Paul Walton
4 May 2004
Readings
Acts 9: 36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7: 9-17
St John 10: 22-30
Let’s put on our protective goggles, fasten our signal flares to our utility belts, and check that we have spare batteries for our torches. Let's put our hard hats on, and buddy off. We’re going exploring — in the Book of Revelation!
Today’s passage is full of the usual suspects, who were first described in chapter four: John, the seer himself; a helpful angel; twenty-four elders; seven flaming torches which are the seven spirits of God; there are four living creatures, full of eyes all around and inside. (Don’t forget to keep those protective goggles on!)
In the middle of this menagerie there is a throne: the one seated on the throne looks like jasper and carnelian. Around the throne is a rainbow — that looks like emerald. In front of it: something like a sea of glass, like crystal.
Then in chapter five, a something new comes onto the scene. The seer is told that the Lion of the tribe of Judah is coming. (The seer’s hands go to his utility belt; he takes his cloak of invisibility out of its pouch, and gets ready to put it on.) When the Lion does come, the seer breathes a sigh of relief. It’s not a lion after all! It’s a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. (Hang on; weren’t the seven flaming torches the seven spirits of God?) Anyway, the seer relaxes his grip on his invisibility cloak. What can a lamb do? Especially one standing as if it had been slaughtered? (What does that mean? How many slaughtered lambs can stand?)
Yet this Lamb receives the same honour as the one seated on the throne:
Blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!
Something else is added to the cast in today’s reading: “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages”. They have the signs of holiness and victory with their white robes and the palm branches in their hands.
Their robes have been washed white, not in detergent but in blood — I don’t know how that strikes you, but I’m ready to send up a signal flare to get lifted out of there! It’s the blood of the Lamb that has washed their robes clean; and this Lamb is in the very centre of this picture.
This is the Lamb of which Christian liturgies speak:
Jesus, Lamb of God,
have mercy on us.
Jesus, bearer of our sins,
have mercy on us.
Jesus, redeemer of the world,
grant us peace.
We know that Jesus is “the Lamb of God”; so what is this about? Is this all about a so-called ‘god’ who needs the shedding of blood by a spotless lamb so that he might forgive sin? Is this a sacrifice made by the Lamb to God? Does God need the shedding of blood?
Why is the Lamb at the centre? I want to suggest that it’s because Jesus died not as a sacrifice to appease God, but as a victim of the human need to exclude those who are seen to be upsetting the status quo — violently, if necessary. It was a sacrifice, if you like — a sacrifice to end all sacrifice, a sacrifice offered by God to us to appease our violence.
It worked this way because of the resurrection. The resurrection showed that God had vindicated Jesus, the victim that both Jews and Gentiles had thought accursed by God and deserving of death.
Because of the resurrection, those who follow Christ could no longer look at victims in the same way ever again. And they could no longer victimise others — because the victim is the Lamb in the midst of the heavenly worship.
Towards the end of today’s passage, there is a real twist — the Lamb becomes the Shepherd:
for the Lamb at the centre of the throne
will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs
of the water of life;
and God will wipe away every tear
from their eyes.
The victim is our guide, our shepherd. We followers of Jesus are being called to view life from the underside, from the position of a sacrificial lamb. And to walk in community with those who are the losers in the world system.
If you’re still holding your buddy’s hand, and your hard hat’s still in place, you might want to think about this question: When we say
Jesus, Lamb of God,
have mercy on us
— what are we asking mercy for? Is it our part in the creating of victims? Is it the way we try to protect the status quo? Is it simply the way we divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’? Perhaps we need to hear the words of Tim Winton in his novel Cloudstreet:
It’s not us and them anymore. It’s us and us and us. It’s always us.
(Cloudstreet, Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 1992, p. 402)