"Come Lord Jesus"
Revelation 22:12-20
May 23, 2004
I would like to begin with a portion of a story I read a short time ago, entitled, What Courage Sounds Like.
When our jet left Orlando airport, we were a chipper, high-energy group. The early morning flight hosted mainly professional people going to Atlanta for a day or two of business. I settled back for some light reading and the brief flight ahead.
Immediately upon takeoff, it was clear that something was amiss. The aircraft was bumping up and down and jerking left to right. All the experienced travelers, including me looked around with knowing grins. We had experienced such things before and learned to act blasé about them.
We did not remain so for long. Minutes after we were airborne, the plane began to dip wildly and one wing lunged downward. The plane climbed higher, but it didn’t help. The pilot soon made a grave announcement. “We are having some difficulties,” he said. “Our indicators show that our hydraulic system has failed. We will be returning to Orlando Airport at this time. Because of our lack or hydraulics we are not sure our landing gear will lock, so the flight attendants will prepare you for a bumpy landing. Also if you look out the windows, you will see that we are dumping fuel from the airplane in the event of a rough touchdown.”
In other words, we were about to crash. The flight attendants helped people to get into position and tried to comfort those who were hysterical. As I looked at the faces of my fellow travelers, I was stunned at the changes I saw in their faces. Many were visibly frightened, even the most stoic looked grim and ashen. There was not one exception. No one faces death without fear I thought.
I began searching the crowd for one person who felt the peace and calm that true courage or faith gives people at such times I saw none until a couple rows to my left, I heard a still calm voice, speaking in absolutely normal tone. A lovely, even tone. All around, people cried, some wailed and some were screaming, but in the midst of the chaos was a mother talking to her child. The woman in her mid 30’s and unremarkable looking in any way, was staring into the face of her daughter who looked to be about four years old. The child listened closely, sensing the importance of her mother’s words. The mothers gaze held the child so fixed and intent that she seemed untouched by the panic and fear around her.
A picture flashed into my mind of another little girl who had recently survived a terrible plane crash, because her mother had strapped her body over the little girl’s in order to protect her. The mother did not survive. The newspapers told how the little girl had been treated for weeks after to ward off the feelings of guilt that often haunts survivors.
I strained to hear what this mother was saying. I was compelled to hear. I needed to hear. Somehow I was able to make it out, “I love you so much. Do you know I love you more than anything?”
“Yes mommy,” the little girl responded.
“And remember, no matter what happens, that I love you always and that you are a good girl and no matter what happens my love will always be with you.”
The mother then placed her body over her daughter’s and strapped the seat belt over both of them and prepared to crash.
For no earthly reason, the landing gear held, we touched down safely and no tragedy occurred that day. But I will always remember the voice I heard that day. The voice that never wavered, never acknowledged doubt, and maintained an evenness that seemed emotionally and physically impossible. Only the greatest courage, under-girded by an even greater love, could have borne that mother up and lifted her above the chaos around her. For those few minutes, I heard what courage sounds like.
As I read these last words of the Holy Scriptures penned by the apostle John almost two thousand years ago, particularly the words of the penultimate or second to the last verse in the Bible:
“He who testifies to these things says, Yes, I am coming soon. Amen. Come Lord Jesus.”
I could not help but feel that we too are hearing the voice of courage. Even though some of us may utter them at least three times a day or whenever we think of praying Luther’s table prayer:
Come Lord Jesus, be our guest and let thy gifts to us be blessed. Amen.
It is still important that we hear them and say them, because we too are involved in a tragedy of sorts. The world around us is dying and it is crashing into the mountainside of God’s Holy Law.
Some people will not be very happy when the Lord Jesus does come, because the Scriptures plainly state that when he does return it will be in judgment. And everything will be laid bare before our all-seeing, and all-knowing God. He who was and who is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Whenever I ponder the omniscience of God, I am reminded of the old saying: You can fool some of the people, all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time.
And to that I would add, “You can't fool God any of the time.” There are no secrets he does not know, nor thoughts he cannot read and if that doesn’t terrify you, I don’t know what will. Because this text makes it quite clear as does the rest of Scripture, that there are two places or two states that will exist after his judgement: heaven and hell. Or as it is put in our text: inside and outside the New Jerusalem. And outside is definitely not the place to be.
“Outside are the dogs.” St John writes. Now for you dog lovers, he is not talking about Fido, your beloved family pet, but rather the people he describes in the verses following: those who practice sorcery, those who have given themselves over to sexual immorality and perversity, murderers, idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. In short he is speaking of the human equivalent of the wild dogs that ran around in packs on the streets of ancient cites. These disgusting animals would feed on garbage and fight over any carcasses that they might find.
We see them at work in the Old Testament in a couple of places, the most notable being their devouring of the body of wicked Queen Jezebel in 2 Kings Chapter 9.
The human equivalent would be the two-legged predators who gathered around Lot’s house in Sodom yelling at him to send out his visitors so they could rape them. Do we have the equivalent today? Sure! On the street level there are gangs, drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes. On a little higher level there is the mob or organized crime.
And at the highest level are those within government, media and business, who have no scruples or morals at all. People who will do anything lie, steal, kill, sexually abuse and commit treason for an extra buck or just to feel better. As dogs they think nothing of devouring the poor and chewing up and spitting out honest hard-working people.
But we must also remember that we were once dogs ourselves, until God in his grace and mercy made us his sheep, by faith in Jesus Christ. We were brought into his flock through the renewing waters of Holy Baptism. And that washing began a new life, a life of washing if you will, a life of washing our robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb, the same blood shed for us for forgiveness of sins on the cross, the same blood that we receive with his body under the forms bread and wine at Holy Communion. The blood of the one who is also called in our text, “the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright Morning Star.”
He was the root of David because he was, as we confess in the Nicene Creed, fully divine, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light very God of very God. Or as John writes at the beginning of His Gospel: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Yet, at the same time he was begotten not made. He was fully human, a man, born in the line of David. This is why he is so often referred to in the Gospels as the Son of David. And this is important because he had to be a man to fulfill the laws demands in our place, he had to live the perfect life we could not live. And he had to die a perfect sacrificial death for us upon the cross so that our sins might be taken away and we would be reconciled to God.
And that God-Man, Jesus Christ is also our bright Morning Star. For the morning star signals that the night is over and dawn is coming. It is the last star you see before the sun rises and a new day comes. And my friends the good news is that that new day is coming. We saw its first twinkle on Easter morning and it is coming. It is coming soon, maybe sooner than we expect.
And it is a day that we and every Christian should look forward to in anticipation, because that is the day we receive our reward, not the punishment we deserve for our many doggish deeds, for those have been forgiven, but instead we will receive the reward of the righteous. We will win the prize that is given to those who have heeded the call of the Good Shepherd to come. It is on that day that we and all who have died in the faith before us as well as those who will come after us will, by faith in Jesus Christ go into the New Jerusalem and drink of the waters of life and never thirst or suffer or cry again, and eat from the tree of life and never ever die again. Beloved with that in mind, in view of God’s great love for us, and in spite of this fallen, dog-filled, dying world around us what can we do, but pray with St. John. "Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen."
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06/29/2004