Preached at Prince of Peace, Wasaga Beach, and St Luke's, Creemore, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, on May 18, 2025, the Sixth Sunday of Easter.
Readings for this Sunday (Easter 6C): Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21.1-6; John 13.31-35
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home[of God is among mortals. He will dwell[b] with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God; (Rev 21.3)
Will you listen to the words, long written down?
These words
could be used in church before every scripture lesson, but they actually come
from a well known song. Bonus marks if
you recognize them?
If you said
they are from Johnny Cash’s song, When the Man Comes Around, then
congratulations, you’re a winner, but you still have to listen to the rest of this
sermon!
Johnny Cash
said that this song took him longer to write than any other of his songs, and thelyrics borrow heavily from the Book of Revelation, the source of today’s second
lesson. And like the Book of Revelation,
Cash’s lyrics are ominous, even scary. There
are phrases like “The whirlwind in is in the thron tree” and “Some are born and
some are dying”, and if that’s not
spooky enough, the song ends with this words:
"And I
heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts
And I looked and behold, a pale horse
And his name that sat on him was Death
And Hell followed with him"
I would
guess that Cash’s lyrics are how many people understand this strange last book
of the Bible, as a book of fear and doom, prophecies that trigger our deepest
fears and anxieties. Many of our cultural
and movie tropes and images come from Revelation: the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Armageddon,
death as a pale rider.
I wonder
though how many listeners to Cash’s song understand that man in the title who
is going to come around is Jesus! Johnny
Cash runs with imagery that Revelation uses to describe Jesus, who will lead
the armies of heaven like a conquering king and who will judge all souls at the
end of time (Rev 19:11,13-16). For the
first Christians who would have read or heard Revelation at the end of the
first century, the scary and doomy parts of the letter would have described
their world, where the Roman emperors were beginning to persecute the Christian
church and hunt its leaders and members.
These early Christians saw Roman culture as being deeply sinful and
corrupt, and so they imagined a day when Jesus would come to rescue them and
punish the wicked. A long sequence in
the middle of the book describes Rome as the Whore of Babylon, and imagines its
destruction as God finally returns to bring justice and punishment for the
wicked.
Whoever wrote
Revelation (according to tradition it was a man named John, not the disciple but
sometimes called John of Patmos) was drawing on many biblical sources,
particularly books of prophecy like the Book of Daniel, which contain strange
beasts, coming events, and numbers (such as seven and twelve) that recur
frequently in scripture, leading some to want to interpret them as clues and
codes. Many books have been written trying to explain
Revelation as a warning about things that will come in the near future, such as
Hal Lindsey’s 1970s bestseller The Late Great Planet Earth, or the Left Behind
series that started in the 1990s.
All of these
and similar books and films depend on what we might call the “scare factor” of
Revelation, but what if I told you that there is nothing to be scared of? I could summarize it in five words: “Good guys win. The end”.
In fact, if you look at today’s second
lesson (Rev 21.1-6), the only possibly scary part is that “the sea was no more”,
which is disturbing for those who like to go on cruises and eat seafood, but everything
else speaks of a world that is renewed, refreshed, and made infinitely better.
Today’s
passage begins and ends with things being made new, which is a central idea of
our faith, that salvation involves being remade and reborn, as in Paul’s
statement in Second Corinthians, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new”
(2 Cor 5:7). There is a wedding,
which is also an image of something new being created (a family) and we
remember that Jesus’ first miracle was at the Wedding in Cana. Then there is a threefold statement of
intimate relationship as God literally comes to be with and stay with us:
“See, the
home[a] of God is among mortals.
He will dwell[b] with them;
they will be his peoples,[c]
and God himself will be with them and be their God;[
Then there
is an image of comfort and consolation (tears being wiped away) which makes the
scary God that we associate with Revelation suddenly becoming as tender as a
mother, and then there is the startling and wonderful news that we won’t have
to cry and mourn any more because pain and death have been abolished from this new
world that God is creating. These images
of comfort and an end to death and mourning explain why this passage is so
often read at funerals. And this passage
is not alone in providing a kinder, gentler Book of Revelation.
Last Sunday
our second reading in church featured a vision of Christians who have been
killed for their faith being sheltered by the Lamb, a description of Jesus as a
victim and a nurturer as well as a conqueror:
Revelation says that these martyrs will “hunger no more, and thirst no
more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the
centre 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” (Rev 9.17).
The image of
“springs of water of life” reminds us of how today’s reading ends: “To the
thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life” (Rev
21.6) and together these images remind us Jesus’ conversation with the
Samaritan woman at the well in John’s gospel and how he promises her water of
eternal life. So once again there is an
affirmation of care, rescue, a promise of an end to death and pain and
suffering and a promise of eternal life.
So all I’ve
done in this short homily today is to try and make a case for why Revelation
isn’t a scary book. Is it mysterious? Yes, in the sense that a dream can be
mysterious, and not every image has a deep meaning. However, the book as a whole is a celebration
of God’s love and commitment to us, despite everything that we fear might keep
us from God. So let me finish with some
thoughts about who needs to hear this message.
If you
wonder if your church is doing a good job, look at the first chapter of
Revelation, which says pretty clearly that a church’s job is always and only to
be a witness to Jesus Christ.
If you feel
that God is far away, and doubt that you will ever find God, then remember that
Revelation promises that God and heaven will come to us, down from heaven and
making God’s home with us, on earth.
If you fear
for the earth itself amidst news of climate change, droughts, and natural
disasters, then Revelation promises us
that God is deeply committed to the future of the world that God created, and
that God will remake and renew all things, including the earth God loves.
If you fear
the future and you watch the news anxiously and obsessively, then don’t be
afraid. Revelation promises that there
will be a day when wars will cease and justice will come to the warlords and
persecutors. Yes, there may be
suffering to come, but God and the good guys win. The Lamb of God will also be the holy and
righteous judge of God. So maybe switch
the news off and spend more time outside!
If you are
filled with deep mourning and doubt that you’ll ever feel alive again, hold on
to that image of God (or Jesus) gently wiping away your tears and washing your face.
Finally, if
you love poetry and language, then Revelation is a book of poetry to enjoy, and
not a code to be cracked, so if you haven’t read it already, then now’s a good
time to start, and maybe start by listening to Johnny Cash read Revelation (youcan find it on YouTube).
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