PROPERS: FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C
TEXT: REVELATION 7:9-17
PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S, MOBILE, ON SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2025.
ONE SENTENCE: The Kingdom of God, as embraced by John, is at hand – both the now and the future.
We tend to think of the Christian scriptures – the New Testament – as something that came to us whole, in one fell swoop. But, in reality, the canon of New Testament scripture – all the books – were not listed together until St. Athanasius’ Festal Letter in 367 A. D. – 330 years after Jesus’ earthly ministry.
There had been much discussion as to which books would be included. Ultimately, there would be 27 books. The last books added were the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Revelation to John – a portion of which we heard today in our second lesson.
In seminary we participated in rotating groups which designed the weeks’ services for the academic community. Each team was called a “rota”.
We were discussing the lessons for a community Eucharist during my middler year. One wag posed a question about the assigned lesson from Revelation and asked, “Do we end the lesson with The Word of the Lord… Maybe?”
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Our second lesson is, of course, from the last book of the Bible, the Revelation to John. It recounts his ecstatic vision of God’s kingdom.
William Alexander Percy, the Greenville, Mississippi poet, lawyer, and author, described John, the youngest disciple, in Hymn 661: “Young John, who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless in Patmos died.”
John had been sentenced by Rome to isolation on that small island in the Aegean Sea, hard between modern-day Turkey and Greece. There he lived out his life of seclusion, where tradition holds that he died as the last of the disciples.
Tradition also holds that one gospel, three epistles, and the Book of Revelation came from John’s hand. Scholars are not so sure. Some other writer may have had the name.
But in the Revelation to John we have what Winston Churchill said of Russia – a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. It is highly symbolic. For 2,000 years scholars have sought to decode its images. Books and movies have proliferated.
It still remains to be fully understood.
But we know this: It is a polemic against the Roman Empire of that day, and a vivid description of a Kingdom of God, including a New Jerusalem.
John was a solitary figure on the island of Patmos. When one is alone for a long period of time, the mind can begin to play tricks. Dreams become delusions. The solitary figure is open to visions. Like prophets of the past, God may speak. The land on which one stands becomes a thin place – a place very near to the Holy.
John had such a vision, and we hear a portion of it today. He points us toward the world to come – with angels, multitudes of faithful, and ultimately, a New Jerusalem.
As we age and face our mortality, we take great comfort in John’s vision. That is the reason that portions of the Revelation to John are included in our burial liturgy. It gives us a glimpse of the next world as we stand at the foot of the grave of a loved one… or we face our own.
But clearly the Kingdom of God is about much more. As scripture says, the Kingdom is at hand. It is near to us. It is both here-and-now and in the reality we will ultimately face.
It is not a choice. We will not be a Christian in one and not another. We can and should embrace both. We can live into Christ’s teachings and ethical mandates to enrich the here-and-now. Where we are at this moment. The world around us becomes a better place for all God’s people.
And then, when we cross the Jordan for the last time, we can share in John’s vision. We can be a part of the divine mystery in which there is neither suffering nor pain, neither sighing but life everlasting.
