Sermon Notes

5 Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll written on the inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals, 2 and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. 4 And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. 5 Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” 6 Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne. 8 When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 They sing a new song:

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to break its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; 10 you have made them a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.” (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, NRSVue)

5 1-2 I saw a scroll in the right hand of the One Seated on the Throne. It was written on both sides, fastened with seven seals. I also saw a powerful Angel, calling out in a voice like thunder, “Is there anyone who can open the scroll, who can break its seals?” 3 There was no one—no one in Heaven, no one on earth, no one from the underworld—able to break open the scroll and read it. 4-5 I wept and wept and wept that no one was found able to open the scroll, able to read it. One of the Elders said, “Don’t weep. Look—the Lion from Tribe Judah, the Root of David’s Tree, has conquered. He can open the scroll, can rip through the seven seals.” 6-10 So I looked, and there, surrounded by Throne, Animals, and Elders, was a Lamb, slaughtered but standing tall. Seven horns he had, and seven eyes, the Seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth. He came to the One Seated on the Throne and took the scroll from his right hand. The moment he took the scroll, the Four Animals and Twenty-four Elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb. Each had a harp and each had a bowl, a gold bowl filled with incense, the prayers of God’s holy people. And they sang a new song:

Worthy! Take the scroll, open its seals. Slain! Paying in blood, you bought men and women, Bought them back from all over the earth, Bought them back for God. Then you made them a Kingdom, Priests for our God, Priest-kings to rule over the earth. (The Message, MSG)

This week’s lesson theologically picks up where last week’s lesson concluded. On Easter Sunday, the lesson explored how Jesus was crucified by an alliance of Jerusalem and Roman imperial powers, but resurrected by God as a testament to his identity as the “Son of God” and the savior of the world. In Matthew’s version of the Passion of Christ, the writer reveals three signs that provide evidence of Jesus’ standing as the one who was sent by God (Matthew 27:51-54). First, the temple curtain was completely torn in two from the top to bottom. Second, the land experienced an earthquake that was powerful enough to split rocks. Third, tombs broke open, and after Jesus’ resurrection, bodies were raised to life.

While the unexplained earthquake and raised bodies are astonishing in their own right, the rending of the temple curtain is perhaps the most theologically significant sign that Jesus is the Son of God, because it represents how Jesus’ sacrifice repairs the breach between humanity and God. In ancient Israel, only the high priest could enter into the Holy of Holies once a year—on the Day of Atonement—to make sacrifice for the sins of the people. The priest would go beyond the temple curtain, into the most sacred portion of the temple, as a human representative to make amends for the people. The torn curtain indicates that Jesus’ sacrifice forever makes atonement for all persons. His actions remove the necessity of human priestly intercession and the necessity of sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus alone was worthy to release the stain of sin and separation from humanity.

In this week’s lesson, Revelation 5 picks up Matthew’s testimony about Jesus’ all-sufficient sacrifice, by centering his theological imagination around the fact that Jesus is worthy of worship because he alone was qualified to be the Lamb of God. Through his willingness to give up his life to challenge imperial powers, Jesus reverses the “so-called” victory of Rome and its Jerusalem conspirators. Their death-dealing does not ultimately win because God intervenes to raise Jesus from the dead. Jesus Christ, as the slaughtered lamb, shares the throne with God, because he was willing to die at the hands of imperial tyrants.i

Revelation is one of the most beautiful books in the New Testament due to its mysterious visual imagery, utilization of poetic language and metaphor, and theological imagination unbounded by the suffering and political hardships of 1st century followers of Jesus. In fact, its literary context as an “Apocalypse” (from the Greek word apokalypsis which means “revelation”), reveals its primary purpose as literature that seeks to make things “knowable.” The book of Revelation literally seeks to “lift the veil,” or “pull back the curtain” for the 1st Century Christian communities who live in seven cities of the Roman province of Asia (modern-day Turkey). These “Jesus people” constantly wrestle with evil as manifested in the political leaders and systems of their time.

The author of Revelation self-identifies as “John,” but offers no additional information about his familial ties or ancestral background. He is a prophetic figure who writes from Patmos, an island 60 miles off the coast of Asia Minor. John employs imagery from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament prophetic books and epistolary forms to create an alternative vision of the world in order to summon hearers to action, just like Isaiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets of old. Christian tradition dates this book to 95 CE during the rule of Emperor Domitian.

This week’s lesson comes from what many biblical scholars consider the theological and Christological heart of the book of Revelation, chapters 4 and 5. These two chapters allow readers to travel through time and space and peek into heaven itself, where God sits on the throne. According to John, while “in the spirit,” he is transported to a setting similar to ancient Near Eastern throne rooms where supplicants would lavish gifts on the ruler, sing hymns of praise to him or her, and prostrate themselves in obedience. However, unlike the royal courts of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Persia or Rome, in this vision, God—the creator of the cosmos—is the One who sits on the throne before what looks like a sea of glass, with an appearance like jasper, carnelian, and a rainbow that looks like an emerald.

Twenty-four elders dressed in white robes with golden with crowns sit on twenty-four thrones. Four mythical creatures, like the ones from Ezekiel’s visions, sing without ceasing, “Holy, holy, Holy, the Lord God Almighty, who was and is, and is to come!” Whenever the creatures sing praises, the twenty-four elders fall before the One seated on the throne, casting their crowns and singing, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things, and by Your will they existed and were created.” In the midst of this worship scene, the lesson text picks up the narrative and introduces the image of the slaughtered Lamb, one the most important Christologicalii claims of The Revelation to John. The lesson should be divided into two parts, verses 1-5 and 6-10 .

INTERPRETING THE LESSON

1-2 I saw a scroll in the right hand of the One Seated on the Throne. It was written on both sides, fastened with seven seals. I also saw a powerful Angel, calling out in a voice like thunder, “Is there anyone who can open the scroll, who can break its seals?” 3 There was no one—no one in Heaven, no one on earth, no one from the underworld—able to break open the scroll and read it. 4-5 I wept and wept and wept that no one was found able to open the scroll, able to read it. One of the Elders said, “Don’t weep. Look—the Lion from Tribe Judah, the Root of David’s Tree, has conquered. He can open the scroll, can rip through the seven seals.”

In the first verses of the lesson, John returns to the prophetic imagery he employed in Revelation 4 to describe what he now witnesses. He sees God seated on the throne holding a scroll that is written on both sides and sealed with seven seals. John’s repeated mention of the throne reveals the importance of this heavenly throne and heavenly kingdom over and against the kingdoms of the earth. New Testament scholar, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, aptly discerns that the central questions addressed by Revelation center on power; who has it, and who controls it: “Who is the true Lord of this world?” “To whom does this earth belong?” The cosmic battle of competing thrones plays out with God and the Lamb representing heaven on one side, and Satan and his minions, represented by “the dragon” and “the beast” on the other side. Without question, through imagery and hymnody, John makes it clear that Satan’s throne must be torn down.iii Revelation is not a mystical narrative that underscores personal eternal salvation at the

expense of practical social concerns. John is political and his revelation is also political. This text is about a prophetic justice-oriented vision of the world that usurps the false gods, tyrants, oligarchs, and presidents who believe their earthly thrones rival God’s eternal throne.

The scroll with writing on two sides and its seven seals signify its special importance. In the ancient world, importance correspondence was sealed by the signet ring of the king or royal designee, to indicating who authorized its contents. The angels query to all of creation, “who can break the seals?,” indicates the crucial task of finding someone who is worthy enough to unseal this information. However, there is no one anywhere who is worthy to break open this revelation. John’s weeping persuades readers/hearers to lament the reality that there is no one who is worthy in heaven, on the earth, or under the earth. When the elder names the “Lion from the Tribe of Judah,” and the “Root of David’s Tree,” as the one who is worthy to open the scroll, they contextualize the Jesus as one who comes from the lineage of a people who have been dispossessed, powerless, and counted out by kings and kingdoms from the exile through the 1st century CE. Yet, they cling to the hope that God would eventually save them. John’s imperative, “don’t weep,” arrests our attention, inviting us to consider Jesus in a new way.

6-10 So I looked, and there, surrounded by Throne, Animals, and Elders, was a Lamb, slaughtered but standing tall. Seven horns he had, and seven eyes, the Seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth. He came to the One Seated on the Throne and took the scroll from his right hand. The moment he took the scroll, the Four Animals and Twenty-four Elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb. Each had a harp and each had a bowl, a gold bowl filled with incense, the prayers of God’s holy people. And they sang a new song:

Worthy! Take the scroll, open its seals. Slain! Paying in blood, you bought men and women, Bought them back from all over the earth, Bought them back for God. Then you made them a Kingdom, Priests for our God, Priest-kings to rule over the earth.

In the second part of the lesson, John introduces us to Jesus with an unexpected major plot twist. The Lion—usually represented as a fierce warrior—is instead supplanted by the lamb. John says the lamb had been slaughtered, but he is standing tall. Now, if this was a sermon, this is where the shouting should commence. That does not make any sense, a lamb that has been slaughtered should not be standing. The word John uses for “lamb” (arnion in Greek), provides a helpless and vulnerable picture of Jesus as a slaughtered Lamb. This is an unusual characterization. Apocalyptic literature does not portray their protagonists as lambs led to slaughter, or as slaughtered but still standing. John’s pascal imagery defies what we think we know. The strong eat the weak for meat right? The weak don’t beat the strong by dying, right When John shows Jesus victimized

and crucified, but risen; slain but standing, he transforms what we know about “strong man” typology. Jesus is the strong man, who allowed himself to be crucified on Calvary, because he trusted that God would resurrect him. John’s Jesus is linked to the Passover lamb of Exodus and Isaiah’s “suffering servant” who was led to the slaughter. In the battle between good and evil, Satan has been defeated not by might, but by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

Finally, prostrate praise, worship, prayers for the saints, and singing breaks out again in heaven when the Lamb takes the scroll because those gathered realize God has intervened on behalf of God’s people. They sing a new song, “Worthy is the Lamb,” because they understand that Jesus’ death and resurrection bought their salvation, liberation and reconciliation to God. Jesus is worthy because he allowed himself to be slain for our benefit. His sacrifice requires our praise and our song. By his shed blood he defeated the enemy. By his stripes we are healed. By his sacrifice, we have been ransomed—every tribe, language, people and nation—back into fellowship with God from wherever and whatever they were.

The world must know that being a victim is not the end of the story. Messing up is not the end of the story. Falling down is not the end of the story, because Jesus was resurrected. The slaughtered Lamb arose on the third day, and because he lives, we also live. This is the Resurrection Gospel that all Christians should proclaim to the world. God’s purpose always prevails, bringing us into a “kindom” that includes everyone who confesses that Jesus is the worthy Lord.

i Warren Carter, “The Gospel of Matthew,” in Gale A. Yee’s Fortress Commentary on the Bible: Two Volume Set (Kindle Edition), p. 2446.
ii Christology is a theological term that means the study of who Jesus is as the Christ. It is closely aligned with the theological term Soteriology, which is the study of how Jesus saves.
iii Barbara Rossing, “Revelation,” in Gale A. Yee’s Fortress Commentary on the Bible: Two Volume Set (Kindle Edition), p. 3486.