The King of Love: Revelation 1:3-8
Well dear Saints of Second Pres, we made it! Pat yourselves on the back, share an air high five to your neighbors in the pew, and give thanks to our audacious God. Together we made it to this final Sunday of the liturgical year, AND this church family has also completed its task of praying for and calling a new pastor!! We give thanks to God for the joyful arrival of the Hartman family: for Ruthie and Hank, for Blair and Taylor, and I’m sure many of you join me in hoping and praying that they will remain with us until Christ returns. Forever and ever, Amen! (Can I get an Amen to that from you, church?!?)
We indeed have a lot to celebrate. So lean in and listen up, because today’s good news comes from the vision-inspired, sometimes so confusing it will make you tired, book of Revelation. On this last day of the liturgical year, we conclude with the final book of the canon, and we harken back to the beginning. Listen to this, from the first chapter of Revelation; you’ll find the First Nations Version printed in your bulletin.
Creator’s blessing rests on the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and on those who hear and take to heart what is written in it, for the time it speaks about is almost here. From He Shows Goodwill (John) to the seven sacred families in Land of the Rising Sun (Asia):
I greet you with great kindness and peace from One Who Is and Was and Is to Come, and from the seven spirits who stand face to face with him as he sits in his seat of honor. I also greet you from Creator Sets Free (Jesus) the Chosen One. He is the honorable witness, the first to rise from among the dead, and the Grand Chief over all who rule on earth. All honor belongs to the one who loves us, the one who, by giving up his own life-blood set us free from our bad hearts and broken ways. He has made us to be chiefs of a sacred nation of holy men and women who represent the good road of his Father the Great Spirit. All honor and power belong to him from the ages past to the time beyond the end of all days. Aho! May it be so!
Behold! He comes riding on the clouds! Every eye will see him, even the ones who pierced him. When all the tribes of the land see him, their hearts will be pierced through with sorrow and fall to the ground. Aho! May it be so.
“I am the Alpha and Omega, the one who is before all things and beyond all things,” says the Great Spirit Chief. “I am One Who Is and Was and Is to Come, the All-Powerful One.”
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Now John, our writer and proclaimer, wanted to shout this good news from the rooftops. Such joy and jubilation were tampered down a bit while he experienced exile, but nevertheless—our text today begins with a blessing, with a benediction. For those who read the message and those who hear it. John proclaims God’s favor on everyone who is moved by this message with such hope and expectation that we will all be inspired to share it. So what is this message proclaimed through dreams and visions?
We are overhearing John’s letter addressed to the churches in Asia—where the Roman Empire rules—and John writes to the seven churches to signal theological completion and that everyone is included. In describing the flow of this passage, priest Peter Wallace writes, “First, John describes who Jesus is; second, he explains what he has done for us; and third, he reveals what our response should be to all that.”[1]
So who is Jesus? According to the First Nations Version, Jesus is “the Chosen One. He is the honorable witness, the first to rise from among the dead, and the Grand Chief over all who rule on earth.” Jesus is the Son of God, chosen to “move into the neighborhood” and live among God’s people. Teaching and healing, preaching and proclaiming God’s justice, the life and love of Jesus are a witness to the everlasting love of God. God’s embodied love and the Word made Flesh suffers and dies on the cross, through the torture tools of the empire, but Jesus is the first to rise from among the dead, the first to proclaim that with God resurrection beyond our understanding is possible. Jesus is the “Grand Chief” or the King who rules over all who rule the earth. John emphasizes how Christ is the King, and how the love of God shows up on the scene to change how we understand what faithful living looks like in community.
Next, John describes what Jesus has done for the church then and the church of believers today. The descriptions of what Jesus has accomplished begin with love. God’s love poured out through Jesus for all creation is the foundation of who Jesus is and all he has done for us. For “by giving up his own life-blood, [Jesus] set us free from our bad hearts and broken ways.” The love of Christ hung on the cross to demonstrate how far God’s love for us will go, to show us the depth and breadth of God’s hope for all creation. Yet, through the resurrection of Christ, God turned the tables on death having the last word. Through Christ, love has the last word. With Christ, death is not an ending but a pathway through which we come to find our rest in God’s love. Christ has done all this to create a priesthood of all believers, or “chiefs of a sacred nation of holy women and men” to praise and serve God. According to John, Jesus has been busy, reconciling us in love to Love.
Finally, we are inspired to respond. We are called to respond, understanding who Jesus is and all that Jesus has done for us, for all creation. As preeminent scholar of Revelation, one of our own, Brian Blount notes, “Since God is on the way, and right soon, one should act in the ethical manner that the book demands. … The implication is clear: the transmission of God’s revelation must not stop with the servants but must carry to the churches and from the churches to the world.”[2] We respond by sharing the good news. We respond by offering Jesus all honor and glory, and by seeing the Christ light in those we encounter. We respond by sharing the grace and compassion of Jesus with each person we meet. John calls us to respond by repentance, recognizing our flaws and our faults, and acknowledging it is Christ who offers the gift of forgiveness. We respond to this good news by prioritizing our allegiance to Christ, as the king of our hearts and the ruler of our lives. We respond by holding on to hope in what God can do, even when we are anxious about what is happening around us.
As you consider the ways you might respond to who Jesus is for you and all that Jesus has done for you, consider this “Blessing of Hope” from the pastor, painter, and poet, Jan Richardson:
Blessing of Hope
So may we know
the hope
that is not just
for someday
but for this day—
here, now,
in this moment
that opens to us:
hope not made
of wishes
but of substance,
hope made of sinew
and muscle
and bone,
hope that has breath
and a beating heart,
hope that will not
keep quiet
and be polite,
hope that knows
how to holler
when it is called for,
hope that knows
how to sing
when there seems
little cause,
hope that raises us
from the dead—
not someday
but this day,
every day,
again and
again and
again.[3]
Beloved of God, blessed hearers and do-ers of the word: we are called and inspired to such audacious hope. Not because we are good or faithful, but because God is good and faithful. Not because we are devoted disciples of Jesus, but because Christ reversed suffering and sin on the cross for all creation to know the hope and beauty of redemption and mercy. John tells us to share this awe-inspiring hope because of the extravagance of the love of Christ. Christ our king, whose love song still reverberates across creation. Our king, who’s teaching still makes our hearts tender and focuses our attention on the widow and the lonely, on the unhoused and the overlooked, the grieving and the incarcerated, on the addicted and the depressed. Our king demonstrates what love in action and love in community looks like, back then, today, and tomorrow.
Beloved of God, we have made it to the end of the church calendar year. So that we can renew afresh our devotion and demonstration of God’s glorious kin-dom. With God’s light guiding our path, we have made it to this moment, so that we can continue to follow Christ, the King of Love, all the way home—where our hearts will rest in shalom, where our spirits will dwell in hope, and where God’s reign is at last and forevermore the only one that matters. We’ve made it! Now, let’s get started.
[1] Peter M. Wallace. “Revelation 1:4b-8: Homiletical Perspective.” Feasting on the Word. Year B. vol. 4. Gen. Eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. 329.
[2] Brian K. Blount. Revelation: A Commentary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.30.
[3] Jan Richardson, “Blessing of Hope,” https://paintedprayerbook.com/2014/11/19/so-that-you-may-know-the-hope/