WASHED
a
sermon based on Revelation 7: 9-17
Rev. Rick Thompson
How many of you remember the old TV game show,
"$10,000 Pyramid"?
The game worked like this: a celebrity and a person from the
audience were paired as a team. One gave clues, and the other tried to
determine what the clues all had in common. The object was to deduce
six categories correctly in one minute or less, and win the grand prize.
Let me give you an example. The clues might be,
"a Bible..." "a
pastor"..."a worshipper"..."a choir"..."a pew", and the answer would be:
"Things in a church".
Get it? Let's try a couple rounds.
If you think you have an answer to my clues, raise your hand. And
the grand prize today is...an
invitation to Holy Communion for all!
Here we go: "Jefferson City"..."Madison"..."Austin"..."Springfield"..."St.
Paul"...
"Lincoln"..."Denver"..."Santa
Fe"..."Columbus"..."Indianapolis"..."Pierre"..."Helena".
That's right! The answer is, "state capitals".
Now, how about one more. Are you ready?
"A sinner"..."your
hair"..."Charlie Brown's friend Pig-Pen"..."dirty dishes"..."dirty clothes"..."a
sinner."
Yes! You got it: "Things that need to
be washed!"
You got it right and now you - ALL
OF YOU! - can come to Holy Communion today.
Now, you may have noticed I had "a sinner" on that list of
"things
that need to be washed".
What do we do for example, at the very beginning, just about every
time we gather for worship? Yes, we make announcements. And then
what? Then, we confess our sins, and hear the assurance of God's
forgiveness.
We hear the assurance that, in our baptisms, we've been washed
free of the power of sin! We hear the assurance, again and again, that
God washes us with forgiveness, declares us "clean", and empowers us to
start over, fresh and new!
We've come here today, sinners all, to hear
once more that we've been "washed". As we read in Revelation, we are
washed--washed, with robes made white, in the blood of the Lamb".
Here, in this reading, we're given a vision of heaven.
And I find it interesting, don't you?, that the picture of heaven
includes people wearing white robes - white robes that have been washed in
blood.
Would you expect that? Would you expect to dye a robe white
by washing it in blood? No? I wouldn't either!
This odd expression is a clue. It is a clue about how God
works - and how God doesn't work! Namely, God doesn't work
according to human logic and expectations. We'd expect a robe washed in
blood to turn what color? That's right - red!
But not in God's eyes! In God's eyes, according to Revelation, a robe
washed in blood - specifically, washed in the blood of Jesus, the blood
poured out on a cross, the blood poured out for you and me - this
blood washes a robe white!
This is a clue that we're hearing about another plane of existence
here. Specifically, we're hearing about heaven - the life we enjoy, after
death, for all eternity, with Christ.
Heaven. Today, on All Saint's Day, we're given a glimpse of
heaven.
And in this glimpse, we see a great multitude - a number that can't
be counted, people wearing those white robes, those white robes that
indicate God has made them pure, and there are angels there, and
the praise offered to God is unceasing!
And we get a little picture of it today. In fact, each time we
worship, it's a little rehearsal for heaven: people gathered, people
cleansed by the forgiveness of Christ, people who come to praise God,
hungry people coming to be fed at the Lord's Table, a reminder of the
eternal heavenly feast. Our worship is a little rehearsal for heaven!
And we notice other things in heaven. We notice not only the great
multitude, but we also notice how diverse the multitude is. They
are not only Lutherans, and not only Scandinavians and Germans, and they
don't all speak English or have white skin. How does John describe
them? Did you hear it? They are "from every nation, from all tribes
and peoples and languages." There they are, from all over the globe,
together, praising God, in heaven!
And there, at the center of it all, is the Lamb. There is Jesus,
at the throne of God, the sacrificial Lamb, slaughtered, his blood
poured out for the life of the world. There is Jesus, his life taken up
again, raised up, raised to glory, now ruling with God the Father over
all creation, his presence sheltering the multitude. And there's no
more hunger, and no more scorching heat like they knew in the New
Testament world, and there are no more tears of sadness and anguish and
grief.
Heaven! Today John gives us a vision of heaven.
And who will be there? All those who have been washed - all who
have been washed and made clean from sin by the blood of Jesus Christ.
They have come through a great ordeal. Their lives have not been
easy. Some of them have suffered, some even have been killed, because
of their faith in Christ. They've been only a small minority in their
world, and they've been scorned and ridiculed and persecuted - and there
they are! There they are - in heaven!
There they are in heaven!
God has destroyed death, crushed it, left death naked and
powerless, and there the saints are - in heaven!
That's God's promise. That's God's promise to those who've been
washed in the blood of the Lamb!
That's God's promise not only to the saints and martyrs of old,
but it's also God's promise to you and to me! There is a heaven,
and it's a place of beauty and light, and God is there, and all of God's
people of every time and place - past, present, and future - and in Christ,
in Christ alone!, we have a place there, too! We have a place
around the throne of God, where there will be abundance, an eternal
feast, and no more tears, unless they are tears of joy, and death will
be swallowed up forever, and we shall live. We shall live eternally!
All because we've been washed in baptism, washed in the blood of Christ,
washed with the refreshing, life-giving forgiveness of God!
We've been washed, and God promises us heaven, and we rehearse
for heaven each time we worship, and it gives us courage and hope for
every day - even the darkest days of our lives!
Heaven.
It's a promise to live by. It's a promise to live by, and a
promise in which to die - the promise of heaven for God's saints.
Today we light candles near and on the altar -
lots of candles. Some of them represent those recently baptized.
But many of them - too many
of them represent saints who have died in the past year. These are
saints known to our community of faith, beloved in this community,
saints whose deaths have left us crying tears of sadness and grief,
feeling empty and alone. But they've been washed! They've been washed
in the blood of the Lamb! They've been claimed by Jesus, and now, we
trust, they've claimed what God has promised them - heaven!
But they're also waiting. They're waiting for us to continue their
work, to finish the work they've begun, the work of serving and praising
and glorifying God, and they're waiting for us, in good time, to join
them around God's throne.
They've been washed - and so have we!
These are the saints - the saints of God - with countless more yet to
come after.
These are the saints, who've been washed, made pure, in the blood
of the Lamb, Jesus Christ!
In a written reflection on All Saints' Day, Pastor F. Dean Leuking
shares these words:
"God's people long for a closer look at great souls from the past,
and the enduring example of their lives. They keep on wanting to hear
about St. Augustine, and Julian of Norwich, Clement of Alexandria,
Teresa of Avila, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther, St. Francis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others.
"Not to be missed, and much closer at hand, are the saints of the
rank and file of daily life. See them teaching, unheralded, in our
public schools. See them in hospitals, serving with skill and
compassion those who are attacked by illness and death. See them in
retirement homes", Leuking continues, "speaking to the frail ones
sitting in wheelchairs, unnoticing and virtually unnoticed. See
them in youth who serve meals to the poor and build shelter for the
homeless. See them in places of business where customers receive
an honest job at an honest price."
Yes, these are the saints.
But look one more place and see a saint.
"See a saint," says Pastor Leuking, "in the face of a forgiven sinner
who meets you in the mirror."[i]
Yes, these are God's saints - these who've been claimed by God,
claimed and washed - washed in the blood of the Lamb.
AMEN.
