Messages, Meditations, and Musings on the Life of Faith by Rev. Dr. Scott E. Olson, Interim Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church, Preston, MN

Sunday, July 16, 2017

"The Once and Future Lamb" - Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

The Once and Future Lamb
Pentecost 6 – Summer Series
July 16, 2017
Grace, Mankato, MN
Revelation 5.1-14

Ed Friedman was a Jewish rabbi who, in addition to his temple duties also coached organizational leaders and did marriage and family counseling. He tells about working with a client of his, a man who was dealing with and surviving cancer. Something led Friedman to tell the man about the USS Indianapolis. During World War II, the Indianapolis was attacked and sunk. For various reasons, the Indianapolis wasn’t where it was supposed to be and it took the Navy a long time to find. That meant the survivors spent a long while in shark-infested waters. Every so often, Friedman said, one of the men would swim toward the sharks and give himself up to them. Friedman asked the cancer survivor his thoughts about why they had done this. The man said, “Those men who gave up and swam toward the sharks, they had no future.” Clearly, Friedman’s client was not going to “swim toward the sharks” and give himself up to cancer.

The issue of whether the churches in the latter 1st c. had a future is an underlying theme in Revelation. We began our all too brief foray into the book last week with chapter 4, the first half of John’s vision of the heavenly throne room scene. We mentioned last week that Revelation is actually a letter sent to the churches in Asia Minor, which is modern day Western Turkey. And we said that John is writing to strengthen the churches struggling with what it means to exist in the Roman Empire. The main idea is Revelations is that proper worship goes to God the Creator and not some emperor who is a self-proclaimed deity.

In today’s reading, the focus of John’s vision shifts to a scroll and a lamb. We learn that the scroll is written on both sides and sealed with seven seals. In the ancient world and in apocalyptic literature, a scroll or book denoted God’s plans or will for the world and its inhabitants. The fact that the scroll has seven seals indicates that only authorized individuals could open it. John weeps bitterly when it seems that no one is able to open the scroll because it means that God’s plans for the world and humanity would not come to pass. In other words, no opened scroll means no future. You may as well give yourselves up to the “sharks.”

That is, until one of the 24 elders who worship God around the throne tells him to look again and behold the Lion of Judah and Root of David. These, of course are metaphors for the long awaited Messiah who would save the Jewish people. But this is no warrior king; this is a lamb, The Lamb who is worthy to open the scroll and enact God’s plans for the world because of his sacrifice. This Lamb is the one who ensures a future for everyone. (By the way, in case you doubt that Revelation is metaphorical and not a literal plan for the end of time, Jesus is only referred to as the Lamb in this book, and 28 times at that.)

Seven years ago I accepted your call to by your pastor because I believed God had a future for us. I said then that I didn’t know what the future looked like, but with God’s guidance we could figure it out together. Since then, God has called us to do some amazing things and we are continually living into God’s future. Following worship today, we’ll gather together to prayerfully consider how God is calling us to support God’s mission and ministry through our building. Whatever the result of the meeting, I know that we won’t “swim toward the sharks” because we follow the Lamb whose blood set us free to be God’s people, a people looking toward and living into God’s future. Amen.

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