [Revelation 5:4-7]

What if you called for Superman, and nobody in a cape arrived, but only a bespectacled news reporter named Clark Kent?

What if the Bat-signal went out, but you only ever saw Bruce Wayne in a suit and tie at your doorstep?

We probably don’t often think of the Bible as a book known for its plot twists or surprise character reveals, but this is a big one. Maybe THE Big One. And it’s a big twist precisely for what doesn’t happen, and for who doesn’t appear.

You don’t have to spend much time in American pop culture to know that Superman’s alter-ego is the sheepish glasses-wearing reporter for the Daily Planet, Clark Kent (who never seems to be around when trouble rears its head because he slips into a phone booth and emerges as the blue-and-red-clad flying hero just in time to save the day). And you probably knew as well that Bruce Wayne is the given name for the Caped Crusader known to the residents of Gotham City as Batman. When the police shine the Bat-signal’s spotlight up into the sky, Wayne sneaks off to his Bat-Cave, dons his cape and cowl, and then speeds into the night in the Batmobile to fight a whole rogues’ gallery of villains.

And in your standard Batman movie or Superman comic, the introduction of the hero onto the scene is pretty standard. There’s a need—say, a speeding train about to go off the tracks, or a hijacked armored truck careening toward some schoolchildren—and it becomes clear that ordinary police officers, or even the SWAT Team, will not be enough to save the day. And so, the call goes out: “This looks like a job for Superman!” And then, the next thing you know, someone points up at a red-and-blue flash in the sky and exclaims, “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No—it’s Superman!” Same with Batman—the police commissioner realizes the Joker’s threat is too big for the Gotham City police force to handle, and once the Bat-signal is lit, we all wait for a dramatic nighttime entrance from the Dark Knight himself. (And in the Adam West days, a catchy theme song, “Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na—Batman!” would play, to remind us who was on his way!)

But what if the call went out for Superman, and the only one who appeared was a mild-mannered reporter named Clark? What if it was just ordinary-looking Bruce Wayne who showed up when the Bat-Signal went off? You’d be confused. You’d be disappointed. You’d be thinking that something strange was happening. Even if you knew that Bruce Wayne is really Batman, and even if you knew that Clark Kent is the alter-ego for Superman, if they didn’t show up with clenched fists and billowing capes, you’d think something was wrong. You expect some fireworks in a superhero story, after all—don’t you? You expect special effects, explosions, karate chopping, kicking, some bat-a-rangs whizzing through the air, or some Kryptonian heat-vision blasting the bad guys. In other words, you expect someone who looks the part of a hero, who shows power and strength and who revels in the glory of being a hero, and you expect that hero to start punching things to show they mean business. If you had all the build-up but only got Clark and Bruce, I’ll bet you would feel more than a little taken aback. Maybe even a little bit cheated at the lack of capes.

So now imagine if you were a first-century reader of Revelation, which is the closest thing you’ll find in the Bible to a graphic novel, with all of its outlandish visuals and cosmic conflict. Imagine if you were reading a story where the need was dire—“We need someone who is worthy of opening up this scroll!”—and the voice of the narrator said that there’s no one around who is worthy to open up the scroll. This is like Commissioner Gordon realizing the Penguin’s scheme requires outside help and turning on the Bat-Signal. This is the book of Revelation’s moment to say, “This looks like a job for—Superman!” Except in this scene, they all expect a Lion. “Do not weep,” says one of the heavenly bystanders, “Look here—the Lion of the tribe of Judah is coming. He has conquered. He is worthy. He will do what no one else can and open the scroll!”

So all eyes turn to look toward the heavenly throne, awaiting the hero that has been announced, expecting to see the conquering Lion, and—there isn’t one.

Not at this moment in Revelation, and in fact, never. There ain’t a Lion to be found in the rest of the book of Revelation. Never appears. Never shows. Never mentioned again.

Instead of the conquering Lion, we get the slaughtered Lamb. Instead of the fearsome predator, the so-called “King of the Jungle,” we get the diminutive little “lambykins” (seriously, the Greek here for “Lamb” is in the diminutive form, like we would say, “lamby” for “lamb,” or “kitty cat” for a little cat, or “doggy” for dog). And not just a Lamb, but a dead one that is somehow alive again. This Lamb ain’t stalking prey—he bears the wounds of having been killed himself.

And, mind you, this is not simply a dramatic buildup for an even later appearance of the Lion. He just never shows up. Or rather, we are supposed to understand that the Lion we were expecting has really all along been the Lamb. And apparently, all we have ever really needed is the Lamb.  And only the Lamb.

If you were expecting punching, clawing, or roaring, you will be disappointed. There is none. But if you were hoping for the victorious savior we need, even if it is not the hero we expected, then the Lamb is enough. Sufficient. All-sufficient, it turns out. But it does have the unmistakable feeling of surprise, with the same kind of punch for first-century readers as it would be for us to get all excited to see Superman, only to have soft-spoken, bespectacled Clark Kent arrive on scene for the rest of the story. Somehow we assume we need punching for anything heroic to get done.

And that, of course, is the whole point that John of the Revelation is trying to make: the way our God wins the victory in the end, is not by punching anyone, but by dying for everyone. All the build-up about the Lion who turns out to be a Lamb isn’t false advertising—it’s a corrective to our misunderstood picture of what we really need. And the core message of the Book of Revelation is that even though it looks like the powers of the day are winning because they have more weapons and armies and wealth, the living God has won the victory already by dying at the hands of the empire. We don’t really need a Lion, or a tiger, or a bear, after all—there are some things in this world that cannot be healed by clawing at them, after all. What we need—what we have always needed all along, even if we could not recognize it—has been the Slaughtered-but-Living Lamb. We need the kind of power that defeats death by getting swallowed up by it and then breaking it open from the inside. We need the kind of power that comes from self-giving love that will not flinch in the face of death or run away to seek shelter when it starts to rain.

If you turned on the Bat-Signal and only got Bruce Wayne on your doorstep, even knowing that they are one and the same, you might at last realize that whatever your problem was, it couldn’t be solved by a masked vigilante with a fetish for flying rodents and beating up burglars. You might realize the real problem was something that couldn’t be solved by punching. Like the Joker famously says in the movie The Dark Knight, while a frustrated Batman tries to pummel the Joker into giving up information, “You have nothing! Nothing to threaten me with! Nothing to do with all your strength!” And of course, in that instance, the Joker was dead right—there are some things that punching cannot fix, and some times when Kryptonian heat-vision cannot save the day. Sometimes you need a victory that looks like loss, and a Lord who looks like a victim.

For all of our culture’s assumption that “winning” looks like a regal lion with sharp claws, the Bible itself yet again yanks the carpet out from under. And all of a sudden, it will dawn on us that God was perfectly capable of sending a Lion and instead only chooses to send a Lamb, and only a Lamb… that God was perfectly capable of sending us Superman and instead sends the crucified-and-risen Jesus… that God was perfectly capable of coming down with guns blazing and fists flying, but instead shows his strength with open hands that take nails and offer blessing even to those who have strung him up on a cursed Roman death stake. Because that is what we most need—because what we need to be saved from is our own impulse to destroy ourselves.

Now if this is God’s kind of victory, the question for us will be, “How can I be a part of God’s victory in this day?” And if we are looking at the Lamb for our picture of victory, then all of our tired lion-like attempts to intimidate, threaten, bully, and overpower others will come up short. And instead, every act of self-giving love, every instance of faithful endurance in the face of hatred, and every moment of unmasked vulnerable honesty will be a witness to the real victory already accomplished, not by a son of Krypton, but by a crucified Son.

That may catch the world off guard, since the world still expects lions and Caped Crusaders… but maybe the world needs the surprise of ordinary faces and a slain Lamb.

Lord Jesus, our Triumphant Lamb, redefine our picture of victory in light of your suffering love, and let our lives witness to your way of winning.

...And Everything In Between--May 2, 2025

...And Everything In Between--May 2, 2025

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1:8)

Just to be clear, God isn't just the starting point and the end point; God runs all the way through.  If we don't understand that, we're going to miss what's being said here in this verse, which many of us heard as part of our second reading in worship this past Sunday.  God isn't claiming ownership or lordship over merely the first page of the book and the last page, but of the whole story.

We might easily make that mistake when we read the Bible--of mishearing its figures of speech in binary ways when a whole spectrum of continuity is really in mind.  This verse is a good example.  For those who haven't brushed up on their Greek lately, the words "Alpha" and "Omega" are the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet--the alpha roughly like our letter "A" and the omega (literally O-Mega, as in "Big O") make a long "O" sound.  But it has the feel of our English expression of saying you know something "from A to Z."  When someone is described as understanding a certain subject "from A to Z," it is meant to be all-encompassing; this person knows, not just the first basic information but also the last of the last on the subject, and everything in between.  Saying "from A to Z" is not a reference to two separate things (a thing called "A" and a thing called "Z") but rather the whole of something, from beginning to end, with all the middle parts included too.

English is full of examples like this.  We use expressions like "from head to tail" or "from top to bottom" or even "from dawn to dusk." They all imply the whole of something, all the way through, not just the start and the finish.  And it turns out that the Bible does this a fair bit as well: things we sometimes hear as binary pairs or actually references to a whole spectrum. For example, God makes the day and the night in Genesis, but that isn't meant to rule out the in-between times of sunrise or sunset.  God makes fresh water and saltwater, but that doesn't mean God was uninvolved with marshes and estuaries where the two meet and blend.  God makes plants and animals, but strange and wild creatures like leaf sheep (look them up--they're a kind of sea slug) exist that both act like animals and also photosynthesize like plants, or lichens, which are hybrid organisms when a plant and a fungus thrive together as one.  (That's not even to get into the complicated ways that many organisms have not just two genders, but a surprising variety of combinations of gender, or the ability to biologically change from male to female or the other way around if there are no viable mates in their habitat--that's a biology lesson for another day.) All of this is to say that repeatedly in the Bible, the language is of a continuum, but our ears sometimes mishear it as a two-pointed binary.  We might mistake "Alpha and the Omega" as only a reference to a beginning point and an end point, when the real thrust of the language is to say "...and everything in between, as well."

To call on God as "Alpha and Omega," or in English letters, "the A and the Z," is really to say, like Paul says in First Corinthians, "God is all in all."  At every point along the way, including E, F, G, and W, X, and Y, God is present.  The whole shootin' match is God's jurisdiction and God's realm.  In other words, from the Christian vantage point, it's not that God is a character within the flow of history, but rather that history occurs within the being of God.  It's not that God exists as a point within the universe (even the center point), but rather that the universe exists within God.  God isn't going through the flow of time with us with just a very long lifespan, but rather God's being is outside of and beyond time, so that every point of our existence is immediately present to God.  That's part of why it makes perfect sense that the divine name God reveals to Moses out of the burning bush is "I AM" and not something like "I've Been Around For A Long Time" or "I'll Meet You At The End."  God isn't just a character in the saga of the world's history who pops in on the protagonists from time to time like Gandalf or Tom Bombadil in a Tolkien story, or the good but mercurial Dumbledore in the Harry Potter stories, or Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, whose disembodied voice just turns up at key plot points.  Rather God is present to all things at all times, because all things and all times actually find their existence within God's Being, not the other way around.

Okay, so why does any of this matter?  Why should I care that God isn't just the Alpha and the Omega, but also the Beta, Delta, Sigma, and Upsilon as well?  Well, for one, it's a way of saying God is faithful, ever-present, and always available.  The promise from God is not merely, "I met you at the start of your journey, and then I'll be there at the finish line, but you're on your own for the twists and turns in between," but rather, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, because you are with me."  Jesus' final words (but not parting words, apparently) in Matthew's Gospel are not, "Meet you in heaven--good luck 'til then!" but rather, "I am with you always, even to the end of the age," precisely as he has sent them scattering out in all directions to "go into all nations." That's because God isn't confined to one spot on the map or one point in time, but is ever-present to all of it, the whole space-time continuum, because all of it exists within God's being.

A second implication is that the whole of history matters to God, not just getting everything to a happy ending at the conclusion of the final chapter.  Sometimes Christians have been so focused on how to "get people saved" so they can "get to heaven when they die" that we end up acting like the sufferings and sorrows of this life are unimportant or irrelevant. And even worse, sometimes the church's position has been to say, "We don't worry about whether children get enough to eat or refugees have a place to sleep--we just care about getting 'em into heaven!" and then we have shrugged in confusion or indifference when the suffering do not immediately want to hear what we have to tell them about the afterlife, because they see our apathy over their present-day life.  But if we recall that whole of history, and the entirety of the world matter to the ever-present God, then we can't ever separate our talk of heaven from our actions on earth.  We don't get to ignore the needs of the planet we live on in the hopes that God will just "get us a new one." We don't get to turn away from the needs of neighbors simply because "there won't be any sickness or death in heaven." And we don't get to reduce the Gospel into mere fire-insurance for the afterlife, rather than a way of life we walk today as well as beyond death.  If God is not just at the beginning and the end, but all along in between as well, then everything matters to God, and all of our existence is within the scope of God's concern and God's reign.

And maybe most importantly of all, especially to remember coming from this book of Revelation, is that the One God who is before the beginning and after the end is always in character with Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified and Risen One.  In other words, there is no bait-and-switch where Jesus the itinerant rabbi who taught us to love our enemies gets subbed out and a conquering Christ of unrelenting wrath tags in.  Sometimes we slide into that kind of sloppy thinking and bad theology if we picture God as just Alpha at the beginning and then reappearing at the end as Omega. We talk about Christ's coming in glory as though it were completely disconnected with the character of Jesus of Nazareth, or as if Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, were the exception, and the fire and brimstone of the early Genesis and late Revelation scenes were what God is "really" like.  But that just ain't so.  The God of all time and space is the One revealed in Jesus.  There is no point at which Jesus' cross-bearing, enemy-loving, poor-blessing, opponent-reconciling kind of love is not God's character.  There is no last-minute costume change for the final act, and there is no change of the rules just because we get to the bottom of the ninth inning. God remains faithful, constant, and present, of the same character that looks like Jesus, through all our lives, and throughout the story of the universe. That's what we can count on, even when everything else in our lives seems like it is thrown up in to the air and changing.

Today, then, it is worth remembering that ours is the God, not just of the neat-and-tidy endings or the ancient origins lost in the mists of memory, but of this present moment.  In fact, all of our moments, and all of what we call past, present, and future, are all caught up in God's eternal NOW. So this day matters, and what we do with it matters.  This world matters, and how we take care of it--and its inhabitants--matters.  And this moment brings with it the presence of the God who is not just there from before our birth or after our death, but is here for us in everything in between, too.

Lord God, open our eyes to your presence in this moment, and enable us to use this day in ways that reflect your care and your character.