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Sermon Ideas For Revelation 1:4b-8 Part 2

Because of the events that occurred at Waco, Columbine High, and the Federal Building in Oklahoma, evil certainly seemed more prevalent in the 1990's. On a personal level, like most clergy, I have stared into the face of evil too many times. I remember the 80 year old man who, after being helped by a young police officer, walked into the police station and shot him between the eyes; the young wife, nine months pregnant with her first child, being told she would have a stillbirth; and the teenage daughter who found her father in the carport dangling from the rope he used to hang himself.

Despite its form, the face of evil eventually touches the human face, robbing it of hope. It topples our foundational belief that a loving God is in control, and that the events of life are all part of a great and glorious Plan. For hope to be restored, we must know that, even when evil reigns, God remains unwavered and the Eternal Plan unaltered. When taken together, the passages in Revelation and The Gospel of John assure us, with their unique perspective on the themes of time, power and truth, that evil can never destroy our hope in God.

Evil robs us of hope by giving the illusion that history and Eternity are not connected, making history meaningless and Eternity powerless. Revelation and The Gospel of John destroy this illusion by giving a different framework of time. Revelation establishes the power of the eternal-historical connection by setting history against the vast backdrop of Eternity, as if history were a grain of sand thrown into the ocean of eternity. The Gospel of John reverses the process. It places Eternity within a finite moment of history, as if one grain of sand absorbed an entire ocean.

Thus, in Revelation, when John tells the seven churches that evil, in the form of Roman persecution, "must soon take place" (1:1), he is saying, "Maintain hope, I've seen what this looks like from the vantage point of the throne of the One `who is and who was and who is to come'" (v. 4b). John proclaims that this event and all events in history are part of an eternal process that culminates in "a new heaven and a new earth." (20:1)

The Gospel of John looks at time from the other end of this spectrum. From this vantage point, Eternity, in the person of Jesus, exists within a finite moment of history. He stands before Pilate prepared to face a persecution which will soon take place, offering no resistance, willing to let evil reign (18:33-37).

This eternal-historical connection also gives hope because it sets the context for how the power of God responds to the power of evil. In a conversation about power (Jn 18:36), Jesus tells Pilate: "My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of the world, my servants would fight…." Ironically, Jesus faces evil with an absence of power—by not conquering but by letting it conquer. Eternity dies on the cross, expressing its power through resurrection, not retaliation.

Likewise, Revelation, demonstrates the same use of power. Eternity reminds history that Jesus is "the ruler of kings on earth"(v. 5b), not because he defeated an earthly king but because the power of Eternity made him "firstborn of the dead"(v. 5b). Revelation's ironic use of power exposes, what G. B. Caird calls, "the self-destructive power of evil." Referring to Revelation 8:8-11, Caird states, "It is the blazing mountain of Babylon, the `destroyer of the whole earth,' that pollutes the sea on which the Roman Babylon depends for its prosperity, and the star of Babylon's king that poisons the drinking water."¹

If God's power is seen only through the lens of history, it appears absent. If it is seen through the lens of an eternal-historical continuum, then God's power is quite evident; for, it does not concern itself with defeating evil. It is concerned only with re-creation.

The eternal-historical concept of time is the framework in which the power of God reveals truth. Truth is the reason that Eternity and history are connected and the purpose behind God's ironic use of power.

Jesus tells Pilate, "for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth"(v. 37). John tells the seven churches that the purpose has been accomplished. Because the Jesus of history has been "the faithful witness," he has become Eternity's "firstborn of the dead" (v. 5). Yet, every time the face of evil shakes our foundation we will need to ask, like Pilate, "What is truth?" (v. 38). In response, Revelation affirms for us, like it did the seven churches, that Truth is the following:

Personification. The "Alpha and Omega," the one with no beginning and no ending, is also "Jesus Christ, the faithful witness" (v. 5), who was born into history and reborn into Eternity.

Re-creation. The power of God, from the beginning, has been making all things new (21:5), and has re-created us into "a kingdom of priests"(v. 6). As Caird says, "This is not an activity of God within the new creation, after the old had been cast as rubbish to the void; it is the process of re-creation by which the old is transformed into the new."² This means that evil, which is part of the old creation, never really reigns, but participates in the process of re-creation.

Vindication. The destruction of evil cannot break Eternity's hold on history. The Alpha and Omega will return with the clouds. Everyone, even those gripped by evil, those who pierced him, will see him (v. 7).

Because Truth reigns, there is Hope despite the presence of evil within history. Truth makes Waco, Columbine High, the Federal Building in Oklahoma, fathers who hang themselves, mothers whose babies die before they are born, and 80 year old men who shoot the people who help them, a little more intelligible and a little more tolerable.

Joe Baroody

NOTES

1. G.B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John The Divine (New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 295. 2. Ibid., p. 265.

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