Atom“We Know the End of the Story” (Confirmation Sunday)
“Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing,
‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’” Revelation 5:13
(This sermon was addressed not only to the gathered congregation, but specifically toward the 10th grade class affirming their faith at the afternoon worship time)
Counting Tuesday’s Dress Rehearsal, I went to see the school play “Frankenstein” four times this week. You might have guessed that. I am a Dad who enjoys going to the activities of my children: choir concerts, football games, and theater productions. I go to as many as I can. The difference between a football game and a theater production of course is that the play of the game and the ending of the game is always unknown. It is a new adventure every time you go. A musical or play, however, is the same every night. Or at least it should be. The actors will tell you that it isn’t always. And if you go four times, you will see that. Props sometimes end up in different places; lines are changed, costumes are redone. But…it’s still pretty much the same…and the story always ends the same. After the first time of watching a play the suspense and the surprise are gone. The second time that the creature burst in upon the lovely heroine and tried to kill her, my heart didn’t race the same. The second time that the bloody hand reached out of the dark at the end of the play and we knew that creature was not dead, I did not catch my breath. I knew. And I watched differently because I knew the ending. You know what I mean? When you know how the story ends, you are calmer…less anxious…more prepared.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know the same about other events in life…how they are going to end, I mean? We would be more prepared. If we knew we were going to end up at the free throw line at the end of a game with the game on the line, we would surely shoot an extra twenty-five free throws after practice every night. If we knew that a one point better score on our ACT test would get us into the college of our choice or win a $10,000 scholarship, we would prepare a bit better. If we knew we were going to meet the lovely lady we have wanted to ask to the prom at the Dairy Queen, we might have showered after practice. If we knew that year after year of sunburn would result in skin cancer later in life, we would have used sun-block from the very beginning. You get the idea.
But we don’t always know. Much of life is a mystery where we can’t see the ending, where we don’t know how it’s all going to turn out. It can make us anxious and afraid…or even cynical. “What’s the use?” we say. Stuff happens. You can’t stop it. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” And yet, as Christians, as followers of the Risen Jesus Christ, we somehow have a leg up on this “end of the story thing.” We know how it all turns out…how the ending goes.
And because of that I want to turn your attention for these few moments to the little reading from John’s revelation. I started this week preparing to preach on the gospel lesson. I love that story. After Easter, the disciples don’t know what to do with the rest of their lives…so they go fishing. They go back home and go back to work. And…back home…back at work…back where they live…is where Jesus meets them. And he fixes a shore breakfast – bread and fish on the fire. Jesus fixes breakfast. Jesus eats with them. He chews the fish, picks out a bone, and swallows. Jesus is living, breathing, taking nourishment, and eventually – read the rest of the story – re-directing their lives. “Now that you’ve seen me,” he says, “I’ve got work for you. Feed my sheep…tell others. Love as I have loved…here…now…where you live.”
It is a great Easter story, telling of a living, breathing Jesus Christ, the one whom we follow today. Remember it.
But also remember this little vision from the book of Revelation and remember that being a Christian means that we know the end of the story…life’s story…and not only our life’s story…the world’s life’s story.
John envisions that ending for us here: a dream of God’s intention for a new world… a new world where thousands and thousands, myriads and myriads – the whole world – surround the throne of God singing, “Worthy is the lamb that was slain!” This “lamb,” the one crucified, stripped, stabbed, and nailed to the cross to die the most horrible death…this lamb now stands in the center of heaven. This once slaughtered lamb has been give “power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Everything that God has, now the lamb has. The lamb, who knows what it’s like to suffer, to bleed and to die, now rules with God, as God, at the center of a great shout of celebration.
The battle is over – the battle with death, and defeat, and dishonor. The battle is over and…guess who won? The lamb! A lamb is small, frail, vulnerable and no match for the powers of death and destruction. Those powers thought they had ended the life of the lamb on the cross. But remember the joke of last week. Death and destruction thought it had won, but here in the center of heaven, enthroned in a great victory celebration, is the lamb.
On Easter, as living, breathing Jesus emerged from the grave, he was victorious over his own death. Even more, he was victorious over our deaths. Easter is the great, decisive battle in the long war between God’s world and death. The war still rages, yes. There is still death. We still say goodbye to those we love. But…the decisive battle has been fought. And…we know how the story will end. Revelation 5 is a vision of the great, final victory celebration. And that final vision gives us hope. In our present skirmishes with sin, death, and defeat, there is yet pain. But we are not lost and we know where we are headed; it may not be streets of gold and an eternal choir rehearsal, but it will be to that place, that time when God’s will shall be done for the world and the lamb shall rule with power.
And now that weird, other-worldly dream begins to mean something here and now. Knowing how the story ends makes a great deal of difference when you are struggling through this life. When my Aunt Donna was in her last days with her cancer, she hurt…a lot…but she was also at peace. She knew where she was headed. The present pain is real, but knowing the last act makes the pain more bearable. “Sorrow lasts the night,” says the Psalmist, “But joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30)
Perhaps that is why Revelation is the last book in the Bible, the last word on God’s plan. It paints a picture of a world still being born, a world yet to be finished. It is a picture painted poetically, but it is still realistic. It is the reality of a world we do not yet know in its fullness. But this glimpse, this foretaste, this peek into the future is enough to keep us going.
Most of us know of Martin Luther King Junior and his “I have a dream speech” before the Lincoln Memorial many many years ago. When King gave his speech it was a rather dark, perilous time for the civil rights movement in America. Things were not going well. The gathering before the Memorial was meant to infuse new life into the movement, to give new energy so the warriors might fight on, despite the obstacles. How do you do that? King gave the gathered throng a vision. He spoke to them of a dream, a dream of a world in which all would be treated as children of God.
Was this only wishful thinking, fanciful speech, and nothing more? No. Martin Luther King Jr. gave people a dream to keep them moving, a song to sing in the present darkness, a song which spoke of the in-breaking light.
That’s the way we are. We need to know the final act. We need a song to sing that keeps us marching.
You (we) have a song to sing, people of God. You (we) know the final act. So even though you don’t know what road is going to take you through life, you know who is going to meet you at the end. And you know who promises to accompany you along the way. And that means you live differently than those who don’t know the risen Jesus. It means you know you always have a future. It means you know that you always have a life. It means you know you always have a purpose, because Jesus is risen and Jesus is waiting. You will be afraid sometimes, but you will be less afraid. You will still be worried sometimes, but you will be less worried, because you know the end of the story. You know Jesus. And because you know Jesus, and because you know that this is how the story ends for you and for everyone who knows him, you will – as Pastor Dave will remind you in a moment – also live toward that end differently.
It is why your parents brought you to this church. They and all those who have gone before them have passed on the story of Jesus, that you might know how it all ends…and live confidently and fully…passing it on the life of Jesus as they have passed it on to you. (Christ is risen; he is risen indeed.)
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