Rev. Dr. Les Martin

Easter 2 – Do not be afraid!
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Revelation 1:17b

In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

At two years old, our son Isaiah is speaking much more clearly.  As a result, our discussions are improving.  He is able to articulate his needs in a way that we can understand. Moreover, he is also increasingly able to explain what’s going on inside his mind and heart. Over the last few weeks, a new subject has entered into our conversation: he can now let us know “I’m scared,” “I’m afraid.” It’s not something a parent wants to hear- that their child has fear in their heart. We do what we can to alleviate it – fortunately many childhood fears stem from uncertainty, unexpected loud noises, confusing images, and a lack of understanding. Still, it’s unsettling. How early we learn to fear.

The disciples are afraid. Sometimes we forget, in the early readings of the Easter season, just how afraid they were. We know the outcome of a story that they are still in the midst of living: after the traumatic and horrible events of Holy Week, Eastertide is a disquieting time for them. The nightmare of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion is still very present.  The reality of what has actually happened with dead Jesus dawns on them slowly.  Today, they have gathered together and locked the doors of the room because they are afraid of the Jewish leaders. Based on the week they have just had, they have every reason to be.

I think we also forget the fear that the church has experienced throughout the ages. By the time of today’s reading from the Book of Revelation, the church is in an perilous place. Rome remains the ascendant power of the world. The Gospel, it seems, has been proven a weak and ineffective force against unstoppable evil.  Two generations after the euphoria of Pentecost, it appears to have been thoroughly discredited. How can you be Easter people in a cruel world?  What hope is there now for churches threatened by persecution from without, by the temptation to assimilate into the larger culture, and by the complacency that always comes when the new and exciting becomes the familiar?  Like the original disciples, they needed help making sense of their faith in the midst of such trying times, when being discouraged made better sense than being hopeful.

We who are the church today face similar challenges. Our world and our culture are fractured.  Sitting around this altar are myriad health conditions that make it hard to trust in the “Alleluias” of Easter.  There are failed relationships that make it hard to see God’s triumph very clearly. There are those of us who know the truth of Christ’s resurrection, yet nonetheless have felt nothing but his absence for a very long time.  Sometimes in the spring, I look out at the transformation of nature and I see Easter everywhere. Sometimes I look in the mirror, and I just see frustration and brokenness. We, too, have ample reasons to be fearful.  And that is why we will turn to the Book of Revelation for our sermons this Eastertide, but- ironically-  before it can be helpful, we need to overcome our fear of this book of the Bible.

The Book of Revelation has always had a complex relationship with the church it speaks to. It was not altogether clear that it would be admitted into the Canon of Scripture.  Martin Luther once bluntly stated he wished it had not, as he felt it dealt too much with “visions and dreams,” rather than the work of Christ. John Calvin wrote commentaries on every book of the New Testament except for Revelation. The churches of Eastern Orthodoxy do not read the Revelation in liturgical services at all.  Now, all this shows that we are not alone in our ambivalence toward the last book of the Bible, such uncertainty has a long historical pedigree in the life of the church. However this historical overview does not, I think, explain our particular contemporary fear of the last book of the Bible.

We live in East Tennessee- fertile ground for particularly apocalyptic  and fervent forms of Christianity. That alone, contextually, explains some of our apprehension concerning the Revelation to John the Divine. The strange images of Antichrist, Beast, and Harlot. The mysterious sayings and obscure symbolism.  All of this has been presented to us so often as a revelation of fear- and with fear comes the power dynamics of control exercised by various religious leaders.  Add to that the bespoke interpretations of Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Branch Davidians, and Dispensationalists, and- one way of another- many of us are wary, fearful that we will be “Left Behind.”

However, interpreted properly, it is the case that the Book of Revelation is, in fact, a revelation of hope. Even old Martin Luther belatedly acknowledged this. It is a revelation of hope because, as we will see over the next few Sundays, it is ultimately a revelation of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In this book, Jesus is both the agent and the content of the revelation.

John is in exile on Patmos.  He is in church.  This should not surprise us: it is, after all, the Lord’s day. Now- just as the Jews had understood the Temple- for John, church is where earth and heaven meet.   He is, it seems, at the liturgy. There are lampstands and priestly vestments. As liturgical theologian Jean-Jacques von Allmen reminds us: “the place of worship is essentially the place where Christ is found.”

This day, John finds Jesus at church in the most extraordinary way. He goes from seeing Jesus liturgically to seeing Jesus mystically.  Turning to see a voice who is speaking to him, he encounters the Voice- the Word- appearing in manner familiar to any student of the Scriptures. Vested as a priest, echoing Exodus, the words he speaks appear as a sword, echoing Isaiah.  Echoing the vision of Daniel, the appearance of his feet are as bronze.  White hair and flaming eyes, suggest purity, power, and holiness.  Jesus appears not as the Galilean rabbi we have known, but as the Alpha and the Omega: the all-powerful A-to-Z, the first and the last, literally “He the Is, He the Was, He the Coming One.”  We might be forgiven for not recognizing him as Jesus at all.  However, we can tell it’s Jesus from his message, right there in verse 17: “Do not be afraid.”

Do not be afraid. Why wouldn’t we? I mean, look at him! We are told not to be afraid, not because of how Jesus appears, which is strange and awesome, but because of who he is and the authority he possesses.  Jesus is the one who lives. He was dead, but he is the one who lives, and who now holds the keys of death and the place of the dead- Hades.  Death no longer has dominion over him- or us.  Who is this Jesus for us?  The faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, the ruler of the Kings of the Earth, the one who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.  In other words, he is the living answer to all our existential problems. That’s why we shouldn’t be afraid. That’s why this is a revelation of hope – and of Easter.

Our Gospel reading today emphasizes this point.  When the disciples are locked away in fear, they discovered Jesus in their midst. The one who was dead and now lives shows them the wounds in his hands and side, confirming his ascendancy over death and Hell. He offers them his peace – freedom from fear.  Extending to them his dominion over sin, he breathes on them his Spirit, and with the Spirit, the power to offer forgiveness of sins to those who are beleaguered, frustrated and broken. The power to prophetically retain the sins of the culture, the idolaters, and the kings of the earth. The Book of Revelation will show us that even this retaining of sins, this judgment, is meant to be restorative, not a retribution. As Revelation chapter 22 testifies, there is a future for creation, a healing of the nations. Resurrection, peace, corrective judgement, and forgiveness.  A revelation of hope- and of Easter.

When Isaiah is scared, he comes and sits in my lap.  I will hug him, and attempt to reassure him with words, but it seems his greatest comfort is just sitting there, sheltered by the presence of his father.  He’s not afraid when his daddy holds him.

The exalted Christ that John sees in his vision holds in his right hand seven stars, representing the whole of the cosmos. He holds all things- and he has a plan. Christ is even now guiding his creation towards a new heaven and a new earth, and nothing will thwart him.  Our own eschatological hope is equally as clear: the Book of Revelation proclaims that the Lamb will shepherd us, and lead us to springs of living water, to trees with leaves for the healing of the nations, and will one day wipe away every tear from our eyes.  We are held, too.  God once spoke through the Prophet Isaiah, saying:

Till you grow old I am the Lord, and when white hairs come, I shall carry you still; I have made you and I shall uphold you, I shall carry you away to safety. (Isaiah 46:4, REB)

It is not just at the end of all things that we are held, however.  Christ holds us here and now as well.   Much like John on Patmos, we come here to Saint Brendan’s on the Lord’s day, week after week, to seek comfort in our exile.  Often, we are tired and full of fear.  It’s hard to be Easter people in a cruel world.  Being discouraged can sometimes make better sense than being hopeful.  But because church is the place where heaven and earth meet, and the place of worship is essentially the place where Christ is found, we find that here we are held in his body as a foretaste of what we shall one day receive.  Here our hope is realized, even if not completely and finally. Whether or not we have a mystical experience like John is irrelevant- the Alpha and Omega and the Living One is present for us. Here in the liturgy, Christ takes us up and holds us, comforts us, and strengthens us. The old African-American spiritual sings out the truth: he’s got everybody here in his hands, he’s got the whole world in his hands.  And, so, we need not be afraid.  This is the revelation of hope and the promise of Eastertide.