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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
If you have been following the news, you probably know both that the enclave to select the next pope begins this Wednesday and that the man eventually selected should begin his papacy not long after his selection. Even though most of us are neither Roman Catholic nor British, we still might enjoy watching the pomp and circumstance of a new king’s coronation or a new pope’s enthronement. The coronation and enthronement of the slain but resurrected Lamb of God is what today’s Second Reading is sometimes understood to be describing, although the slain but resurrected Lamb is neither crowned nor seated on the throne in the vision graciously given to St. John, who recorded it for even us today. In a special Sunday-morning sermon-series titled, “Resurrection and Revelation”, Pastor Adler and I are focusing on our Second Readings drawn from Revelation this Easter Season. In today’s Second Reading our crucified but resurrected Lord Jesus Christ is seen as a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, and so our theme today is “The Slain Lamb is standing”.
Those who understand today’s Second Reading as describing the coronation and enthronement of the Slain Lamb Who is standing again will often say that that coronation and enthronement took place when Jesus ascended into heaven, which likely was decades before God revealed the scene to St. John. Yet, Holy Scripture in some sense can speak both of the Christ’s being known and our being chosen in Him before the foundation of the world and of His being made manifest and His putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself in the last times, at the end of the ages (1 Peter 1:20; Ephesians 1:4; Hebrews 9:26). Of course, our being inside time and God’s being outside time can complicate our putting such things and the events described in Revelation on a definite timeline, just as the events described in Revelation do not necessarily occur in the order that they are revealed to St. John.
What is revealed to St. John in today’s Second Reading is closely connected to what St. John saw and heard in the preceding chapter. In that vision, St. John saw presumably God the Father seated on His heavenly throne and the Holy Spirit before Him, surrounded by four living creatures and twenty-four elders, who were responsively worshiping God the Father, especially for His work of creation. Then, as we heard in today’s Second Reading, they are worshiping the Slain Lamb Who is standing, especially for His work of redemption, ransoming people for God by His blood.
To be sure, all people, including you and me, need ransoming, or redemption. More than just our needing to do better—which we do—and more than just our making bad choices—which we do—we think morally wrong thoughts, we speak morally wrong words, and we do morally wrong deeds. Because of our sinful nature, and because of all of our actual sin that our sinful nature leads us to commit, we deserve nothing but punishment now and forever. But, out of God’s great love and mercy, He calls and so enables us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, and to want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us: our sinful nature and all of our actual sin. As all the people delivered from their slavery in Egypt used for their deliverance the blood of their many Passover lambs (for example, Exodus 12:43-50), so all us people delivered from our slavery to sin use for our deliverance the blood of our one Passover Lamb, the Slain Lamb Who is standing.
Of course, Jesus is not literally a lamb with seven horns and with seven eyes, but He is figuratively a Slain Lamb Who is standing. John the Baptizer is usually thought to have pointed St. John to a literal Jesus as the figurative Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29‑42), and, essentially the opposite, in today’s Second Reading, St. John sees a figurative Slain Lamb standing and knows that He is the literal Jesus. God through Isaiah had prophesied that His suffering servant Son would be like a possibly‑Passover lamb that is led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7; confer Jeremiah 11:19), and, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as a Passover lamb is how both the Gospel account that bears St. John’s name (John 19:36, referring to Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12) and St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians understand Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:7), not to mention Philip, who began with that Isaiah passage in order to tell the Ethiopian eunuch the Good News about Jesus (Acts 8:26-40). As God once provided a ram, an adult male sheep, to die in the place of Abraham’s beloved son Isaac (Genesis 22:13; confer v.8), so God provides His beloved Son Jesus to die in our place (confer John 3:16). Though Jesus suffered a violent death on the cross for us, He was resurrected and so lives and stands again for us. Other Passover lambs died and did not stand again, but, behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:9) and the Root of David (Isaiah 11:1, 10)—the long‑promised Messiah—has conquered! Sin and death are defeated by the Resurrected Lord, Who revealed Himself both to His disciples by the Sea of Tiberias in today’s Gospel Reading (John 21:1-19) and to Paul on the road to Damascus in today’s First Reading (Acts 9:1-22). No matter our tribe, language, people, and nation, we who repent are ransomed for God, ransomed, St. Peter writes, “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19). And, God gives us the benefits of the Slain Lamb Who is standing in God’s Word and Sacraments, preached and handed out by the ministers whom He sends with His authority.
For example, in today’s Gospel Reading, we heard how Jesus told a seemingly reinstated Simon Peter to feed His lambs and to “tend”, or “shepherd”, His sheep. In today’s First Reading, we similarly heard how Jesus called and sent St. Paul, Who immediately proclaimed Jesus to be the Son of God and the Christ. And, in today’s Second Reading, one of the elders, though not as we think of “elders”, helped St. John to see Jesus. Elsewhere in Revelation we hear how the full number of God’s people have the Lamb and His Father’s name written on their foreheads (Revelation 14:1), and we are reminded of the sign of the holy cross put both upon our foreheads and upon our hearts in Holy Baptism to mark us as those redeemed by Christ the crucified. And, often the Slain Lamb Who is standing is depicted with a heavenly standard or a banner of triumph and with His blood pouring out of His chest into a chalice, and, truly, in His Holy Supper we receive bread that is His Body given for us and wine that is His same Blood that ransomed us, and thus we receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
In the Second Reading, because the Slain Lamb Who is standing conquered and ransomed people for God, He was worthy and able to open the sealed scroll, the content of which scroll is revealed in seven subsequent visions that together span the entire period from the Son of God’s first coming in the flesh to His final coming in the flesh and that together show God’s working everything together for the ultimate good and glory of His people in His Church (Romans 8:28-30). Indeed, come what may in the world, we rejoice and worship our Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as in the three grand doxologies of today’s Second Reading. The new song of the greatest deliverance confesses our faith in what God has done, is doing, and will do for us. The Slain Lamb Who is standing has made us a kingdom and priests to our God, and already now we give Him the praise that is rightfully His and intercede for the Church of God and for all people according to their needs. And, when the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our lord and of His Christ, He shall reign, and we with Him, on earth, forever and ever (Revelation 11:15).
Coronated and enthroned or not, “The Slain Lamb is standing”. By His blood He ransomed us for God, and, now as for eternity, we who repent say, “To Him Who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +