College Community Church
Fourth Sunday in Easter
April 29, 2007
From where I am standing I see a multitude before the throne of the One they have confessed as Lord; they are clothed in robes that set them apart as belonging to him. From where I am standing, I see you, the saints of College Community Church.
You are the ones who have come out of the great ordeal. The suffering of wrestling through this world that presses in on us on every side, that threatens to crush us if we do not relent – has not won. You are steadfast. Bruised? Tired? Yes. But still here. Still together. Still proclaiming “salvation belongs to the Messiah who suffered” as the definitive narrative of our lives.
I have heard of your faith. I have heard of your commitment to walk by the Spirit – however difficult that journey may be. Hearing of you gives me hope; it gives me a glimpse of the Kingdom breaking in.
So, if you in this church, if we as the Church are this multitude, what can we hear St. John’s Revelation speaking to us? What voice reaches out of the text to be heard today?
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. 16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; 17 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."
We are given a vision: we will stand before the throne worshipping God. We are given a promise: God will shelter us; God will spread out a tent over us; God will cover us with his mothering wings. God’s sheltering means that no longer will we hunger; no longer will we thirst: God, our Provider, puts an end to our want (cf. Ps. 23:1). God’s sheltering means that no longer will the heat of the day sap us of our strength. This promise is fulfilled in much the same way we imagine it should be when we pray “The Lord is my shepherd…” The Lamb in the center of the throne tends us like sheep: he guides us to springs of living water, springs of the water of life. God will also put an end to our crying. No longer will we suffer; no longer will we have to ask “How long?” for the time will have come when all things are made new. We are promised that newness.
John’s Revelation is a vision of what is to come; yet he sees it as if it is happening. In the vision he experiences the promise as if it were fulfilled. He is isolated on an island, concerned about his congregations. What will happen to them? Will they endure the suffering they are facing? And then this vision: Yes, John, they will make it. Behold – a great multitude. This vision isn’t wishful thinking or cross-your-fingers optimism. What John sees is promise. What John sees will happen. And because God is to be trusted, it is as good as if it had already happened. John can rejoice now in the hope of this vision. John can live the vision’s reality now because promise is the sacrament of fulfillment: through this vision he enters in to the story where his congregations are already “before the throne of God, and worship[ping] day and night within his temple.”
How do we navigate our time – the “already but not yet” time? How do we, in the midst of our stories of suffering, of “worlds falling apart” see the meta-narrative John saw and enter into that story? That story is one of newness complete. Of suffering being “no longer.” Of having already conquered. Can we claim that story now? And if so, how do we understand our stories of suffering under the umbrella of the larger story of triumph?
Allow me to share part of my journey with you. When I was a teenager, there were moments when the brokenness of this world and the brokenness within me threatened to overcome me. There were moments when I was very close to giving up, when I was very close to taking my “How long?” groanings into my own hands by making myself “no longer.” On the edge of despair, I came across a popular song that ended up becoming the meta-narrative of those years. R.E.M’s “Everybody Hurts” gave me a way of processing my experience in the world. For a teenager that felt utterly alone and without hope, these words provided a measure of comfort:
When your day is long and the night, the night is yours alone
when you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life
well, hang on
don’t let yourself go
cause everybody cries
and everybody hurts
sometimes…
take comfort in your friends
everybody hurts
don’t fold your hand…
when you feel like giving up
no, you’re not alone
if you’re on your own in this life
when your days and nights are long
when you think you’ve had too much of this life to hang on
well, everybody hurts
sometimes everybody cries
everybody hurts sometimes…
so hold on
In that song I learned to believe that I was not alone. I was part of a community of sufferers. Everybody hurts. Pain is a fact of life. There’s nothing we can do about it. So, the comfort we are afforded is that at least we aren’t the only ones. At least we are not the only person the universe is picking on. At least other people have it as bad as us. At least we’re normal. We might not have the hope of liberation from our suffering, but at least we can cling to the fact that everybody hurts.
I came to faith in my latter teenage years, and I gradually became aware of a new meta-narrative. The story I began to hear and see caused me to give up the “everybody hurts” story with its insistence that any comfort we find is comfort we make for ourselves often at the expense of others. I gave up my self-understanding as one who endlessly suffers pointless pain. This new story, with its suffering servant Messiah, has infused the way I see the world with new meaning.
There is a different song that now points to this meta-narrative:
You could turn a hundred years and never empty all your fearsBebo Norman’s “Into the Day” voices something crucial: suffering is not everything; something else is at work even when we do not feel or perceive it. Many voices tell us to “hold on,” but there is a particular voice that reminds us that we hold on because “the hungering dark gives way to the dawn.” Deathliness gives way to resurrection, to new life. We celebrate this truth now, during the Easter season. The chaos of the world gives way to God’s creative work. The suffering we experience gives way to adoption and redemption. It has no choice. Christ is Lord. His suffering gave way to glory. The Lamb that appears slaughtered is indeed the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
They’re pouring out like broken words and broken bones
They could fill a thousand pages, be the cry for all the ages
And the song for every soul that stands alone
The ache of life is more than you are able
Hold on love, don’t give up
Don’t close your eyes
The light is breaking through the night
Step out into the day, all the clouds and all the rain are gone
It’s over now
Step out into the sun, for you have only begun to know
What its all about
As the hungering dark gives way to the dawn, my love
It’s over now
Time will let the story told grow and grow till it unfolds
In a way that even you cannot ignore
You can say that seasons change but never if you just remain
In a place where the freeze is at your door
What you don’t know is the signs are right for the turning tide
Step out into the day, all the clouds and all the rain are gone
It’s over now
Step out into the sun, for you have only begun to know
What its all about
As the hungering dark gives way to the dawn, my love
Hold on, hold on
It won’t be long
So hold on
And it is not as if all we have is the hope that “this too shall pass.” We have an understanding that the suffering we experience now somehow is related to what will come. Somehow suffering forms us to be the conquerors we shall one day completely be. God is working this present evil into something good, something that serves his new creation purposes. Our suffering, our great ordeals, have purpose. We more often than not do not get to know how this process works. It is not as simple as coming to the end of a tough time and getting the comfort of having learned the moral to the story, a great lesson that redeems our painful experience. No. That is not how it works most of the time. Instead we push through our “why” to be people of faith, people trusting that even though we don’t know how it works and we certainly don’t get to control the process, the God we confess as Lord of heaven and earth powerfully works for our good. Somehow our present sufferings actually serve to prepare us for the future. They do not threaten that future because this story we’re in is God’s story.
It is from within God’s story that we consider John’s vision. Knowing the triumph of God’s future allows us in our suffering to experience triumph. This is a mystery much like it is a mystery how when we partake of the Lord’s Supper we are at once in the wilderness with the Israelites, at the table Jesus shared with his disciples and sitting down for the wedding feast of the Lamb. In that moment of our present, we are gathered up with the past and experience the future. All of history is moving toward completion, toward new life.
Today’s Revelation text is paired with Acts 9:36-43. Tabitha has died. The women are outside weeping. They believe that the story is one of death. That is what they see. That is what they feel. That is how they understand what is happening. Enter Peter. He prays. He prays to the God whose story this is. Then he says, “Tabitha, get up.” Your life is not over. Death will not claim you. Things are not as they seem. Get up. Stand in new life.
If I listen in on a conversation between John’s vision and Peter’s command, I hear the meta-narrative speaking softly: Something other than death is at work in this world. There is God. We might not be able to see God working. He may be hidden most of the time. The death at work in the world might be in our faces consistently enough to make us forget God is part of the story. But then we listen to John; we watch Peter. Behold, John says, see what I see. Listen, Peter says, pray what I pray.
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. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"
"Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?"
“You are the one that knows.”
"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.”
We are the ones in the great ordeal. I have heard that your journey has been trying. We live in the “not yet.” We also live the “already.” Look around you. The people in this place make up a community of believers, of those who hope in the promise, of those who in that hope stand victorious even while waiting for the final victory.
“For this reason [you] 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 [you]. 16 [You] will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike [you], nor any scorching heat; 17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be [your] shepherd, and he will guide [you] to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from [your] eyes."
We celebrate this promise during the Easter season, and in celebrating it together we enter into its fulfillment.
If you look at your life and at the life of this community and struggle to see God’s story unfolding, “leave comfort root-room,”[1] give your heart the space it needs to see and hear that narrative. If you look at your life and at the life of this community and are ever more convinced that your story abides in God’s story, moving toward completion, lift your voices in hope and celebration.
We are all on our way to new life: the hungering dark gives way to the dawn, beloved. And on our way we enter into new life; we experience it. The Kingdom breaks in. As all things fall down around us, as this world comes apart, take heart: our God is making all things new. Get up. Rise. Step into the day. Do not lie down in Despair’s cave; hear the Church calling you into the mercies of God that are new, and making us new, with each dawning day.
As I walk through this Easter season and feel the weight of the trials I am facing, I am need of disciplining my heart to celebrate. Sharing this day with you has been celebration. Thank you. Your life together and the welcome you have shown me gives me hope.
Frederick Buechner, a man who knows about new life when worlds fall apart, wrote a prayer I’d like to pray for us:
Lord Jesus Christ, Help us not to fall in love with the night that covers us but through the darkness to watch for you as well as to work for you; to dream and hunger in the dark for the light of you. Help us to know that the madness of God is saner than men and that nothing that God has wrought in this world was ever possible. Give us back the great hope again that the future is yours, that not even the world can hide you from us forever, that at the end the One who came will come back in power to work joy in us stronger even than death. Amen.[2]
[1] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “My Own Heart”
[2] Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark