A Great Multitude That No One Could Count
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
November 6, 2011—All Saint’s/Reconciling Sunday
Revelation 7:9-17; Matthew 5:1-12
Revelation 7:9-17 • After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center 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.”Matthew 5:1-12 • When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
I. BEGINNING
Wasn’t the world supposed to have ended by now? Twice? Back in May and then again in October? I guess that’s why it’s always a risky thing to get into the end of the world prediction business.
Image courtesy of wordle.net
But it got me to thinking about visions of the end times. Thanks in part to folks like Mr. Camping and things like the Left Behind series people have a particularly hopeless view of what Jesus’ return would be like. Wars, famine, plagues, and all manner of devastations and persecutions. Folks imagine that the book of Revelation is a prediction of doom and gloom to come, something so terrible that the only hope a Christian can have is to be raptured, snatched up, out of this ruined world and taken to live with Jesus in heaven.
I’m going to leave aside the question of whether the Rapture is just a load of bulljive or not (it is) and focus instead on the vision of the end that the Bible presents for us. Because quite contrary to the set of doom and gloom predictions that many Christians imagine it to be, the book of Revelation is, in fact, a great work of hope, and articulates very well what the Christian hopes for the end are.
II. TEXT
One of the important things to understand about any apocalypse is that it is not a prediction of things in the future, it is an interpretation of things in the present. John of Patmos, the author of Revelation, was not setting out a schedule of destruction and devastation that would accompany the end of the world. John was interpreting the persecutions, the wars, the suffering, that he and the other early Christians already saw all around them. He was trying to place it all in the context of the great hope they had from God. So, it is important to understand that the central message of Revelation is not in the predictions of various sufferings, or the arrival of terrifying beasts, for those things had already happened—the central message of Revelation is the hope that lay behind it all. A hope that we find so beautifully inscribed in the words we read earlier from chapter 7:
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” … They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center 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.
This is an astoundingly beautiful vision and one that no Christian should shy away from. Indeed, the vision at the heart of Revelation is the one at the heart of our faith: the restoration of all that is broken, the healing of the world, the resurrection from the dead to eternal life.
When we Christians talk about the “Kingdom of God” it is this kind of hopeful vision that we are to have. A vision of a great multitude, hungering no more, thirsting no more, suffering no more, dying no more, mourning no more.
III. WHY THIS MATTERS
Now, I say this because it is an important reminder, especially for a community like this one: busy. Now, you’re all Millennials and on top of that you’re AU students so being busy just comes with the territory, I guess. But the bigger issue is why are we busy. That’s a question the church always needs to ask. In fact, I have often noted that one of the biggest problems in Protestant Christianity today is that the evangelicals have a lot of fervor but don’t always know what to do with it and the mainline denominations are really busy but don’t always know why.
So, why are we busy? Why are we so engaged in creating communities of worship and praise, communities of welcome, ministries of justice and service? We know that we do not do these things to earn salvation. (You do know that right? I don’t have to bring Rev. Omholt back and talk to you again about Martin Luther, do I? Okay, good.) No, we know we’re not doing all these things to earn some kind of merit for the next life.
We do these things as a witness and a testimony. We do these things to live into the Kingdom of God that we believe Jesus inaugurated and will some day be here in its fullness. We are not building the Kingdom, but we are modeling what that kingdom will be like as a witness.
IV. LIVING INTO THE KINGDOM
And so we live into that reality.
A Great Multitude
One of the most stirring things about John’s vision in revelation is that just after he lists off the 144,000 elect of God, he goes on to say, “after this I looked and there was a great multitude that no one could count.” Far from being exclusivist, far from lifting up the idea that we Christians (or some subset thereof of real Christians) are a tiny elect, spared from death while all around us the world burns, we see instead the vision of a “great multitude” so large that it is uncountable. John refers to this as being “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages”. That is, it is a diverse multitude. It is not a narrow group. It is not one particular identity. In a way, John’s description is the First Century equivalent of a statement of diversity.
That’s an important vision for us as a community. For the community we build is meant to model the Kingdom of God we await. It is an expansive Kingdom. It is not limited to one nation. Not to one race or ethnicity. It is not limited to one sex. Or to any particular gender identity or sexual orientation. It is not limited to the kinds of divisions that we human beings seem so fond of establishing.
As a result, we here in this place, build a community that models what that vision looks like. We model the vision of a ‘great multitude’ by welcoming all people, regardless of age, race, nationality, sex, ability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. We commit to being a place of welcome for all not simply because it satisfies our sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. Not simply because we think it’s the decent thing to do. No, we do this out of a deep conviction that by creating a community where all people are welcomed, we are modeling what the Kingdom of God will be like. We are living into that reality of ‘great multitude that no one could count.’
Wiping Away Every Tear
John’s vision also contains the hope that “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”—one of the most powerful and moving statements in all of scripture.
It is hard not to reflect on just how many tears have been shed on account of the church. How many hurtful things have been done in God’s name. There are many of us here who know someone who has been, or who have been themselves, excluded from the life of faith by virtue of their gender identity or their sexual orientation. I know talented, spirit-filled Christian leaders who because of their sexual orientation have been told that they are not worthy of the church. I have known people so hurt by the hatred and bigotries of Christians that they have decided that the God we worship must also be hateful. They have walked away from faith altogether, even though deep in their heart is often a yearning for something more.
We have done this. We Christians have not often enough been the ones drying up the tears but instead have been the ones causing the tears to flow. Have we really lived up to the vision of the Kingdom we see in scripture?
No. The church of Jesus Christ has not modeled Christ to the world. Instead of comforting, we have caused more to mourn. Instead of feeding those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, we have provided more iniquity. Instead of being merciful, we have provided judgment. Instead of meekness, we have provided arrogance. Instead of peace, division. We have far too often strayed from the vision that John lifts up and that Jesus called us to be.
And so, if we would really live into the Kingdom of God, we have to model a community that ‘wipes away every tear’. A community that welcomes those who have been told they were unworthy by others. A community that recognizes the love and grace found in all people. A community that seeks to reconcile itself with God and neighbor to testify to the hope that our faith brings and to the love that Jesus represents.
That is why we do these things. It it not because we’re just nice people. It is not because we’re politically correct or have bought into an “agenda”. No, we are a Reconciling Community because in so doing, we model something powerful: a vision of God’s reign on earth in which so many are drawn in. It is a radical vision, befitting the Gospel, which turns the world on its head.
V. END
Today is All Saints Sunday. It is a commemoration and reflection of all the saints of the church, that is, all those who have died in the faith. It is a day of remembrance for all those who have gone on before us.
But it is also a remembrance of all those who will come after us and all those who share the church with us, even now. The church we build is not for us alone. It is a church for all those yet to be. A church that will live out a vision of the Kingdom that generations can proclaim.
The vision of the Kingdom that we lift up is of a church, ever shrinking both in numbers and in relevance to the world. It is not a church that continues to live out a narrow vision, a vision of a select group spared at the expense of others. It is not of a church that disengages from the world and its peoples. Not of a church that continues ages old prejudices and that is responsible for the tears of so many.
The vision we lift up is of something greater. A vision wherein the people of God are so many that they cannot be counted. A vision where all the distinctions of the world are cast aside and love and fellowship reign. A vision that speaks not only of the end, but has the potential and power to transform the world in the here and now. A vision in which the love and grace found in the Kingdom of God can be found in our midst.
In living out that vision, we build a church for the gay teenager, so bullied by his classmates that he cannot imagine there is anywhere that will accept him for who he is. We build a church for the lesbian young woman who has been told time and time again she is unworthy of God’s love. We build a church for the transgendered young adult who has been rejected by friends and family. We build a church for all; for that “great multitude that no one could count”.
