April 12 2026
Revelation 1
Well, as we have just celebrated Easter last week we find ourselves as the church, in a new season simply called Easter. This season is a fifty day period to give us all time to pause to consider the wonder of the resurrection of Jesus. You see, even though we may not have realized this truth, the death and resurrection of Jesus changed everything. This is what Paul is trying to get us to realize in the fifth chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians, where he says that since Jesus has died and was raised we no longer are to regard anyone anyone according to the flesh. Even though we, “…once regarded Jesus according to the flesh we regard him that way no more. Therefore, in Christ, is the new creation, the old has passed, behold the new has come!” This profound statement of Paul is the reason why we need time to figure out just what has happened because Jesus has now been raised to new life. We should rejoice because the new has appeared and the old has, indeed been surpassed by something very different even though the world we live in seems very much the same.
Now to help us understand this new creation that we find ourselves in because Jesus has been raised from the dead, I thought that we might take a look at the very last book of the Bible called the Revelation to John, or simply, the book of Revelation, as it is commonly referred to. The reason why I thought that now might be a good time to read through this book is that recently there has been a lot of chatter in social media concerning what are called the end times. The end times are the way Christians refer to the return of our risen Jesus which may occur at any moment. Now people are quite uncomfortable with the whole uncertainty of such a statement, so they search through books of the Bible such as the book of Revelation for answers. There has been over the years, many books written about what the book of Revelation reveals to us concerning just what will happen before the arrival of Jesus Christ. When I was growing up I remember a book circulating in churches called, “The Late, Great, Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. He observed the current events of the time and thought that they were aligning with what we find written in the book of Revelation and he felt that this was confirmation that Jesus was certainly going to return within the decade. Obviously, he was wrong. Yet, this did not cause any other authors from attempting to put their own spin on the events of the last days using what is revealed to John. The author, Tim LaHaye, wrote a whole series of books, entitled Left Behind, which fictionalized what he considered to be the prophecies within the book of Revelation. These works were then also made into movies.Now what makes books such as these so interesting is that Jesus gives a very stern warning to his followers that we are not to spend our time fussing about such things. I mean, listen to what Jesus says in the first chapter of the book of Acts. There, Jesus told his disciples, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his authority.” So it is a fools errand to somehow believe we can figure out just when all things will at last be restored. No, what Jesus clearly tells us is that instead of wringing our hands about such things we should instead be witnesses that Jesus has indeed risen from the dead.
So as we begin to look at the book of Revelation, we should first realize that this book is not about predicting the future. We are not to treat these words as some magic ball which will explain the days we live in. When we start down such a path we can begin to believe that the war currently being fought in the Middle East has something to do with the return of Jesus Christ. So instead of seeing this book as a prediction of the future, which it clearly is not, we should instead see this book as the means by which we are given much needed perspective. When we sing in the hymn, “This Is My Father’s World”, “O Let me ne’er forget, that though the wrong is oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.”, we may do so with some doubt. You see, it is so easy, as we survey our world, to forget that the resurrected Jesus is still is on his throne. Yet, the truth is that Jesus does indeed rule and reign, and this rule of Jesus is the whole focus of the book of Revelation. This is why this book is so important for us as today.
With all that being said, we begin with a little background. The writer of this book is named John and he has been arrested by the government. They have exiled him to a small island in the Mediterranean called Patmos. Now John explains that the reason that he has been persecuted is solely because he has spoken the word of God and he has given testimony about Jesus. Now it is not difficult for us to understand why the government is punishing him because John is stating that it is Jesus alone who is the ruler of all of the kings and rulers of Earth. In Roman culture, such a statement was a death sentence because it was declaring that Caesar, unlike popular opinion, was not the supreme ruler and Lord over all. The people would be very concerned that such talk might even cause the gods they worshipped to become infuriated, so John needed to be silenced, placed on a deserted island far from where people might hear his message.
So John finds himself persecuted and in trouble for his faith in Jesus Christ, just as Jesus had told his disciples would happen if they were to follow him. Nonetheless, John worships God in the power of the Spirit on the Sabbath day, the Lord’s day. As John was caught up in the life and power of God he heard a voice telling him to write down all that is about to be revealed to him. Then he was to take and send this writing off to the seven churches that were in his care. Now what is fascinating is that what John records is filled with references to prophecies that are found in the Old Testament. The obvious take-away for us is that God has been working on a plan that began in the very moment of creation. This plan involved selecting one family, the family of Abraham, to be the people who would bring the blessing of God to every family on Earth. The descendants of Abraham were the people of Israel, and they were the ones who were entrusted with keeping this vision of God alive throughout history. So here, in this revelation is a reminder that this is God’s creation, and it is God who is the true king over all and therefore it is his plan which will eventually come to fruition.
So as John worships in the Spirit we find that the Spirit speaks to John through the ancient scriptures. We can hear in these words of John echoes of what the prophet Daniel recorded when he found himself far from home just as is the situation with John. Daniel saw that the kingdoms of this earth seemed so powerful, yet God gave Daniel a vision where a representative would at last come from heaven to be the ruler over every government. This is the same message found who in the eighty-ninth Psalm, that there would be one out of the lineage of David, the firstborn, who would be the highest of the kings on earth. This Psalm states that the throne of this king will be established forever, to be like the moon, a faithful witness in the skies to the glory of God. John hears these scriptures and he knows that they speak to him about Jesus.
Now it is important that we hold fast to this idea that Jesus is the king of kings all the while remembering that Jesus is, was and always will be, the very one who loves us with a steadfast and faithful love. And not just us, but his love is for the whole world. It is Jesus, who is both the king who rules over every other king, all the while being the king who wields the power of love not the power of the sword. And his rule of love will never change so that we must never somehow believe that when Jesus returns that he is coming to reign by some other power other than the power of love. We are to be confident that Jesus loves us, because Jesus is the one who has freed us. Now, as we learn in the second chapter of Hebrews, what ensnares us all in slavery is the fear of death, which is the very power of sin. What has set us free from this slavery is the shedding of the blood of Jesus, an act of incredible act of mercy, the perfect love of Jesus given to cast out all fear from our lives.
Now it is important that once we establish just who Jesus is, that he is our loving king, that we also know that this understanding is to transform how we consider who we are. You see, because of what Jesus has done for us, we are to now consider ourselves as being kings and priests to God. You see, when Jesus saves us, he does so in order that we might become what God has always created us to be. You see, this phrase, “kings and priests”, sends us back to the first chapter of Genesis. There we are told that God created humanity in his image and in his likeness. In the ancient world, it was the king who was said to be the very image of the god who had given him his authority to rule. So all people, we are told, are created to bear the image of the one true living God. This means all of us are to be like the kings of old, bearing the image of our God who gives us the authority to rule. Yet, there is more, for we are also told that we to bear the likeness of God. This means that when we rule in the same manner that our God rules. What became clear with the arrival of Jesus is that our God rules through serving us. So when Jesus rules over us he does so as our servant who takes upon himself our brokenness in order that we might be made whole. Yet, John does not use the word, “servant”, here but instead he uses the word, “priest”. Now, this word, “priest”, is a difficult term for us to get our heads around because the title, “priest”, is used by some churches to designate those who are serve in ordained ministry. But in its original usage, this term, “priest”, is used to describe all who follow Jesus not just those who serve in a certain capacity in the church. I believe that John uses the word, priest, instead of servant, for an important reason which is that in the Old Testament, priests were always those who served God in the Temple. So, in order for us to understand what it means for us to be a priest, we first have to understand what God’s purpose was for the Temple. Now it seems fairly straight forward that the Temple was simply the place where God was worshipped. Yet, there was more to the Temple than just being the location where God was revered.You see, the Temple was to be a model of of the glorious future that God has planned for all humanity. What the Temple was supposed to be for the ancient world was much like what Tomorrowland is at Disney World. If you ever get a chance to visit Disney World, make sure you go to the theme park called Tomorrowland. This is a place which showcases just what the future might look like, many years from now. Disney wanted to show how technology would bring about, a great, big beautiful tomorrow for all of us. Well, in much the same way, the Temple was also to be a showcase of the great, big, beautiful tomorrow that God has planned for all of us. This tomorrow will not happen because we suddenly will possess some great technology, but instead, this tomorrow will happen through the power and love of God.
The way that the love of God will bring forth this new tomorrow is seen in how the Temple was laid out. In the Temple there were three main areas which addressed the concerns of those who came to worship. The first area one came to was the altar. Here was where God demonstrated his love by providing a means to address the sins and failures that weighed people down. Then, when the people were cleansed of their sins and shortcomings, they came to the Holy Place. Here there was another altar on which incense was burned. This burning incense represented the prayers that went up to heaven like a pleasing aroma rising up to God. In this same space was a candelabra which was continually lit, so that a light might always shine in this sanctuary. Directly across from this light were twelve loves of bread which represented the twelve tribes of Israel. So as the people prayed they would be reminded that the eternal light of God was always shining upon them and their family. The last space in the Temple was the called the Holy of Holies. This was an enclosed, cubic shaped room in which there was only the Ark of the Covenant. This Ark represented the covenant relationship God had made with his people. It was here in this room, that once every year, God in his love made a way for all relationships, those that God had with his people and the relationships with each other could all have a new start so that unity could be restored.
The priests who worked in the Temple were serving God by bringing this vision for a new tomorrow to life. This hope that God held forth was a world where all people could, as Isaiah reveals in the fifty sixth chapter, find a house of prayer. In this house, all people would experience joy as God cleansed them of their sins. And there in this place all people could come to know that our God is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness as they prayed and worshipped him. Well, it does not take much imagination to understand why Jesus, in the second chapter of the gospel of John, would state that with his coming, that he is the very future that the Temple had always pointed to. It is Jesus who cleanses our sins away through his once for all sacrifice upon the altar of the cross. And it is Jesus who teaches us the prayer by which our lives can make holy the name of God. And Jesus is the one who unites us together with God and each other so that together we might be live in unity together in his holy presence forever. This is why Jesus foretold that when he was raised from the dead that he would be the new Temple because now he would be the one who be our living future, the tomorrow we all hope for. You see, not only is Jesus the king over all kings but he is as John states, the one who wears the long robe with the golden sash, the one who is our High Priest, who prays always for us. This image of Jesus is to point us to the vision of a beautiful tomorrow found in the seventh chapter of Daniel. There, beginning with the thirteenth verse, Daniel records what God had shown to him, saying, “…behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.” Now, this strange phrase, “one like a son of man”, tells us that here is one who looks so very human yet this human is able to do what no human has ever done and that is he is able to stand before the glory of God. Not even Moses, the most holy of all humans, not even he was even able to behold the glory of God and live. It is this one, Daniel goes on to tell us, that is, “…given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting kingdom which shall not pass away and it is his kingdom that shall not be destroyed.” You see, the title Jesus used for himself most often was, “Son of Man”, and he did so, in order that people might realize that the tomorrow envisioned by Daniel is the very tomorrow that Jesus, the new Temple represents. Jesus is the one who is very much human but who is also able to stand before our Father to speak on our behalf. So we can approach our future without fear because we now know our future has a face, the face of one named Jesus who lives to love us all the way home. This is the future revealed to John, this future revealed to us in our resurrected Jesus. I pray that we embrace this future with faith! To God be the Glory! Amen!
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