Keeping at the Word Dr

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

If there were a contest for least favorite book in the Bible, or least understood book, then without any doubt the Book of Revelation would win. Most folks consider it strange, even incomprehensible, and they just don’t like it. Today and next week, however, we’re going to dip into Revelation in hopes of shedding just a little light on a difficult book. Maybe this will help us better appreciate its powerful message of faith.

While much of Revelation is clothed in apocalyptic and bizarre images which appear to describe the end of the world, its message makes especially good sense in this liturgical season after Easter and before Pentecost. Today’s text, for example, talks about what Jesus accomplished in his death, how he is the key witness to God, and what has been and will be accomplished through his resurrection. In other words, Easter proclaims that Christ is risen and Revelation opens up some of what that means.

I’m back this week after enjoying a couple of weeks of vacation and study leave and it was only in getting away from work for awhile that I fully realized how exhausted I was after Easter. In fact, I’ve come to think of Easter as the season of holy exhaustion. Certainly no other season thrills or inspires quite like Lent and its climax in Holy Week, itself climaxing in Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter morning. The days leading up to Easter are truly holy days. They are also exhausting and that is nowhere more obvious than in a church and in a preacher’s life. Counting Palm Sunday, we did six worship services in eight days, each different, each requiring its own bulletin, music, and preparation. Holy exhaustion.

So it’s no wonder that many preachers experience what I call P.E.S.S., the “Post-Easter Stress Syndrome.” It’s the natural emotional letdown, I think, after days of holy exhaustion. Climbing the holy mountain is so important. The view from its summit is indescribably wonderful. But the hike back down to the normal routines of daily life can be a big letdown. And many Christians struggle with the same thing, if for different reasons. The religious mountaintops are wonderful. The religious valleys, where we mostly live most of the time, can be disheartening and cheerless.

The scripture today was written for Christians facing struggles that in some ways parallel where we are today. Revelation was written for a community of believers struggling, not just with P.E.S.S. but with the “this-Christianity-thing-doesn’t-seem-to-be-working-out” syndrome. Sixty years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ those Christians were struggling — for several reasons. First, Christ had not returned as almost all believers thought he would. Second, in various places around the Roman Empire, the imperial powers were persecuting Christians and the possibility of martyrdom loomed large for any true believer. Third, all the eyewitnesses, those who had actually seen and heard Jesus, were dead or dying. So those second and third generation Christians were struggling. They were Easter people. They believed in the resurrection of Christ but following the way of Christ seemed harder and harder.

That’s where we are today. We are Easter people. We were here when the crowds were big, the worship glorious, and it was hard to finds a seat. But it’s not as exciting a few weeks later. So the question is, how do we keep going? That’s the question I want to ask with you this morning. How do we keep going?

The text answers that question in a couple of different ways. First, we keep going by keeping at the word. Revelation begins to tell us how to keep going just by the nature of what it is: a letter. For all its fantastic images and strange ideas, Revelation is a letter from an itinerant pastor and preacher to his churches: “John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.” It is first of all a pastoral letter and we can relate to that.

This itinerant preacher says, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.” He is talking about something we understand because he’s talking about preaching and worship. John says there is blessing for those who “read aloud the words of prophecy” — that’s reading the scriptures and we’ve just done that. Then there is blessing for “those who hear” — that’s what we are doing right now. There is blessing for those “who keep what is written” — that’s what it means to be a part of the faith community. God’s word is read and heard. God’s word is spoken and proclaimed. And we are blessed when we pay attention to the word. However strange Revelation may seem to us (and I do urge you to read through it on your own this week), let’s not forget that it begins by describing what we do all the time. The word translated keep doesn’t mean to keep something safe by locking it away in a safe deposit box. It means to keep it in useful and active in everyday life. In other words, the text urges us to read, hear, proclaim, and take seriously the word of God.[1]

Revelation is a book about THE book. God’s people live by reading, hearing, and keeping at the word, that is, at scripture. The point is not just exalting the Bible for its own sake is if it were a magic book with magic words. The point is that through the Bible we hear God speaking to us. Remember that some of Jesus’ sharpest disagreements were with the scribes and Pharisees, the persons in the first century who knew the words of scripture well but many of whom heard the voice of God not at all. They had an extensive and meticulous knowledge of scripture. They revered it. They memorized it. They used it to regulate every detail of life. So why did Jesus argue with them? Because the words were studied and not heard. For them, the scriptures had become a book to use, not a means by which they listened to God. The only reason to read, hear, and keep at the word is to better believe, follow, and love God.[2]

You see, the Bible isn’t just a book. When it is just a book, all kinds of people can devoutly believe in it but still use it to beat up on and condemn people they don’t approve or like. Or they can read the Bible daily and within ten minutes speak words to spouses, neighbors, children, and colleagues that are contemptuous, irritable, manipulative, and misleading. How does that happen? How is it possible for people who give so much attention to the Bible, to remain so unaffected by it? Not through unbelief. No, even when the words are believed to be true, they must be voiced words — Spirit-voiced and faith-heard.[3] We keep going when through the scriptures we hear the living word of God who is always making things new.

A second thought today is that we keep going because our life is in the life of Christ. Jesus Christ is the first and last word about life. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord. Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet, omega is the last letter. The first, the last, and the true word about life is Jesus Christ. Our lives, from beginning to end, are in the life of Christ.

Sometimes we believe that the Christian life will be easy. But even after Easter, it is dangerous to believe that Christ goes ahead of us to smooth out the rough places and bumps in the road. Our comfort comes not in the road being smooth but in the road being right. And what makes it right is Christ there with us. Our life is in the life of Christ. That makes all the difference in how we live.

In one of his books, Bruce Larson tells how early in his ministry he occasionally helped people who were struggling to surrender their lives to Christ. “For many years I worked in New York City and counseled at my office any number of people who were wrestling with this yes-or-no decision. Often I would suggest they walk with me from my office down to the RCA Building on Fifth Avenue. In the entrance of that building is a gigantic statue of Atlas, the mythical and beautifully proportioned man who with all his muscles straining, is holding the world upon his shoulders. There he is, the most powerfully built man in the world, and he can barely stand up under his burden. ‘Now that’s one way to live,’ I would point out to my companion, ‘trying to carry the world on your shoulders. But now come across the street with me.’

“On the other side of Fifth Avenue is St. Patrick’s Cathedral and there behind the high altar is a little shrine of the Boy Jesus, perhaps eight or nine years old. He is without any effort holding the world up in one hand … ”[4]

We have a choice. We can try to carry the world. Or we can let Christ carry the world and be content that our life is in him. This does not mean that life will be easy. It does mean that life will be right. For our life is in the life of Christ.

But even when believe that, it can be hard to trust that our lives are in Christ who holds up the world. It’s especially hard when the “end” is always upon us. Revelation appears to be talking about the end of the world. But that’s just its style as apocalyptic literature. What it’s really talking about are the ends we all face all the time, when life seems to crash in on us. For example, I’ve been praying this week for the 27 people laid off last Monday from the denominational staff in Louisville. $4.5 million needed to be cut from the budget and the only way to do that was with staff reductions and work reduction. John Detterick, the executive director of the General Assembly Council reported in an email that last Monday was a very painful day at the Presbyterian Center.

We live in contentious times and there are those around the denomination that say this is necessary because the leadership is heading the denomination in the wrong direction. I think that is flat wrong. A big a factor in the budget reduction is that local churches are keeping more and more of their money at home because it’s ever more costly to maintain a church and staff and all the things that go with that. We are not immune here at PCIS. We are living in a window of opportunity and crisis. The Session is hard at work trying to redesign how we do ministry, how we keep at the word. It’s far from clear that we yet know the way. But this much is clear, that if we can’t find ways to grow and to increase giving, then we won’t be able to sustain the level of staffing we enjoy. Sid may go. I may go. We both may go. Things are always ending. The end is always upon us and we need to keep at the word and find new ways to keep at the word as well.

But we can take courage, my friend, because the alphabet of life begins and ends with Jesus Christ. The first word and the last word is Jesus Christ. You know Jesus Christ and he knows you. We keep going by keeping at the word, which is, in fact, the word about Jesus Christ.

When you get up tomorrow, you may be discouraged by the morning paper. You may face a week of struggles. Sorrow may weigh you down. And there is always a tendency to look back to Easter or some other grand moment. But we need to keep going and look ahead to Jesus Christ and the new day Christ is bringing.

One writer said, “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily tasks, go to sleep in peace. God is awake!”[5]

In one of her books, Alice Walker tells of a dream she once had, a dream of a two-headed woman. She said that in the mysterious way of dreams she realized that two-headedness was once an actual physical condition, which accounts for such adages as “Two heads are better than one.” In any case, she asked this two-headed woman in the dream whether the world would survive.

“And [the two-headed woman] said, No; and her expression seemed to say, The way it is going there’s no need for it to. When I asked her what I/we could/should do, she took up her walking stick and walked expressively and purposefully across the room. Dipping a bit from side to side.

[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988) 17-18. “The word keep (tereo) does not mean “keep safe” by putting it in a strong box. It means to keep at it, to keep it in use, to keep it active in everyday life. The intent of scripture is always to enlist participation, body and soul. Erich Auerbach, contrasting scripture with other ancient literature, wrote: “the scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please and enchant us — they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.” It is tragically ironic that the very book in the Bible that says this most emphatically, which underlines and puts exclamation points around it, has been treated by so many as a crossword puzzle.”

[2] Peterson, 13.

[3] Peterson, 14-15.

[4] Quoted in Michael Hodgin, ed., Parables, Etc. 9.2 (1989): 1.

[5] This sentence from Victor Hugo is quoted in The Pastor’s Story File 4.12 (1988): 7.

[6] Alice Walker, Living by the Word (San Diego, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988) 1–2.