Revelation 5

Revelation 5  The Song to the Lamb

The context for this message is a congregation of faithful followers of Jesus as we studied our way through the Book of Revelation in 2005 or 2006.  The Shawshank Redemption was a movie about a prison.

What was going through your imagination as the Scripture was being read just a few moments ago? Did you have some vision of heaven itself? Did you find yourself asking what would I do if I was there and I had seen the events that were transpiring in heaven?

 What do we make of this strange scene of a lion that looks like a lamb? What do we make of the idea that the lamb looks like it has been slain? For John’s first readers in the seven churches of Asia Minor, they would have had visions of temple worship in their minds. Whether those would have been temples of the pagan gods in their cities or if they were Jewish and had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and seen the sacrificing of lambs, they would have had a vision of blood running all around the lamb and they would have had the thought in their minds that any lamb whose throat was cut for sacrifice, did not live.

Yet there the lamb stood, next to the throne of God almighty. And he is called the lion of Judah. What do you make of all this? What runs through your mind as you hear it? For those who have been to the movie event of 2004, the passion of the Christ, many of you have said, I will never read the Bible in the same way again. John would have us see, I think, the scene of the crucifixion, with all of its blood and its brutality. John would have us see the pain and the suffering of Jesus. And he would want us see him alive. At God’s right hand.

John wants us to see what is going on in heaven, now that Jesus has gone back to heaven as the victorious lamb of God, the lion of the tribe of Judah. But, wait a moment here. Maybe this was also running through your mind. A lamb?

Since when is the symbol of greatness a lamb? If a nation wants to project its greatness, it chooses an eagle, a bear, a dragon. A lamb? A lamb is something that is most often pictured as being carried around, maybe even in the mouth of the bear or in the talons of the eagle. Since when is a lamb the sign of greatness?

 Yet here is a revelation from God of a lamb, a slain lamb as the one who is worthy above all others in the universe to open the seals of the scroll that is found in God’s right hand.

I think one of the more fascinating things about the book of Revelation is that it is a book of worship, and that worship is demonstrated in singing. It’s a song book for the church of Jesus this side of the resurrection. And the lamb is the one who is worthy of the songs of the church. The lamb is the one who has triumphed for us.

John hears the voice of a mighty angel calling, who is worthy to open the scroll that is in the hand of God? It is a scroll that is written on both sides and it is sealed with seven seals. What might that scroll have on it? I think that the Bible indicates that the scroll is the plan of God for the history of the world. It is the final chapter of God’s powerful incursion into history. For the history of mankind is one chapter after another of waste, of failure, of hopelessness.

But God has been promising all throughout history that one day. One day everything is going to be made right once again. That one day everything is going to be settled. One day everything that is crooked will be made straight. Every hill will be made low. Every valley shall be exalted. And it will be for the glory of God. And on that day God will be all in all.

Until then, we wait. And yet we are not waiting as though we do not have some idea what the last chapter is about. One of the fun things about little kids is that they love to have books read to them. They know the story well enough to repeat it word for word.

Just let grandpa try to skip a page and the child makes you go back and read it all over again and not miss that page this time! God tells us that unless we become like little children we can in no wise see the kingdom of heaven. I think that includes story telling for kids. They come to know the story so well that they want to hear it again and again. Even though they know how it is going to end.

If it is a great story, we love to hear it again and again because a great story catches us up in its storyline and we can’t wait to get to the end. Here God is saying in the world as you and I experience it, there is another kingdom that is quietly working. And one day the new kingdom is going to break out in all of its glory and splendor. And one day it is going to conquer all others and it will never end.

And what is going to happen on that great day? Well, I’ll tell you how the story ends! It ends with lots of songs! In fact, in our scripture reading this morning there are three songs. And they are songs which are enough to turn our world on its head. They are songs which give us a vision of what we can look forward to. In the movie entitled The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufrense is sentenced to two back to back life terms for crimes he did not commit. That tough world of Shawshank prison conspires to destroy humanity. Andy, however, is someone who loves music and literature so each week he writes to the state legislature requesting books for the prison library. From out of nowhere, a huge shipment of used books and records, accompanied by a check for more, gets dumped in the warden’s office. Andy puts one of the records on the prison record player. Intoxicated by the beauty of an aria, Andy locks out the warden and plays this portion of the marriage of Figaro over the prison loudspeaker. Everyone in Shawshank stands transfixed by the music, this moment of intrusive beauty in a horrible place.

 A little later Andy explains to the other inmates how he handled what the warden did to him for that. He says, “that’s the beauty of music.. so you don’t forget that there are places in the world not made out of stone, that there’s something inside that they can’t get to, that they cannot touch. It is yours.”

 The book of revelation is a book of music. And the songs in it resound through our minds and hearts. It reminds us that there is a place out there that is getting ready to break into this world of ours. And no one can take it away from us. This is God’s story that he delights in telling to his children. And we know it’s a good story and we can’t wait to get to the end. We know what is coming.

 And the great wonder of it all is that this story will change how we live our own story each day. Just listen to the songs: verse 9 and 10. verse 12 verse 13.

These are songs that shake our world. Each of them is a song about the Lamb. The lamb who was slain, but who now is alive in the presence of God and is at God’s right hand. That lamb is worthy! Worthy! The lamb is worthy to receive the book of the history of mankind. The lamb is worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! And when the four living creatures hear the songs of every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them, all they can do is say, AMEN!!!

 You see amen is a word that means yes! In all of its positive life affirming joy and power. It means that what we have just heard is the truth and we ourselves join up in the song. It means that the four living creatures affirm all that has been said of the lamb.

Will Willimon, who for many years was the Chaplain of Duke University, tells the story of a man who had been in a prisoner of war camp during one of the great and terrible wars we seem to fight . The man told pastor Willimon of how terrible a place that had been. A place of degradation and torture. One of the men who was a prisoner with that man was a wonderfully defiant chap from Illinois, in the United States.

This man would sometimes hum songs to himself as the prisoners were being led out to the fields to work each day. Walking along in the sweltering heat, miserable, unfed, unwashed, he would hum some tune. He often hummed America the beautiful. The prison guards did not know the tune, so the song meant nothing to them. But to the prisoners, the tune evoking the amber waves of grain and the purple mountains majesty reminded them of home, filled them with hope and with courage.

 And soon the whole camp was humming the tune each day on the way to work, with the guards oblivious to the revolutionary significance of the defiant gesture.

 In a way that’s what the songs and symbols of Revelation do for us. They remind us, as we go about our daily lives, of the victory of Easter, the way God defeated death and continues to defy death to do it’s worst. In heaven there is much singing and shouting and parading and pro-cessing, according to Revelation 5.

Having a song to sing that is a victory song enables us to go on each day, even to triumph because we know the lamb who sits on the throne of the universe!

Do I hear anyone echoing the amen of the four living creatures?