The Mayberry Preacher

REVISITING REVELATION - WHAT'S REALLY "LEFT BEHIND"

Revelation 21: 1-6
Steve Lindsley
July 21, 2008

You know, I find it kind of neat and, dare I say, providential how little things have seemed to pop up at just the right time throughout this Revelation sermon series.  I was hanging out earlier this week with my friend Jerry Chapman.  Jerry, as you may know, is the youth minister at Central Methodist and a fellow “Mayberry musician.”  He’d been gone for a few weeks to do some recording, so we were catching up.

Jerry, being the giving guy that he is, almost always passes along some CDs of music he’s been listening to recently; and the CD he gave me this week took me on a trip down memory lane.  The guy’s name is Larry Norman, and I vaguely remember him.  He was perhaps the very first contemporary Christian rock artist back in the early 70’s.  And while I never really listened to him much, there was one song on the CD that I knew quite well.  We used to sing it at our high school Young Life meetings every Wednesday night – we had this older guy who would bring his guitar and lead us in some group singing before our Bible study.  The song is called I Wish We’d All Been Ready, and as best as I can tell it's the songwriter's account of Revelation.  It’s an interesting tune.  The first verse goes like this:

Life was filled with guns and war,
And everyone got trampled on the floor,
I wish we'd all been ready
Children died, the days grew cold,
A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold,
I wish we'd all been ready,

Okay, so that kind of sounds like Revelation.  You've got chaos and the celebration and worship of “Nike” power– represented in guns and war and stuff like that.  You’ve got this notion of an unjust and unfair economic system with the haves and have-nots duking it out over a piece of bread.  I’m not quite sure what's going on with that whole “people getting trampled on the floor” part, but I'm guessing he needed a rhyme for “war.”  Not a bad first verse.

But it’s the second verse that has always troubled me:

A man and wife asleep in bed,
She hears a noise and turns her head, he's gone,
I wish we'd all be ready,
Two men walking up a hill,
One disappears and one's left standing still,
I wish we'd all been ready,
There's no time to change your mind,
How could you have been so blind,
There’s no time to change your mind,
The Son has come and you've been left behind.

   

Ah, the Rapture – you gotta love it, don't you?  Whether it's Larry Norman or William Miller in the mid-1800's or a charismatic Korean church in 1992, “rapture theology” is the most common way our culture conceptualizes Revelation.  Even people who don’t profess a particular faith or who have never read Revelation will assume that’s what it’s about.

And I think it’s fair to say that nothing in our generation has better captured rapture theology than the “Left Behind” book series of the 1990's.  I remember reading the first one a few years ago because a youth in my previous church was reading it and had lots of questions.  And I’ll admit – it’s a captivating read.  Authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are excellent writers.  I’ll never forget that opening chapter – how airline pilot Rayford Steele, an agnostic at best, discovers much to his horror that dozens of passengers on his transcontinental flight have mysteriously disappeared from the plane.  The only trace of them is their clothing neatly folded in a pile where they last sat or stood.  From there the story, recounted in a dozen books, launches into an epic battle between good and evil; good represented by the “Tribulation Force,” a self-appointed conglomerate of “left behind” believers who use souped-up Land Rovers and state-of-the-art artillery to fight the Antichrist and his minions.

Now – a word from your sponsor. If you haven't already picked up on it, you probably will soon realize that your pastor is skeptical about some of the nuances of “Rapture Theology.”  And please, please do not get me wrong: I believe very much in the second coming of Christ.  I believe very much that there will come a time when evil in this world will end and God will reign supreme.  I believe these things because, as the wonderful song we’ve been singing since we were kids says, “the Bible tells me so;” and I believe, like all of us, that the Bible is in the business of pointing us toward the truth.

But you and I have been in this wonderful pastor-parishioner relationship for 5½ years now, thanks be to God!  And because of that relationship, I feel comfortable in sharing with you (and hope you feel comfortable in me telling you) that I do not believe people will mysteriously disappear off the face of the earth; nor do I believe that the world will be destroyed in some cosmic and cataclysmic, God-ordained event.  And the reason I do not believe these things is quite simple: they are not in Revelation.  There is no account of people disappearing and leaving their clothes behind.  There is no account of an epic battle that destroys the world and brings about its end.  There is talk about preparations for a battle, but the battle never happens – it doesn’t need to, because “lamb power” prevails before “Nike power” can even get itself to the battle lines.

None of this, of course, has stopped rapture theology from getting a grip on us in some form or fashion – and this, I think, should alarm us. Shouldn't it concern us how this mindset promotes an “I’ve-got-mine-now-you-go-get-yours” mentality that uses fear to motivate?  Fear, after all, is a tool of the empire; as is the understanding that the world is divided into two groups: those who are “in” and those who are “out.”  This is not what Revelation talks about. And shouldn’t it concern us how this notion of the righteous being taken up and away from the earth, how this impacts our sense of environmental stewardship?  I mean, what’s the point of even taking care of the earth – recycling and reducing CO2 emissions and seeking alternative forms of fuel  - what’s the point of doing any of that if we’re not going to be around this earth much longer anyway?

Something needs to change, folks.  Something needs to change.  I remember a conversation I had with one of my students in the online New Testament class I teach at the college. We were having a discussion about something in Revelation; and when I asked her if she had read the assigned scriptures from Revelation for that week, she responded that “no, she found Revelation confusing, so she just read the “Left Behind” books to understand it better.”  I mean, that’s kind of like going to the Grand Canyon and standing on a precipice with that incredible view before you, but all you’re looking at is a picture of the Grand Canyon on the postcard you just bought from the gift shop.

Something needs to change.  We’ve got to go to the source – that’s the thing.  We’ve got to read the book of Revelation, we’ve got to know who wrote it and why he wrote it.  We’ve got to know who he was speaking to and what those people were going through.  And when we do this, we might be surprised at what we find.  We find a powerful message of hope for the hopeless; we find Fluffy and the “lamb power” that opens scrolls and calls God to action.

And in our scripture today, we find what John calls a “new heaven and a new earth” – “new” not in the sense of being a different earth, but a “renewed” earth: the old earth given a new lease on life.  And on this new earth, descending from the heavens, comes a “new Jerusalem.  It is the epitome of glory, beauty and grandeur.  The walls of the city are adorned with a myriad of jewels – the same jewels found on the breastplate of the high priest.  There are twelve gates around this city that always remain open – so the city is home for the whole world, open to all nations and people.  And no one – no one – is left behind.  But perhaps the most wonderful thing about this city is that God is there.  Not just on a visit, passing through – God literally sets up residence in the city, “dwelling” with the people and making God’s home with them, forever.

John of Patmos is gazing upon this incredible vision – the culmination of the lamb power’s perseverance in the world – and all he can think of to describe how he feels is that it's like “a bride adorned for her husband.”  Ha!  You know why I love this?  Any guy who has ever stood at the end of the aisle on his wedding day and recalls that instant when the doors in the back are flung open to reveal his wife-to-be in her wedding finest – you remember, guys, how that made you feel?  You remember what that does to you?  Your knees get weak, your stomach knots up, you feel chills run up and down you like an electrical shock, and you are totally oblivious to the silly ear-to-ear grin that suddenly spreads across your face.  Your whole body rejoices in this “revelation!”  That’s exactly what each and every one of us will feel when God’s kingdom on earth comes into view.  We’ll be overwhelmed with joy; basking in the “lamb power” that has called us to be servants, disciples, fellowshippers of the risen Lord.  

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  Well, friends, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, folks, but I’m afraid to say that this is not quite the scene of total peace and harmony.  LaHaye and Jenkins, I must admit, were right – there is something that is left behind in all of this; something that does not make it into the new Jerusalem; something that is eternally shut out from the city’s gates.  And we find it in the fourth verse of this chapter, when John says:

Death will be no more;
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
For the first things have passed away.

These, my friends, are signs of the empire, the elements of that Nike power that used to call the shots.  But not any more.  Those kinds of things are left standing outside the city walls, never to enter.  Imagine that!  In fact, that's exactly what I'd like you to do right now.  Close your eyes, if you would, and imagine yourself in this New Jerusalem.  You walk over to the city walls and look down at what's on the outside looking in.  Suffering and Persecution are standing out there, right next to Injustice and Inequality; and they can’t get in.  AIDS and Hunger are trying to find a back door, but they never will.  Cancer doesn’t stand a chance of finding its way into the city.  Depression and Anxiety are left out, as are Hate and Prejudice and Racism.  War – war most certainly is on the outside looking in.  Even Death itself – the ultimate manifestation of Nike power – even Death is not getting in.  This is what's “left behind” from God’s kingdom on earth.  You can open your eyes now.

It's a pretty cool picture, isn't it?  So we have yanked the curtain away, my friends.  Like Toto in the Wizard of Oz, we have exposed the “wizard” for who he really is; we have witnessed with our own eyes what Revelation is truly about.  And because we don’t have to be afraid anymore, because we see things in our world for what they really are, we can respond as people of faith and as followers of Christ.  We can respond by pledging our allegiance to lamb power even when the world around us continues to be lost in its Nike-ness.  We can proclaim the inclusive nature of God’s kingdom as a place where all people can live in peace.  And most of all we can declare, for all to hear, an eternal hope – hope that renews, hope that sustains, hope that can make a difference in a hopeless world.

And I think you’ll agree – that is certainly a future that we all can look forward to. Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

REVISITING REVELATION - NIKE MEETS FLUFFY

Revelation 5: 1-6, 11-13
Steve Lindsley
July 13, 2008                  

Last Sunday morning as I was making my “rounds” around the church visiting with folks as they arrived, I found one church member sitting in the chair across from Lynn’s desk with newspaper and scissors in hand. She was cutting out an article for me; Billy Graham’s column on, of all things, the topic: Does the book of Revelation have meaning today? Jane knew I was beginning a three-week sermon series on Revelation that Sunday and thought it might prove useful – which it did.

Probably not so surprisingly, Graham emphatically assures us that YES, Revelation still has great meaning in our day and world. He writes this: Admittedly, parts of it are hard to understand. And although Bible scholars may debate the details, the central truth of Revelation is clear: we can have hope because God is in control, and someday Christ’s victory over death will be complete.[i]

I mean, it was almost as if Rev. Graham knew what I was preaching on last Sunday! All that talk about a river whose waters run from the temple and trees that never cease bearing fruit. These are the kinds of things, Revelation tells us, that give us hope – hope that the world as we know is not the world that will always be; hope that people can change and that the powers-that-be in this world will not have the last word.

But the reality of things is that, while we do find all kinds of rivers and trees in the 22nd chapter, there are 21 other chapters we must contend with – and many of them talk about things that do not, at face value, appear to be all that hopeful. Even Billy Graham would have to agree with that. And you know, I find myself feeling a fair bit of sympathy for the guy who wrote all of this. John of Patmos, he’s called. Patmos was the island where he and a fair amount of fellow Christians were in hiding, seeking refuge and retreat. Just years before John penned his famous words, Roman soldiers had burned Jerusalem to the ground and either enslaved or exiled its people. John’s book was written to a beleaguered group of believers who had lost everything and had seemingly lost any sense of hope – all at the hand of the brutal Roman empire.

You know, it seems kind of strange, doesn’t it, to picture the Roman empire in such a negative light? Nearly 2000 years of history have served to whitewash things a bit, where most of what we see, if not all of it, is fairly positive. We think of ancient Rome and we think of major contributions to society in culture, art, literature. We think of the calendar we use and the first major road system, architecture and a modern form of government. We think of Rome and we overwhelmingly see a model for modernization and human ingenuity.

But progress, as sometimes is the case, does not come without a price; and there’s this darker side to Roman civilization that the early Christians knew all too well. It’s hard to see unless we take time, like we talked about last week, to pull back that curtain a bit; to “unveil” what was previously hidden from our view – which, of course, is what Revelation is all about. So when we pull back the curtain on Rome, this is what find: we find “Rome” referred to throughout the book as Babylon – a name that sent shivers down the spine of any early Christian who knew of their destruction of Jerusalem some 600 years before. The book also speaks of a terrifying “beast from the sea” that wreaks havoc on the earth – much like the Roman empire had been known to do the same. We’ve all heard about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – the white horse that conquered, the red one that made war, the black horse that unleashed famine, and the pale green horse of death. This was John’s way of describing the ghastly consequences of Roman rule for those who didn’t play by the rules – they were conquered, they were victims of unrelenting warfare, they suffered disease and famine, and they died.

Citizens of the Roman empire were either patrons of the system or victims of it; and there was no middle ground. While some enjoyed the benefits of a prosperous lifestyle, a huge class of impoverished lived just outside the beautiful architecture and buildings. The gap between rich and poor was wide and extremely hard to overcome. And not only that, but everything about the Roman empire focused on expansion of that empire and unquestioning loyalty to the emperor. One “had faith” in the emperor in the same kind of way you and I have faith in God – and those who did not share this were either persecuted or ostracized. To be part of the empire was to support a never-ending quest, on all fronts, to literally conquer the world.

In fact, this very word “conquer” comes into play big-time in Revelation, especially in our passage today. John paints this scene for us of a vision he has; a vision of God’s holy throne and a scroll that no one is worthy enough to open. John is upset by this – because this scroll, when opened, would cause God to leap into action and make all of the wrongs of the world right. So he laments that no one is “powerful” enough to do it. John is comforted, though, when he is told that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll.” It’s a classic Jewish symbol of power – a Lion, and an offshoot of David, the great king of Israel lore. This, John is led to believe, is the one worthy enough to do what needs to be done.

Now before we go any further, let’s pull that curtain back a little shall we? Let’s pull it back on this word “conquer.” In the original language the word for “conquer” here is the Greek word Nike. N-I-K-E: which of course in our day and time is pronounced how…….? Nike was the Roman goddess of Victory, and it probably wouldn’t surprise us to learn that she was symbolized by a little swoosh emblem; the same that adorns everything from our sneakers to Tiger Wood’s golf shirt to just about anything where the motto “just do it” applies. In fact, “just do it” is a pretty good way to summarize what Nike meant to the Roman world. Nike wasn’t just celebrated, it was worshiped. It was the motivating force behind the empire’s rule and its conquest of the world. It embodied the very heart and soul of the ancient world’s greatest power.

So the image John is presented with here is a commanding one: a Lion, King David, Nike-like power – this is what will open the scroll, this is what will take on the Roman domination system and deal it a final death blow. And it makes all sense in the world, doesn’t it – power verses power, might verses might, two boxers in the ring and the strongest one comes out on top!

Except that is not what John gets. That is what he’s led to believe he’s gonna get, but it’s not what he gets – not at all. As John gazes around the throne to see this “power” that will prevail, he sees something there – but it is not Nike. What he sees is a lamb. A lamb, folks! And not just any run-of-the-mill lamb. The actual word in Greek suggests a very diminutive creature, the runt of the lamb litter. And I really like the way one writer describes it: he calls it Fluffy. Fluffy the runt lamb. Fluffy the lamb who, as we read on, is slain; slaughtered even.

So what we have here in Revelation 5, friends; what John of Patmos is encountering in this vision, can be summarized in a simple three-word phrase: Nike meets Fluffy. Nike meets Fluffy. The classic symbol of victory and conquest; verses a slaughtered, helpless, minuscule runt of a lamb. World power verses “lamb power.”

Now let’s just stop for a minute and soak this in, shall we? And let’s ask the obvious question here: what in the world do you think John made of this? I mean, here he is – all jazzed about God bursting into action to put an end to the suffering – and he is presented with cute little Fluffy. Better yet, what do you think those early Christians thought when they read John’s letter, holed up in their homes and wondering whether the next day would bring more of the same? People who were used to having Roman soldiers bursting in unannounced, uninvited? People who were denied access to the marketplace because they didn’t posses the Roman coins they needed? People who were ridiculed for who they believed in and who they did not believe in?

What do you think they made of Fluffy? Is that really who they imagined having in their corner? Did they not wonder how Fluffy could possibly stand a chance against Nike? How “lamb power” could ever persevere in the face of the world’s power? How the ways of nonviolence and grace and self-denial could ever make a difference in a world sold out to violence and heartlessness and selfishness?

I don’t know – it doesn’t sound like much of a fair fight to me. And it strikes me how these questions are not a whole different from the ones you and I have, you know? I mean, is this really the symbol of hope that we, Christians of the 21st century, pledge our allegiance to – Fluffy? Because if it is, my friends, we’ve got some explaining to do. How is Fluffy good enough when the world dishes out its “Nike-ness?” How does “lamb power” deal with a continent of people where tens of thousands die from AIDS and hunger each day – what good is Fluffy to them? How does “lamb power” help a middle-aged man fighting tooth-and-nail with his addiction – what good is Fluffy to him? And how does “lamb power” matter to someone held captive by their painful past, and the demons that continue to rage within – what good is Fluffy to them?

If there is one thing that Revelation 5 speaks to us – screams at us – it is this: the message of hope and renewal in our lives, and in our world, does not always come as we expect it. The message of hope and renewal in our lives, and in our world, does not always come as we expect it. And that is why it is so hard, so hard to really wrap our brains and our arms around it. We sing about Jesus as the “worthy lamb that was slain,” but we’ve also been known to sing about “onward Christian soldiers marching on to war,” too.

When people of faith – the Christian faith – adopt the language and the nuances of Nike power to encounter and act in the world, they lose a part of their collective soul and their calling as Christ-followers. There is a great difference between Nike and Fluffy, but it has nothing to do with who is more powerful. We do not serve Christ by being more powerful; we serve Christ by being more faithful. Let me say that again: we do not serve Christ by being more powerful; we serve Christ by being more faithful. God’s kingdom on earth is not revealed because we force anything on anyone – God’s kingdom on earth is revealed because we speak the truth in love. And this, my friends, is the foundational difference between Nike and Fluffy; between the world’s power and the power of the lamb:

• Nike tells us that “the one who dies with the most toys wins.” Fluffy tells us that our worth is determined not by what we own but by who we are.


• Nike tells us that strength and power and domination are what bind us together. Fluffy dares to tell us that we are bound together by sacrificial love.


• Nike tells us that a person’s identity is determined by their place in the world. Fluffy tells us that a person’s identity is determined simply by being a child of God.


• Nike suggests that “if you are not with us, you’re against us.” Fluffy has the courage and the faith to call into question who the “us” really is.


• And Nike, as we all know, tells us “just do it.” Just do it! Fluffy, though, calls us to put aside our wants and desires, and focus on fulfilling God’s mission in the world.

You know what I do when I want to see Nike verses Fluffy in modern form? I look at a picture that hangs on the wall in my office. I’ve show it to you before from this pulpit; and if you haven’t seen it I invite you to come by and take a look at it sometime. The picture was taken back on June 4th, 1989 near Tienanmen Square in Beijing, China. On that day Chinese troops entered the square and killed tens of thousands of students who were peacefully protesting against their government for basic human rights and freedoms.

The picture shows a row of Chinese tanks making their way to the square – you only see one or two, but there were a dozen or so in line that day. And yet they are unable to move, these tanks; because one man – one single man – stands in the way, defiant. If you were to watch the video on YouTube, you would see the lead tank move to the right to go around the man, and then you would see the man move to block it. There would be a few moments of uncertain pause. And then the tank would move back to the left, and the man would follow suit. And then, amazingly, you would watch this man climb on top of the tank – on top of the tank! – and bang on the hatch as if to reason with the soldier inside that this is not right, that they don’t have to do this, that there most certainly is a better way…..

That, my friends, is how Fluffy opens God’s scroll and unveils God’s kingdom on earth – lamb power at its diminutive finest! What would our world look like, indeed, if we truly followed the way of the lamb. Thanks be to God. AMEN.

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[i] “Does the book of Revelation have meaning today?” by Billy Graham. Mount Airy News, June 16, 2008.