Easter 4
May 11, 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!"
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."
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "Sir, you are the one who knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat, for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
I was busy reading the text, so I didn’t notice if anybody flinched when I said it came from the Book of Revelation. A lot of people regard Revelation as a spooky book.
It’s a strange book. The writer is the prophet John. He says he wrote down a series of visions that came on a Sunday morning. I don’t know what kind of visions you’re having today, but some of John’s visions are frightening. He sees vicious beasts with sharp teeth and terrible claws. And he hears thunder, false prophets spouting lies. Some of his visions are destructive. John sees hunger, disease, poverty, and war.
But that’s only half the story. For every horseman of the apocalypse, there are hundreds of holy angels. For every cry of pain, affliction, and suffering, there are resounding songs of praise. For every bowl of hot, burning wrath, there are altars of incense lifted as the prayers of the saints. And for every mighty dragon speaking great lies and blasphemies, there is a single Throne – and the dragon is not on it.
No, John looks and sees a Lamb. The blasphemous dragon doesn’t rule the universe. No, it’s a Lamb. Now, let that sink in.
We’ve met the Lamb before, in chapter five. John sees a Lamb that had been killed. Murdered, in fact. Yet it stands as if it is alive, thoroughly alive. So, we can guess who John perceives. It’s Jesus himself, once killed, now alive. The Lamb of God, as others called him. The Passover Lamb, as one of our Gospels describes him. He is the One who leads his people into freedom, freedom from sin and death. Surrounding him is a veritable hootenanny. A million angels are breaking into a sevenfold song of praise:
Worthy
is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom,
and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!
It’s an Easter hymn. He was dead but now he lives and sits upon the throne! Today, a new scene, a new vision, and we hear the sevenfold song echoed:
Blessing and glory and wisdom and
thanksgiving and honor and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! (and then to reinforce the point) Amen!
This is an Easter song, an Easter
vision. Christ has died, Christ is risen, and everybody says Amen!
If the kingdom of God has been
inaugurated by Christ, why are Roman armies so much in evidence? The gospel
declared God’s love for the world; Roman decrees put the people who believed it
in prisons and on crosses. Christ lived, suffered, died, and rose again— and
the world was getting worse, not better. Annie Dillard asks the question that
presses for an answer in this kind of world— she ranks it as the chief
theological question of all time — “What in the Sam Hill is going on here
anyway?”[1]
John felt
the pressure. Rome demanded absolute allegiance, but John sees Christ the Lamb
as the One who rightfully sits on the throne. The Empire pressed in to compel
John’s obedience, but John will only answer to Christ who shepherds him with
grace. Caesar – in this case, a Caesar named Domitian – reinforces his pressure
with cruelty and the threat of death, but John knows his future is secure in
the God who is stronger than the grave.
In the
stunning vision for today, John sees more than the angels, more than the
eternal elders. There is also an unlimited choir of saints in a cloud of glory.
They are not just Jews like him, but rather a multitude, defined by diversity,
drawing from every nation. They speak every language. They represent all the
people whom Christ died for and lives for. And then they break into song - and keep
singing. These people are triumphant because their Christ is triumphant!
But here’s
the thing: he’s still a Lamb. Not a brutal dictator, but a Lamb. Not a defiant,
belligerent bully who pushes his weight around, but a Lamb. Not an arrogant
fool who decrees what he wants, but a Lamb who gave his life for others but now
lives. And this may be the most curious thing of all!
There’s a
Lutheran pastor named Katherine. She was trying to figure out how to talk about
this text from Revelation, not just to a congregation, but for a children’s
sermon. And then she remembered a phrase she had heard from one of her
teachers. Jesus comes with “lamb power.” Not mighty power. Not pushy power, but
lamb power. “Children,” she asked, “do you know what lamb power looks like?”
“Well, it’s
cute and cuddly,” one of them said. “I have a toy lamb,” another added, “and I
can hug it whenever I’m upset.” “I saw a lamb at a farm,” one said, “and he
came close so I could set its wool.” They went on like this for a while, the
way a good children’s sermon can spark more conversations that you can shut
down. Finally, Katherine broke in to say, “Let’s pray.” Prayer as crowd
control, you know. Then she added, “If you hear any more lamb power in today’s worship
service, stand up and say so.”
Now, she
forgot for the moment that it was a communion Sunday. And she’s a Lutheran. So,
in the middle of the long communion prayer, she says, “Lamb of God, you take
away the sins of the world.” Suddenly three kids started bleating! And
everybody said, “Lamb power!”[2]
It strikes me how different this is from the way the world configures power. The world exerts power through force and dominance, just like the old Roman Empire. Yet the Gospel reveals that true power thrives on love, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, humility, and self-sacrifice. Empires and their bullies come and go, but Jesus, the Lamb of God, sits upon the throne. He was wounded by the world, but he is alive. His graciousness is his superpower.
The truth of
this was brought home to me through a couple vignettes. The first happened
around a funeral that I led. I got a phone call a few years ago from an old
friend from high school who now lives in Florida. He said, “My father died, and
I don’t know any clergy from our hometown. Could you officiate his funeral?”
Well, certainly! I’d be honored. My buddy gave me the date and time for a
graveside service, out in the country hills south of my town.”
As I hung up
the phone, recalling what I could about his father, I suddenly remembered that
my friend had an older brother. His name was Bob, and he was the bully that threatened
me when I was in first grade. It’s still traumatic to remember it. Bob was
older, taller, and had an anger management problem for a fourth grader. He
loved to pick on little kids.
One day,
noticing I had an interest in a blonde classmate that his brother, my buddy,
also desired, he confronted me on the steps of the school bus. “Stay away from
her,” he bellowed. Then he pushed me down the steps of the school bus. The bus
driver yelled at him, but the damage was done. I cowered in fear. I did what he
said. It ruined my first-grade love life. I had never gotten over it – and now
I was doing his father’s funeral. Gave me second thoughts.
But then, we
gathered at graveside, and here he came, fifty-five years later. Now, an old
man, thick glasses, walking with a cane, and absolutely distraught. He had lost
his father. I said the necessary words, he wept. I prayed his dad into the care
of Christ, the Lamb of God, who is our shepherd. After the “amen,” I stepped
over to shake his hand and offer condolences. He grabbed my hand, pulled me in,
gave a huge hug, and said, “Thank you.” You know, sometimes even the bullies
grow up. So do the cowards. Mercy is the way to abundant life.
The second
vignette is something you may have seen. With all the grief over one pope’s
death and another pope’s election, I noticed a brief article about Pope
Francis, the one who died. He had a heart for the downtrodden, for the weak, and
for the vulnerable. He turned down the fancy mansion years ago and chose a
small apartment. He also turned down a salary; reports say he had $100 to his
name when he passed.
Now, here’s
the vignette: when Pope Francis was dying, he bequeathed one of his Pope
Mobiles to the children of Gaza, asking that it be used for a mobile health
clinic. It will carry bandages, antibiotics, sutures, and vaccines in a land
where thousands have died, and the health system has collapsed. As the Vatican
reports, “Pope Francis often stated that ‘Children are not numbers. They are
faces. Names. Stories. And each one is sacred,’ and with this final gift, his
words have become action.”[3]
This is Lamb
Power, so different from the cruelty, division, and hostility that a hell-bent
world won’t restrain. Yet there is another way, the Jesus Way, the Mother-Who-Loves-You
Way, the way of mercy and self-sacrifice. It’s the Way for those who hear the
voice of Jesus. It’s the Way for those who know he is the way, the truth, and
the life.
[1] Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John
& the Praying Imagination (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988) 72.
[2] Katherine A. Shaner, “Lamb Power,”
The Christian Century, 9 May 2025. https://www.christiancentury.org/sunday-s-coming/easter-4c-shaner
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