Tag: revelation

To the Church in Headingley

Sermon for Evensong at St Michael & All Angels, Headingley, 21st April 2024. Text: Revelation 2:12-17

So, the Revelation to John, Chapter two. I suspect there are few preachers who whoop for joy when they find the text for the day is from this last book of the Bible, and I’m not one of them. It is notoriously difficult to understand, since it contains so much symbolism that made sense at the time of writing but is obscure to us two thousand years later. And, we don’t really do this kind of ‘apocalyptic’ writing these days.  When people talk of the apocalypse, they are really thinking of some kind of dystopia, maybe the aftermath of a nuclear war or something. 

But this revelation to John in his island retreat was meant to be an encouragement to him and the Christians he was writing to. The “seven letters to local churches” were intended for Christians facing persecution, to get them to look beyond their immediate troubles and find hope in their commitment to Jesus. Good advice I have received is not to focus in detail on what particular imagery might mean, but to try and understand the big picture of what Jesus was telling his church at that time.

Why does Jesus, through John, address church communities rather than individuals?  Because the strength of Christianity lies in the local church, whether in worship, witness or action.  Alone, we can do little; together, we can achieve much.  Also, because in times of difficulty, there is an increased need to gather together for security and mutual encouragement.  We see that right from the start of the Church, in the upper room on Easter evening, the disciples gathered “with doors locked for fear of the Jews”.   

Each local Christian community – each parish or even congregation within a parish – will have its own feel, its own local traditions, and its own difficulties. As someone who has always appreciated the breadth of traditions within the Church of England, it’s lovely to be part of two very different services in one day. We had our usual Common Worship communion this morning at my local church in Bramley, where we have a very diverse congregation but in particular lots of young families from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The mainly contemporary worship songs were led by an older couple on guitar and flute, and a younger couple singing.  Quite a contrast to this more traditional language service with choir and organ, but I find spiritual encouragement in both. In John’s day, I expect it was no different.

Each of these local Christian communities in second-century Asia Minor, then, receives a particular message from Jesus, which in each case both praises and criticises them, before offering a promise for those who stay faithful in the face of persecution.   The praises, the criticisms, and the promises are specific to each place, because Jesus always knows that each church community faces particular challenges and has particular strengths.

Today’s reading is to the Christians of Pergamos – modern day Bergama, a city fifteen miles inland on the Asian side of Turkey. They are praised for holding fast to their faith, even when at least one of them has been killed for it. In the other letters, congregations are praised for their hard work, perseverance, keeping Christ’s word and not denying his name. The emphasis is not about becoming martyrs but being true to the Christian worldview when the world is going in other directions. In our own time, it is increasingly hard to stand up for tolerance, truth and neighbourly love when society is becoming more divided, and false news and lies are all around us.

On the other hand, they are criticised for two things. Firstly for holding to the teaching of Balaam. This refers to the Old Testament book of Numbers, where the prophet Balaam, despite being told by God to bless the people of Israel, also encouraged them to sin in ways that we would still find unacceptable today. And for holding the teaching of the Nicolaitans – we’re not quite sure who they were, but from the context they were doing the same in their day, following the religious and sexual practices of the people around them rather than being distinctive in following Christian ethics.

So the overall message to the church in Pergamos seems to be: keep your faith, even when times are difficult, and be careful not to let the ways of the world compromise the way you practice your faith.

What, I wonder, would Jesus say to the church in Headingley?  I believe he praises you for holding together as a benefice of three quite different churches, each responding to the needs of the age in a different way. St Chad’s is taking a lead on environmental issues, its rewilded churchyard and solar panels an example to other churches across the Diocese of how we might respond to the environmental crisis. Heston at All Hallows has developed a distinctive ministry inclusive of people with all kinds of physical, financial and spiritual needs, and engaging with those of other faiths to find common ground in serving the needs of the parish.

Here at St Michael’s he praises you for engaging in the cultural and civic life of Headingley, showing a commitment to being inclusive, and worshipping him in words and music that seek to express the spiritual life within us, whether in contemporary or traditional style.   

But for what would he criticise you? To quote the words of the confession that we said earlier, what have you as a community, left undone that you ought to have done, or done that you ought not to have done?  I do not live among you, and it’s not for me to judge you. But I leave you to ponder that.

The praises, in any event, are more important than the criticisms. As the Psalmist said, “God’s anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime”. So at the end of each of the letters is a promise.  The promises are expressed symbolically and addressed this time to individuals rather than congregations. The Christians in Pergamos are promised the ‘hidden manna’, probably the reason this reading is paired with the one from Exodus. The manna, the miraculous bread from heaven, has always been understood by the Church to be not only a sign of God’s provision to those in need, but also a foretaste of the eternal life that comes through Jesus to those who believe in him: Jesus who called himself the ‘bread of life’.

The other promise is of a white stone with a secret name. What that means is less obvious, but it may be a way of saying that we need to treasure our deepest faith, our most intimate understanding of God, in the secrecy of our own heart. That way, whatever life may throw at us, our faith in Christ is kept secure.

Other symbolic promises in this set of letters include “eating from the tree of life”, “not being hurt by the second death”, “the right to sit with Jesus on his throne”, “being dressed in white”; and being given “authority over the nations”.  One of the threads running through the New Testament is that our rewards for living faithfully in this life will be given us in the next.  It is of course impossible to really know what such existence will be like, but the Revelation reminds us to look beyond the troubles of this life and stick with Jesus along the way. 

So if I can sum up what we can learn from this small part of the last book of the Bible, it is this: that as part of the churches in Headingley, as well as the wider Church of England and indeed the Church of Christ throughout the world, we must recognise the tension between engaging with the world and retaining our distinctiveness as Christians. We can celebrate the diversity within and between our congregations, while seeking to find the specific ministry that each local church has to its parish. And that while there will no doubt be aspects of our church life that could be criticised, much more important is to hear the words of Jesus praising us for when we get it right, for by holding to our faith in him and seeking to respond to his call, we know we shall inherit that eternal life that only He can give.

Tarnished worship

Readings: John 15:9-17 , Revelation 2:1-7

Bramley St Peter, 22 October 2022

5th & last In a series on ‘Whole Life Worship’

Several years ago Linda and I bought a pair of silver-plated champagne flutes to help celebrate special occasions. But we don’t often have such a special occasion, and having champagne is a very rare treat.  So the flutes get left at the back of a cupboard most of the time.  This is one of them.  It doesn’t look very attractive or inviting, does it? When silver gets to look like that, we call it ‘tarnished’. All that’s happened is that it’s reacted with sulphur in the air around it. You could still drink from it, but it doesn’t add sparkle to the occasion.

One of the lessons that life teaches us is that things decay, get spoilt or tarnished, without us doing anything deliberate to harm them. Often, that decay happens when they aren’t even being used. Think of the way that anything dyed red fades to pink and eventually white as it’s exposed to sunlight. Or the way that the lovely cream coloured York stone from which many of the building of Leeds were built has turned black with a century or more of air pollution. Polluted, faded, tarnished – things just don’t look as attractive as they once did.

The same thing happens to our relationships. Relationship counsellors know that the most common reason for a couple seeking counselling, or a divorce, is not something serious like an affair, but just that they’ve ‘drifted apart’ or ‘no longer love each other’.  What causes this? Most often, it’s just the everyday activities of living. We get so busy with work, family commitments, even church activities, that we forget to set special time aside for the people closest to us,  even our intimate partner. The relationship gets tarnished – it can still function, but the sparkle has gone and other friendships may seem more attractive. Keeping the love alive in a relationship to stop this happening is important, but also challenging.

And that’s true of our relationship with God as well. When we first discover what it is to believe in God, to be saved by Jesus, to be able to worship him and praise him for what he’s done for us, then our worship and praise will be heartfelt and sincere. It makes us feel good, and we are motivated to live out our Christian faith in daily life, and take opportunities to tell other people what God has done for us.

But like a goblet or building exposed to the air around it, slowly and bit-by-bit we find our worship gets polluted by the concerns of life and the sparkle goes out of it. As Jesus said of the seed that grew up among thorns, we get “choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life”. Some people will fall away and slowly drop out of worshiping together in church. Others still come to church out of a sense of duty or because we have friends here, but one service seems much like another and it doesn’t engage us with the rest of our life.

In the reading from the book of Revelation, the risen Jesus sends a message in a vision to the the Christians in Ephesus, saying “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Elsewhere in the same book, Jesus warns against being ‘lukewarm’ for him. It’s the same idea: our worship of God and our love for him should not be lukewarm, half-hearted. As with our personal relationships, we need to face up to the challenge of finding ways of keeping our love for God alive.

This is the last of our services on the theme of ‘whole life worship’. We have looked at how worshipping should engage our whole lives, how it offers us insights into life, affects our everyday actions and speech. The question today is how we can polish up our worship, remove the layer of pollution from it and be the sparkling silver people that Jesus wants us to be.

When Jesus addressed his closest disciples at the Last Supper, on the evening before he was crucified, he said many important things that they would remember and write down later. He spoke a lot about love, that evening. In today’s reading he distilled that down to this: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”  The commandment that we have to keep, he went on to say, is to love one another, just as he has loved us, that is, loving to the point of being willing to sacrifice his own life for us. But he also said that the point of giving the commandment to love each other, is in order that we may love each other.

That, then, is the key to the challenge that we face – to love as Jesus loved us. If only we could love each other, and our neighbours, with the intensity of love that led Jesus to lay down his own life for others, then we would truly be living like Christ and having a transforming impact on the world around.

It seems an impossible ask. But the good news, the amazing truth at the heart of the Christian message, is that Jesus did not leave us alone. “I have said these things to you”, Jesus added [that is, about loving each other] “so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete”. Loving and serving each other as part of Christ’s body is not a solemn, boring duty: it should be a source of joy, just as the love between parent and child or two lovers.

You may recall from the first of this series on whole-life worship another of Jesus’ memorable sayings: that he is the living water. That is, flowing, fresh water that bubbles up inside us like a spring, refreshing and reviving. When he was faced with someone arguing about where was the best place to worship God, he replied that what matters is worship ‘in spirit and truth’. Worship from the heart.

There is a virtuous circle here: the more we worship God from the heart, the more Jesus will pour his living water of joy into us to refresh our lives and move us to loving service of our neighbours in God’s name. And the more we do that, the more people’s lives are transformed. When we see lives transformed, it motivates us to come back to God in praise and worship. And so on.  Worship – joy – service – transformation- worship.

But how do we get that virtuous circle going? To change the metaphor slightly, think of a petrol engine. The piston goes up and down in a cycle, but the car won’t move unless fuel is injected into the cylinder at a crucial point in the cycle. When it comes to this virtuous cycle of worship, inspiration and loving service, I think it has to start with worship. That’s the point in the cycle where Jesus injects us, as it were, with the fuel of love.

But we have to be prepared – the ignition has to be on. Worship of God “in Spirit and in truth” can’t just start from cold, we have to do some warm-up by preparing for worship in prayer, asking the Holy Spirit to make our worship real and heartfelt. We see this in the prayer sometimes used at the start of the communion service: “cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name”. But we can also do that preparation of the heart before coming to church, day by day as we pray at home.

If we can do that: if we can prepare ourselves to experience true worship from the heart, so that we know the joy of Jesus’ love within us, and go out rejoicing in his name to love each other and transform the world by loving service, returning week by week to praise God for what he is doing through us: then we will no longer be like this tarnished old goblet, but shining like fresh silver, worthy to receive the living water of Christ and the sparkling wine of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Come and see the shining hope

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is ‘Come and see the shining hope that Christ’s apostle saw’ by Christopher Idle. It’s based on some of the scenes in the Book of Revelation, and set to an American tune ‘Marching through Georgia’.  We sang it at our church on Advent Sunday to bring a stirring start to the season.

The contrast in the first verse is between ‘confusion on the earth, and in heaven an open door’.  Confusion is indeed all around the earth as at the moment, what with uncertainties around the Covid pandemic and climate change, as well as wars and famines in many places – just the sort of thing Jesus said would have to happen before he comes again. The second verse is about the gifts that God gives, Jesus being the greatest of them, by which we can cope with these confusing times.  The third verse returns the scene to heaven where the ‘mighty multitudes’ forever sing praise to God.

The last line of each verse is the same, effectively forming a bridge to the chorus: ‘Love has the victory for ever!’ The chorus with its repeated Amens celebrates justice being restored and ‘the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of the Lord’.  The overall message is that whatever the confusion and challenges around us, at the same time there is another kingdom, which Jesus said is among us or within us, where all the world’s problems cease to exist. 

The ‘open door’ of the first verse may perhaps be identified with Jesus who called himself ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’. The way into the heavenly kingdom.  But he also warned that the way is narrow and few enter the door.  So although Advent is full of hope, it’s also full of challenge. The message of repentance and of waiting in holiness goes hand in hand with the expectation of being among those restored to eternal life when Jesus finally returns.

Holy is the Lord

Image from Chong Soon Kim / Pinterest.com

Today’s song from Sing Praise is ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord’. It’s described in the book as anonymous, which is a bit surprising as it’s a modern song, not an ancient hymn.  Like the last two days, it’s one I’m already familiar with.

The words appear to be inspired by the Book of Revelation, in which Jesus is hailed by both humans and angels as the holy one (for having ascended to the right hand of God), the one worthy of praise (for his sacrifice for us) and the one to whom glory is due.  By equating Jesus with the eternal God, this text (the original Revelation as well as the modern song) challenges any notion of all religions being equal. In particular it confronts the insistence of Judaism and, perhaps especially, Islam that God is sublime and cannot be seen or take human form. The early apostles insisted that they had indeed seen, known and touched a true incarnation of God. It is this as well as its social teaching of the equality of all people that made Christianity so subversive, and in many places still does.

The other phrase that recurs in each verse is “who was, and is, and is to come”.  This refers to God being eternal, beyond time and space.  It also reflects the Christian belief that by ‘Christ’ we mean not just Jesus of Nazareth but the eternal reality of the Word of God (the way God communicates with us) and that he has promised to return again in some visible form. As Very Lynn might have put it, “don’t know where, don’t know when, but we know we’ll meet again”.   This is leading us gradually towards the Kingdom Season in November and then into Advent.

Great and wonderful your deeds

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Great and Wonderful your deeds” by Christopher Idle, who also wrote yesterday’s hymn. Both are based on passages from the book of Revelation, and this is a setting of a passage used as a canticle (chanted scripture) in some churches.  Now we are far from the problems of earth and focused only on God.

God is praised here as the all-powerful one, the one who is always true and right, the God of justice, the sacrificial Lamb as he was incarnate as Jesus, and as the Holy Spirit. 

The refrain to each verse is a single line ending with the word ‘glory’ and that sets the tone for the hymn. These last lines – “To your name be glory”, “All have seen your glory”, and “Love and praise and glory” are the response of people who recognise God for whom he is.

Glory, honour, endless praises

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is in a different mood from the last three: Glory, honour, endless praises’ by Edwin le Grice. Leaving behind the troubles of this world, we move (as John noted in his video) to the worship of Heaven as described in the book of Revelation. This was also mentioned in the radio ‘thought for the day’ today with a reminder that the alternative term Apocalypse really just means an uncovering, a revelation of a reality that is normally hidden.

In this existence we are told there will be ‘no more crying or pain’, and God can be praised by those whose sins have been redeemed.  Jesus Christ is acclaimed in the verses of this hymn as the Lord and King of Kings, the Lamb who has been slain, by those who have been ‘called to serve from every nation’.  It’s a necessary reminder that for all our struggles here, there is another, unseen but eternal existence where all that will have been laid aside. 

At the start of the book of Revelation we also read of Jesus revealing himself to St John with messages for several specific Christian congregations undergoing persecution, urging them to remain faithful, to endure, to overcome evil and hardship, so as to reach the everlasting life of Heaven. One way of achieving that is to praise God as often as we can, even when times are hard.  It’s just a practice for the real thing.

Holy for ever and ever is God

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Holy forever and ever is God” by John Bell. It is a setting of (or at least inspired by) verses from the book of Revelation. 

The first two verses praise God as creator and overall sovereign of his creation.  The other three are more specifically addressed to Jesus.   In the book the hymn is suggested as suitable for Ascension Day, when Jesus finally left the earth in bodily form and took up his reign in God’s eternal kingdom.  But it is still suitable for this Easter season, not least because in the fourth verse we declare “Worthy the Lamb who was sentenced and slain! Worthy the Lamb in his rising again!”, the Lamb being Jesus as sacrifice. 

In the last verse the Lamb is sitting on the throne (as king, or judge) having proved himself worthy for the position by living a blameless life on earth and being a willing sacrifice for the rest of sinful humanity. I couldn’t find an appropriate image to depict this, as it is such a contradiction (at the same time suffering lamb and all-powerful king) that all the illustrations I found were contrived or twee. Stained glass artists have usually depicted the sacrificial lamb below the enthroned Christ, and left it to the viewer to try and superimpose these images in some way, for neither image makes sense without the other. That is just one pair of images from Revelation, and not the strangest by a long way. No wonder it’s a notoriously difficult book to understand!

The other reason this is a suitable hymn for the Easter season is that each verse ends with an Alleluia! (very much the Easter acclamation). Tomorrow’s hymn also has alleluias, but in a different setting…

Arise, shine out, your light has come

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany when we celebrate the revelation of God in the birth of Jesus. It’s also a festival of light, both in the spiritual sense of enlightenment, of seeing the world in a new way in the ‘light’ of God’s presence, but also (in the northern hemisphere) marking the latest time of sunrise – 08.40 this morning where I live – after which the days get lighter again.

The hymn I have chosen appears in the ‘Epiphany’ section of the hymn book, although it doesn’t directly address either of those uses of the idea of of light – the literal sunrise, or the birth of Jesus. Instead it takes another way in which the Bible uses the idea of light, when it speaks of the new creation (or ‘New Jerusalem”) to come at the fulfilment of time, a creation in which there will be no violence, no pain, no tears, no death, and also no darkness: “the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb” [i.e. the sacrifice of Jesus] Rrevelation 21:23).

This looking forward to a time of perfection is an attractive proposition at a time of pain, isolation and death from the Coronavirus, and a national lockdown in England occurring in the middle of winter. To some people it may be seen as just wishful thinking, but as we saw yesterday with the divinity of Christ and the Communion of Saints, these are very much matters of faith. If we have faith in Jesus as the human incarnation of the eternal father, and in everlasting life with him for those who have died in that faith, then the idea of a whole new creation with Jesus as its light makes sense. And if you ask “what does faith look like?”, I refer you to my earlier blog post in December “Advent Faith” which you will find by scrolling down the recent posts.

The Bible in a Year – 31 December

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

The last four sections of the Bible in a Year blog, covering the whole of the Book of Revelation, are being uploaded together (just because I was without Internet access this week).

31 December. Revelation chapters 19-22

According to chapter 20, after all forms of evil are finally defeated, Christ returns to reign with his martyrs (but not the rest of humanity) for a symbolic period of a thousand years, after which all the dead are resurrected to be judged, and either live in paradise (described as the new Jerusalem – a magnificent and vast jewelled city with eternal light) or be thrown into the lake of fire (from which the popular idea of Hell arises).

But on what basis is this ultimate judgement made?  Jesus says here: “To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death” (21:6-8).   The contrast is between, on the one hand,  those who are “thirsty” (that is, longing for God’s presence and help) and those who “conquer” (that is, overcome temptation, and persist in faith during trials and persecutions); and on the other hand those who continue to live in ignorance or defiance of God’s directions for life – as I noted on 29 December, the list of sins here is very similar to the prohibited acts in the Ten Commandments.

The danger in interpreting John’s visions is twofold – trying to apply them directly to today’s world when the vision was initially given to 1st or 2nd century Christians; and reading them in isolation from the rest of the New Testament.    Here Jesus was specifically encouraging persecuted Christians to stand firm in their faith, by means of these visions, whereas in his direct teaching his emphasis was on showing love for God and neighbour in practical ways.

So at the end of the year we reach the end of the Bible, and the end of earthly time, in the way that John describes his vision.  To consider together the whole of Christian scripture – all 66 books of it written down over a period of over 1000 years, the last of it nearly 2000 years ago, and covering a longer period of time than that – is the work of a lifetime.  No-one can claim to fully understand either the original meaning or most appropriate interpretation of every part of it. Bible study is both essential and fascinating, with a good guide.

More importantly, it has always been regarded by Christians as a “living book” – when we speak of the “Word of God” we mean not just the written words of the Bible but Jesus himself.  As John understood it, “His name is called The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure (the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints) were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations” (19:8, 13-15).  That “sword” is usually understood as the combination of written scripture and the continual witness of the Holy Spirit through the gift of prophecy in all ages.  It is that combination – received teaching and the ongoing inspiration of Jesus and the Holy Spirit  – which will keep Christians faithful until Jesus returns in person, and eventually overcomes evil.  With the saints throughout the ages we can echo the last verses of the Bible – “Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.” (22:20-21).

The Bible in a Year – 30 December

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

The last four sections of the Bible in a Year blog, covering the whole of the Book of Revelation, are being uploaded together (just because I was without Internet access this week).

30 December. Revelation chapters 12-18

I suggested yesterday that in reading Revelation we should focus on the references to humanity rather than to the symbolic or mystical beasts.  In these chapters the references to humanity include several specifically to the followers of Christ.  There are many references to those who have died as martyrs and are shown among the angels worshipping God.  But there are also references to those still on earth in the times of persecution during which the book is set.

In 12:17, “those who keep God’s commands and hold fast to their testimony about Jesus” are opposed by the dragon that had previously opposed the “woman crowned with twelve stars” who probably represents Judaism.  In 13:7 another beast is given power to conquer God’s holy people. In 17:6 the “prostitute called Babylon” (whose seven heads represent seven hills, and therefore is traditionally identified with the city of Rome) symbolically gets drunk on the blood of those who were killed for their testimony about Jesus.  Clearly the Church is faced with persecution, not only from Rome but from the other and less easily identified foes.  And that persecution continues today – just this week there has been another attack on a Christian church in Egypt where Christians are a minority, and it continues unwitnessed in many places around the world.  The same is true, of course, of followers of other religions, as with the Rohingya Muslims now being driven out of Burma.

What the book of Revelation portrays is a world in which, due to the normally unseen forces of evil behind visible events, those who believe in God and try to live his way will always be at risk of attack from those forces of evil for which God, Jesus and those who belong to them will always be seen as enemies.

But it also portrays a world in which, sooner or later, those who do not believe in God or do not try and live his way will eventually find both God and the forces of evil turning on them, and they will suffer even more.  The lucky ones in all this are those who know God and are rescued by him from the worst of the suffering and taken to heaven.  Everyone else is shown suffering unbelievable torment, not in hell but on earth.