Christ Unleashed – To Reveal A Deeper Reality

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A sermon by Matt Fitzpatrick

May 12 2019

Well, it is great to see you all today. I’m so glad you are here with us, and I just want to start with prayer. “Heavenly father, thank you so much for today. Lord, I ask that you bless everyone that’s here today, that you calm our hearts and our minds, that you allow us to settle in and hear from you, to receive from you your love, your joy, your peace. We thank you for everything that you’ve given us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

I’d like to start the service off with confession and absolution, because it’s always a good to start things off with the reality that you’re forgiven. So if you will say this with me, “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against thee in thought word and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone.” And as an ordained minister by the power of God, I get to announce the absolution of your sins over you. “Almighty God in His mercy has given his son to die for you. And for his sake forgives you all your sins. Amen.”

Let us read today’s first reading Psalm 23.

Psalm 23“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Our second reading for today is Revelation chapter 7 verse 9 through 17.

Revelation 7:9-17After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “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, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

This ends the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray. “Heavenly father, I thank you for your word, for your revelation to us. You have not hidden yourself from us. You have made yourself known, because you want to be known. So Lord, I ask that you open our hearts, open our ears, that we may hear from you and know you a little more today, that we may know your heart a little more today. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

All right, so we have been going through the book of Revelation which is always a fun book and always something that everyone’s like, “Wait, what? I want to know this stuff. What’s going on.” And it turns out that it’s not as hard to understand as we’d like to make it out to be. Even as I was reading this passage this week, I was really glad to engage it. It was something that was good for me, because this week I was recognizing within our own congregation there are a lot of tears. There are a lot of hard things going on this week. There’s a lot of pain, hurt, sorrow, and confusion. And I personally, myself, was really feeling this week and really wrestling with this reality of tears that we live in. We all have these ideas that as Christians, things should be easier for us, or not as painful, or not as hard. And we look around and realize that’s not really our experience. Things are hard. Things are broken. We are hurt or let down. We hurt other people. It’s hard.

We live in this reality of brokenness and of tears, and we want it to be better. We want it to be different. We start to play these games of morality. I like to call it, “we belong to the Karma Initiative.” If you’re at least a little connected to the show Lost, you might understand that joke. But for me, even myself, I think, “I’ve done all these things right or really well, and yet things don’t work out like they should.” We run down all these different avenues and paths of questions, “Well why did everything fall apart? Why did everything break down? Well it’s because this person didn’t do this and this person didn’t do that. I did this, this, and this. I don’t understand why. If everyone else just did everything they were supposed to, things would go really well.” And then natural disaster hits and we realize it doesn’t matter how well we did things. It doesn’t matter, because this reality that we’re in is inherently broken. We’re left with this experience and we’re looking around at other people who don’t believe in God, who aren’t Christians, who aren’t showing up to church and say, “Their reality is the same as ours. I thought there was supposed to be some payoff when I entered this little group. What’s going on?” And that’s where we get to this reading today. We get to this reading, and we recognize Christ has been unleashed to reveal a deeper reality.

We do live in a reality of tears, reality of brokenness, of hurt. We do, but that’s not the full reality. There’s something else. There’s something deeper, something underneath it. All that does change our experience.

We have the scene in Revelation. John is on this island by himself on a Sunday worshiping the Lord, and he has this crazy vision full of dragons and giant women and waterfalls and an earth gone crazy and scorpions are everywhere. It is mindblowing imagery. We get this little scene, which I think at first seems a little ordinary compared to the rest of Revelation. But to John, he sees the scene of a multitude of people from every tribe, every tongue, every nation gathered before the throne of God, which John, as a good Jew, is probably a little overwhelmed by that scene. As someone who has lived and has been taught and told you are the chosen people of God and the rest of the world are unclean gentiles who aren’t fit to come into the temple, this is a mindblowing scene for John. And I love that one of the elders in front of the throne has to ask the question for John. It’s not John who asks, “Who are these people?” I think he’s too overwhelmed, but he has to ask this question. Who are these people clothed in white robes? Who are these people?

Maybe as I read this, you might have started to think, “This is about us.” You may have started place yourself in this story. And then John says, “Why are you asking the question? You obviously know the answer to this question.” The elder answers, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. These are the martyrs coming out of the great tribulation.” And at this point you’re probably thinking, “Oh, that’s not me.” I don’t think I’m in any threat currently of becoming a martyr. We are in a interesting place and time where we are not being currently hunted and driven into a coliseums and killed by lions and gladiators. That is not our current reality right now. Now, there are people across the world that are being hunted right now, and are being killed and persecuted. But we’re not those people. We’re not sacrificing our lives. We probably will never be in any danger of that. I mean, who knows? We’ll see.

So as you’re reading this and you hear that, you remove yourself from the story by saying, “I’m not one of those people.” Even if my life was threatened, as a minister, I don’t even know 100% what I would say. If someone’s like, do you believe in Jesus or die? I don’t know. I have no idea what I would say in that moment. I can’t even tell you if I’d willingly be a martyr. I don’t think I’m one of those people. But this is where Paul reminds us, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life.”

It is talking about us. We become martyrs with Christ in our baptism. This is us. We are this great multitude, this great nation gathering before the throne of God. This is who we are. It is talking about us. And the great tribulation, what’s the great tribulation? Was it when the Romans were persecuting the Christians or is it when the future antichrist shows up and all this other stuff happens? The great tribulation is life. We’re in a great tribulation right now. Life is the great tribulation.

And in the next verse, which I love, they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. It’s not their blood. We’re not looking to these great martyrs. I mean, they’re great examples throughout the faith. I’ve had to read a few pretty graphic stories about early martyrs, and it’s pretty intense what they went through, but it’s not their blood that saved them. It is not their blood that cleansed them, that allows them to enter before the throne of God. It’s Christ’s.

And we have that applied to us in our baptism. We participate in the suffering of Christ. Every time we eat the Lord’s supper, every time we eat his body and drink his blood, we’re sharing in his suffering. That’s what we’re doing. We’re in this story. There is a reality of hope to our experience of the reality of tears.

In this scene, we are seeing our destination or end point. We are gloriously gathered before the throne wearing our robes. We have our palm branches. We’re singing to God. We’re victorious. We’re free. He is ministering to us and feeding us and clothing us and sheltering us and wiping away our tears. There’s hope. There’s actually a destination. There’s a plan. There’s something that we’re moving towards. It does start to change our experience of this reality, because we have something to look forward to. We have somewhere that we’re going.

But sometimes even that hope isn’t enough to keep us going. Sometimes whatever we’re going through is really hard, and the hope of everything being better in the future is not much comfort now. We’re hurting now. We’re lost now. That’s why there’s an even deeper reality.

Christ is even better and we can imagine. The good news is better than we can imagine, because to every prophecy, every good prophecy in the Bible, there is a future aspect, and there is also a now aspect. There’s always a now aspect. Jesus, the lamb who was slain is reigning right now. He’s alive. He’s reigning and ruling right now. Every time we gather around his Word, around his sacraments, we are acting out this story. We are in this story right now. Our faces are in this crowd that John is seeing right now. God has created these places for us to gather around and to interact with that transcend time and space, that bring the past and the future to the present. He says, “Yes, there is a future of hope. There is a reality of hope that you are moving to and towards, but I’m also with you right now. I know you’re hurting and there’s things that are happening, but every time you gather around my Word, around my sacraments you’re playing the story out now.”

He says, “Therefore they are before the throne of God.” We are before the throne of God with every other church worshiping Him right now, every other church that was worshiped Him in the past and in the future. We’re doing that right now. You are these people. We are gathered before the throne, and it says they shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore. We gather and we eat the Lord’s supper. He feeds us here. We get a taste of this future of this hope. We get fed here, and it’s not just spiritual. It’s actually a physical stuff that we eat and drink. There’s actual bread and wine, because he knows, “I made you physical and spiritual. I’m not saying one’s better than the other. I’m not saying one’s good and one’s bad. I made both. I intertwined both. You need both, so I’m giving you a physical place to gather. I’m giving you people to be around. I’m giving you an actual meal that you eat that nourishes your body and your soul.”

The sun shall not strike them nor any scorching heat. “I’m redefining your relationship to nature, to the rest of creation.” Where we gather, this is where the full reality starts to be revealed on Sunday. This is where it starts to be revealed and God says, “I’ve made you for something more, and I’m restoring some things. Your relationship to creation is not supposed to be one of conflict of pain, of hardship, of toil. It’s supposed to be one where you appreciate nurture and care for my creation, the earth. I want to change that for you. I want you to go out and see the beauty amidst all the brokenness. You can work the earth. I’m doing that for you right now.”

The lamb for the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd. He will guide them to springs of living water. He’s showing us where life is. I love gathering with you all, because when I look around I think, “This is where life is. This is where friendship is, where smiles are shared, Hopes and dreams are shared, where hardships are shared and talked about and prayed for.” We actually have a chance to care for another human being and be cared for, to be known and to know other people. This is where life is. He’s bringing us to the springs of living water. That’s you all for me. You all are springs of living water. I love seeing you. I love hearing your stories and praying for you, talking to you, hanging out with you.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. He says, “Come. I know you’re hurting now. I will comfort you now. I’ll wipe your tears away. I’ll heal the pain. Yeah, I know you’ll go back out there and you’ll be rehurt.” You might be hurt here. We are all broken humans. But He says, “Don’t worry. I’ll keep wiping your tears away. Keep showing up and I’ll keep wiping your tears away. One day I’ll wipe away the death, the despair, the sin, the separation. I wipe that all away, so that every time we gather it’s a celebration.” We will share a creation that’s not broken with people who are not broken and have a real relationship with the Creator who is madly in love with us.

I love this reality that every time we gather, we are before the throne of God. We are wearing our white robes. We are waving our palm fronds in triumph. We’re praising God, being sheltered, comforted, and loved. This is where we get to experience the reality of Christ and his church, which helps us and changes our experience and our reality of tears. Let’s pray.

“Lord, thank you. Thank you for being with us now. Thank you for revealing our destination, our future, our hope, but then also saying, I’m with you now. I’m with you right now. So Lord, I ask right now, will you feed us, will you shelter us, will you comfort us, because we need it? And He says, ‘that’s the safest thing you can ask for, because you’re here, you’re gathering around my throne of course I’m going to do that.’ Thank you. Thank you for giving us a better reality than the one that the world offers. I ask that you reveal that to our hearts today in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

In response to this reality, I would love it if we could all stand and say with the entire church, past, present, and future our reality in Christ. Let us say the Apostles’ Creed together, because this is what we believe. This is our reality that’s deeper and better than anything we can imagine. So with all the saints gathered before the throne of God, I ask Christians, what is it that you believe?

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day, he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From there, he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.”

You may be seated. As we prepare for the Lord’s Supper, we are invited into a better reality where our relationship with money has shifted and changed, where it is not our master. We are people who are allowed to be generous. You are freed up to be generous because we have a God who provides for us. So we will engage our offering right now. And as you’re doing this too, if you feel led to write down prayer requests, you can either put it in the plate or put it on the board. Adam and I will pray for those during this week.

As we come up for the Lord’s Supper, let’s remeber that this is where we are united to God and also one another. We normally have each family come up and take Communion together, but today if two families want to come up at a time and take the Lord’s Supper together in recognition of the reality that we are united with Christ and one another. We’re not just doing this in isolation. This is for our benefit. This unites us.

Christ, who’s very familiar with our reality of pain, who walks through it, lived through it, was martyred for it, on the night that he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, “Take and eat. This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he also took the cup after supper and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, “Drink of it. All of you. This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.”

Lord, thank you for giving us this meal, for giving us something tangible, a tangible way to know our sins are forgiven. Our sins have been paid for. There is hope for peace between man and God and between one another. I thank you for this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Now I get to bless you. “Jesus Christ, the lamb that was slain, your shepherd, will kneel before you presenting gifts and will guard you with a hedge of protection. Your shepherd will illuminate the wholeness of his being towards you, bringing order, and he will beautify you. Your shepherd will lift up his wholeness of being and look upon you, and he will set in place all you need to be whole and complete. I announce this, the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Go in peace and serve the Lord.