All

Revelation 7:4, 9-17

I want to share what is weighing on my heart. I am worried—worried about the fracturing of our global sense of common humanity. That whoever we are, whatever our beliefs, whatever our background—we are all one people. That fundamental truth has eroded over the past few decades, and it is leading people to huddle together out of a sense of self-protection. But tragically, it will create an even greater sense of mistrust and fear.

It might be overly dramatic, but it seems to me the lectionary has once again landed us in the place in the Bible precisely where we need to be: the book of Revelation. Not because I believe we are at the end of the world—I don’t—but because it too dealt with a moment of profound historical significance. And I think, in ways that we’re not always aware, it exposed the raw pain of God.

Consider the violence this world has wrought across history, and how painful that must be for a God of love. The most tragic and powerful description of this evil is found in Elie Wiesel’s book Night. It is a memoir written by the Holocaust survivor about his family’s journey from Transylvania to the concentration camps. The forces he faced were so malevolent that they obliterated his faith. He wrote that the fires of those concentration camps had consumed his belief in God.

I don’t think God was angered by Wiesel’s words. On the contrary, I think God felt the pain of this man’s agony. One cannot answer Wiesel’s broken spirit with simple aphorisms and talk of rainbows. But in the introduction to the book, there is an extremely powerful encounter between Wiesel and a renowned journalist.

François Mauriac, a devout Christian, recounted his first meeting with Wiesel. At the time, Mauriac was old, respected, and famous. Wiesel was a young twenty-something being interviewed by this Nobel Laureate. Mauriac spoke of his respect for Jewish people—especially Jesus of Nazareth. At this point, the conversation turned. Wiesel became upset with Mauriac—understandably—for Christianity’s historic complicity in fostering hatred of the Jews.

Wiesel walked out, but Mauriac followed him—not to scold him, but to plead with him to tell his story, to tell the story of the Holocaust. Mauriac couldn’t find words of comfort to offer (are there any such words?). Mauriac wrote, “I could only embrace him, weeping.”

Wiesel, too, wept—and then went on to revise and complete this most powerful book that recounted his unending night. I believe Mauriac chose the right path: not to speak, but to embrace. It was the most authentic reflection of God’s love in the moment.

It was a similar historic moment of profound evil that Christians, Jews, and many others faced through the Roman Empire. And since John was not only telling the story—disguised though it was—of the evil of the Roman Empire, but of the kind of evil perpetrated by the Nazis, and the enslavement of African peoples, and the obliteration of those in Pol Pot’s killing fields…

What kind of story, what type of literature, would be equal to this task?

A grandiloquent, operatic, mystical, mythical epic.

The characters, creatures, and setting would need to be of a sufficient size and scope to be equal to the adversaries to be vanquished. Anything less would do a severe disservice to the climax of history—just as Mauriac would have done a disservice to Wiesel to dismiss his pain with an, albeit truthful but facile, Christian response, “Jesus will fix it all.”

The book of Revelation is John’s version of a Picasso, Salvador Dalí, or some other surrealist, cubist, allegorical artist—and his way of addressing, with integrity, the defeat of evil. It must convey the deep anguish and struggle within the heart of God for how profoundly awry His most glorious creation has turned. And so, in the book of Revelation, we have the scenes of terror: in which the stars are falling from the heavens, in which the Red Dragon looms over the woman with a golden sun, in which the Beast and Babylon rear their heads of domination and power.

None of this is literal. It is a Picasso-type interpretation—not of the future—but of the evil that John’s world knew all too well.

But just like the story of Holy Week, which includes heartbreak and fearful moments yet is a story of Good News—so is Revelation. For it is the story of the triumph of God.

That is the precise story that our scripture reading gives to us this morning. Throughout Revelation, John inserts glimpses of the closing credits of the Bible into the earlier chapters. To give his readers sufficient hope, John gives his readers a glimpse not simply of heaven—but the throne room of God.

And his messages are extremely pertinent to the times in which we find ourselves.

First, he tells of the salvation of the Jewish people, “And there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.”

He proceeds to name every tribe, telling us 12,000 will come in from each one of them. 12 x 12,000 = 144,000. Like the whole rest of the book, these are not literal numbers. Twelve symbolized completeness in Jewish thought. 12,000 × 12 is meant to convey that every single one of God’s chosen people will be ushered into heaven. This is one of the most easily identifiable facts teased out of the images found in this book.

And then he continues, “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb.”

John is affirming what we read in the twelfth chapter of Genesis—that through Abraham and Sarah’s descendant, all the world will be blessed. Their descendant, Jesus of Nazareth—His death and resurrection—fulfilled this promise.

John makes a point that this is not a narrow group of people, but—as he said—a great multitude that nobody could count. And furthermore, it’s not just a lot of people from one group or another, but he tells us: every nation, every language, every people are there before the throne.

The center of the Christian hope is the belief that God reaches out to every group of people.

And I think therein lies the answer to the fundamental problem of our time. And the problem is not of recent creation; we cannot blame it all on this administration or the one before it. It is something that has been building and festering for years.

Last week at communion, I shared something of my visit to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. My great-grandfather went through Ellis Island, and I imagine many of your relatives did as well. And I continue to think about that—what it must’ve been like to ride on those steamer ships, crammed in like sardines, with just a suitcase.

Some of the stories we heard at the Ellis Island tour were very, very difficult—just as the times that John’s readers were facing were very, very difficult. But to finally see the statue in the harbor—a symbol of freedom and hope—must have been a moment of exceeding joy.

That is what I think we all want our country to stand for.

The heavenly throne room which John portrays is meant to convey the same sense of hope—but not just a hope for a particular person, at a particular point in time, in a particular country.

Revelation is the cosmic-size, operatic drama describing not just the defeat of Rome—or any other empire—but the defeat of evil itself. The defeat of everything that defies the will of God.

Last week in my office, about twenty clergy from the Upper East Side gathered together. There were Catholics, Jews, and Protestants; men and women; Latinos, African Americans, and Anglos. We met because we believed that now is the time to gather with people of faith and to let our voices be heard—that we want the Upper East Side, that we want our city, that we want our country, that we want our planet to be one that has a heart for the dispossessed, the hungry, and the fearful.

And from my Christian perspective, we want them to know that Jesus loves them. That the message of Revelation is: yes, there is real evil and hardship on this earth—but that ultimately, the gates of heaven are open wide.

This is a rather complex and complicated message to get across.

What, then, is the message of Brick Church in this moment that we can glean from John’s Revelation?

I struggled with this, and then—oh, bless the Lord—the message was hand-delivered to me last week by Ms. Fabian, Director of the Brick Church School. It came from one of the school classes, addressed to her. She wanted me to read it, and I’m going to read it to you now: (see message on page 4)

It was the center of Jesus’ message. This is what He gave His life for.

All are welcome. All are welcome. That is the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Amen.