september 23, 2007 [am]
"Signs of Apocalypse"
Revelation 11:1–14
(To read the Scripture, click here.)
If you’re new to Boston you probably realize by now that baseball is kind of important here. The local nine’s latest swoon casts ominous shadows of 1978, when an eerily similar 14-game division lead was squandered to the Yankees. Granted, the Sox did clinch a playoff spot last night in dramatic fashion. But c’mon, we’re talking the Devil Rays. Concern spreads all across New England as the Sox limp into the postseason despite glorious autumn weather outside. New Englanders know that like the inevitability of winter, baseball misery is coming. Sure, the recent 2004 World Series title tempers the anxious pessimism for some; but for others, that the Red Sox won the World Series at all is nothing but a sure sign of the apocalypse—an occurrence so unmistakably absurd that the end of the world must be near. Ridiculous? Or just ridiculously perceptive? Readers of Sports Illustrated will recognize the sign of the apocalypse as the title of a weekly graphic that reports sports-related realties so defiant of logic that no other explanation aside from the end of the world makes sense. For example, a couple of weeks back the sign of the apocalypse was an Oklahoma City church deacon who was charged with assault after allegedly ripping another man’s ear just because he was wearing a University of Texas tee-shirt.
You’d like to think that such aberrant behavior is just an unhealthy obsession with sports. Fans can be so, well, fanatical. Yet to speak of apocalypse conjures up all sorts of other fanatical obsessions—religious ones included of course. One Christian group, convinced that the end of the world is contingent upon Israel rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple and reinstituting animal sacrifice, has already drawn up the blueprints, fashioned the priestly garments, sharpened the knives and gathered the wood. The only impediment remains a 7th century Islamic shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which occupies the Temple mount. According to this group, the shrine’s removal need only await either the Antichrist’s persuasion of the Islamic world to tear down it down, or the United Nations’ negotiation with Israel following a war with Russia, Syria and the Palestinians just before the rapture that will have elicited such an outpouring of Christian zeal amongst Jewish people that they will clamor to rebuild.
Where do such ideas come from? Revelation 11. The chapter begins with the command to “go and measure the Temple of God,” the assumption being that the measuring has to do with drawing up a set of plans for rebuilding. Plans were needed because the original Temple, constructed by Solomon, was sacked by the Babylonians, and its replacement leveled later by the Romans. As with the Israelites of the exile, despondent over God’s departure from their midst; how can Christians expect Christ to return if there’s no place for him to live? Thus the need for new plans. If you build it he will come.
Revelation 11 draws from the prophet Ezekiel who similarly envisioned an angel using a measuring rod to draw up new Temple specs. Ezekiel’s blueprints served as exiled Israel’s hope—the promise that God would once again come to dwell with his people. Yet Ezekiel’s Temple actually never gets built. At the end of Revelation, as the new Jerusalem finally descends from the skies, no Temple building sits at its center. That’s because God’s house no longer is built of sticks and stone but of flesh and bone—living stones purchased for God from every tribe, language, people and nation—the cornerstone being Christ himself. As St. Paul makes clear, “You yourselves, the people of God, you are God’s House and God’s Spirit lives in you.”
As wonderful as all this will be, getting through Revelation to the new Jerusalem is not a smooth ride. If you’ve traveled with me from the start of this occasional sermon series, then you’ll recall that it began with seven seals holding shut a scroll. The scroll presumably contained the final list of the redeemed along with details on how things on earth would end. The sealed scroll could only be opened by its rightful recipient, the ironic Lamb of God slain for the sins of the world. As the seals were broken, all manner of terror broke loose—horrific violence, famine and disease, war and strife, economic scarcity—each galloping forth in the haunting shapes of the storied four horsemen of the apocalypse. The horsemen shattered any illusion that people can find true security in the borders of a nation or empire, in a flourishing economy or in their own health. Making this all the more disturbing was the fact that the horse-mounted misery fell on the righteous and unrighteous alike. And even more disturbing that that? The four horsemen’s global havoc was wreaked at the bidding of the Lamb who opened the seals. It is God who unleashed the destruction.
In chapter 8, the seventh seal was opened, and seven angels received seven trumpets with which to sound God’s final fanfare. Seven is a significant number in Scripture for reasons that stretch all the way back to creation. A high priestly angel stood at heaven’s altar with incense to burn, a representation of the smoke-laden prayers of God’s people for justice. Back in chapter 6, martyred Christians huddled in heaven where they cried out, “How long, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” The answer? Not long at all. In chapter 8, these prayers of the saints first rose before God as a fragrant appeal; but then that same fragrant fire shifted into a bonfire of vengeance. The fiery censer from which the incense wafted dropped like a bomb from the angel’s hand, exploding on earth with divine ferocity.
The trumpets blew and chaos ensued. The entire planet was afflicted. The first three trumpets blew away a third of the earth and its vegetation, only to be followed by a blazing mountain plunged into the sea that turned a third of the salt water to blood. Then fell a flaming star from the sky which embittered a third of the fresh water. The fourth trumpet blew out a third of the sun, moon and stars. With the capacity for survival reduced by a third, humanity was hemmed into a corner. The fifth trumpet blew and another star fell from the sky, this one personified. Was the star an avenging angel or was it Satan whom Jesus saw fall from heaven like lightening? Revelation doesn’t say, but if the star was the devil, he worked for Jesus now. Jesus gave Satan the keys to unlock the boiling Abyss from which plumed forth a sulfurous fog followed by a dark cloud of locusts with scorpions’ stingers. The swarm morphed into a thundering, cataclysmic cavalry of lion-fanged war-horses bent on total annihilation. And just as you thought enough was enough, a sixth trumpet unleashed four destroying angels with an ironclad army numbering in the millions, riding snarling stallions that breathed fire with viper heads for tails. They kill one-third of all people on earth.
Revelation 10 thankfully pressed a pause button. It was a last opportunity to reassess. The gospel that comforts the oppressed with God’s promise of vengeance cautions the oppressor with the same promise of vengeance. Up to this point the Lord had been patient, but after this point, the waiting is over. Revelation pulls no punches in painting its grim picture of doom so that the enemies of God might recognize how it is in their eternal best interest to make peace—a peace God gave his own self as the crucified lamb to make.
The two witnesses of chapter 11 are God’s envoys of peace. Preachers of the gospel sent into the world. The world is represented by the outer court of verse 2 which God has given over to the Gentiles. That the outer court occupants are Gentiles, apocalyptic code for unbelievers, could suggest a evangelistic field ripe for harvest. Yet because the Gentiles trample the holy city for 42 months, it’s clearly a field rife with opposition too. Nevertheless, the two witnesses are sent out into it for 1260 days, which is just another way of saying 42 months, the time a designated duration of suffering first mentioned by the prophet Daniel.
That the two witnesses are sent into a hostile world to preach the gospel is bad enough. But to make matters worse, the gospel itself genders further hostility. People don’t want to hear it. The grace that saves is the grace that offends since to announce forgiveness presumes a need for forgiveness. Don’t think that’s offensive? Walk up to someone you don’t know and say “I forgive you” and see what they do. Heck, walk up to someone you do know and you’ll get the same response. To forgive is to blame. Grace is offensive; so much so that if sharing your faith does not offend you’re probably not sharing the gospel. Not that the sharing the gospel should be intentionally antagonistic. The gospel’s offensive enough without Christians having to be jerks about it—like I was as a zealous college kid. I’d arrogantly argue Christianity with fraternity brothers to the point that they once tied me up and plunked me into a golf course sand trap for the night. I called it suffering shame for Jesus. My pastor called it being an idiot.
Given the offensiveness of grace alone, along with the hostility being labeled a sinner naturally provokes, you’d think the Lord would send out more than two witnesses—even if the two he sends out can spew fire, halt rain and call down plagues. Most agree that the two witnesses stand for the entire prophetic witness of the church. Like Jesus’ disciples sent out two by two, the necessity of two hearkens back to the Torah which mandates two witnesses for valid testimony. Deuteronomy, Jesus and Paul all declare: “Every matter must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” The emphasis here is on the gospel witness as true and just. The number two also brings to mind a vision of two olive trees and lampstands from Zechariah 4. Like Ezekiel’s vision, Zechariah points to a new temple, yet one ultimately built “‘Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” It’s another hint that God’s Temple will not look like a Temple.
What about spewing fire, halting rain and calling down plagues? The inevitable allusion here is to another twosome, Elijah and Moses, the Bible’s greatest prophets. Popular Judaism did expect Elijah to return as a precursor to the Messiah, especially since Elijah technically never died. And given apocryphal reports that Moses didn’t really die either meant nobody would be surprised if Moses showed up too. Of course they both did show up—at the Transfiguration. They showed up as two witnesses validating the identity of Jesus as the promised Son of God. Their spirit passed on to him and likewise, Christ’s spirit is passed down to us, his body, his temple and valid witness on earth. As witnesses of Christ, Christians speak truth and do justice despite the resistance.
Of course given all the resistance, you have to wonder why the two witnesses, able to spew fire and crisp their enemies, never do it. You’d think that if anything could persuade somebody to follow Jesus it would be having the power to say “turn or burn” right now—and mean it. But notice instead that the two witnesses speak not with flaming intimidation but in humiliation. They’re clothed in sackcloth. Odd. Sackcloth is the Biblical symbol of repentance. Why are the two witnesses wearing it? Shouldn’t they be handing it out? Exactly who are the sinners here?
Many of you have read Donald Miller’s popular book Blue Like Jazz. In it he recounts a time as a zealous college student during an annual drunken festival when he and his fellow Christians decided to do some evangelism. Donald Miller proposed they set up a confession booth so that the partying students could repent of the many sins they would clearly be committing. Since faith begins by first admitting you’re a sinner, what better way to get the faith process rolling than by setting up a big confession booth smack in the middle of the campus drunk-fest? They could hang out a sign of the apocalypse that read: “The End is Near—Confess Your Sins Here” Or something like that. Donald Miller admitted he made his proposal tongue in cheek. He was just kidding. If they were going to share their faith, there was no need to be jerks about it. But Tony, the leader of the campus Christian group, thought a confession booth was brilliant—which Donald said scared the crap out of him because suddenly he sensed that Tony was really going to go through with it.
“Only here’s the catch,” Tony said. “We are not actually going to accept confessions. We are going to make confessions. We are going to confess that as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter, and for that we are sorry. We will apologize for the Crusades and Columbus, we will apologize for the televangelists and the politicians, we will apologize for neglecting the poor and the lonely. We will apologize for being judgmental. We will ask people to forgive us and we will tell them that in our selfishness we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus and that we are sorry.”
It reminds me of an encounter I had this past Thursday night on the Common as part of our homeless outreach. I met this man fighting his alcoholism, albeit not very successfully, who was recently out of prison where he’d done time for punching a cop. Nevertheless, he emotionally and movingly recounted how 25 years ago he’d been saved and that Jesus Christ was the Lord of his life. “Just so I get this straight,” the minister in me replied, “you became a Christian and then punched out a cop?” “Hey,” he replied, “I didn’t say I was a good Christian.”
Donald Miller and his friends built their confession booth and hung out their shingle. Donald took his turn inside first and waited and waited as the raucous partying went on outside. Nobody came in. “What a stupid idea,” Donald thought. “Obviously this was not God’s idea. There is nothing relevant about Christianity. Is it even true?” Just then the door swung open. A guy named Jake stepped in and laughed, “So what is this? I’m supposed to tell you all the juicy gossip from the partying that’s been going on? Want me to confess my sins?” “Not exactly,” Donald replied. “You see, we’re a group of Christians on campus who’ve come to realize that we haven’t been very good at following Jesus. In fact, a lot of Christians haven’t. Anyway, we wanted to confess that and our other sins and shortcomings as Christians to you.” “You’re serious,” Jake said, his amusement replaced by shock. “I’ll keep it short,” Donald said. “Jesus said to feed the poor and heal the sick. I’ve never done very much about that. Jesus said to love those who persecute me. I tend to lash out. I know that a lot of people can’t listen to me when I talk about my faith because I’m judgmental and I tend to carry an agenda into the conversation instead of letting the message of Jesus speak for itself. I am sorry for all of that and a whole lot more.”
Donald Miller goes on to describe how Jake forgave him and how bowled over Jake was by the gesture and how even though he wasn’t really interested in becoming a Christian, he was curious what it was that Christians were supposed to believe. So Miller went on to explain about sin and God and the cross and faith. Jake left to think about it and another person was waiting. Donald wrote how he ended up confessing to over thirty people that night. It went on for several hours. He wrote, “All of the people who visited the booth were grateful and gracious. And I was being changed through the process. I went in with doubts and came out believing so strongly in Jesus I was ready to die and be with him.”
Good thing. In Revelation 11 the two witnesses finish their testimony only to have the infamous beast of the Abyss rise up to wage war. It’s Revelation’s first mention of the beast—the embodiment of Satanic resistance. And though we’ve read in verse 7 how anyone who wants to harm the witnesses must feel the heat of fire breathed from their mouths, the witnesses, like sheep led to the slaughter, never open their mouths. Therefore the beast kills them and their bodies are left to rot in the streets of the great city. To Jews this refusal to bury was a deep indignity, a humiliation akin to crucifixion on a cross. John names the city Sodom and Egypt. Sodom to represent heinous debauchery and Egypt to represent forced slavery and injustice. Neither are Jerusalem, yet John writes that this is where the Lord was crucified—the implication being that Jesus is crucified wherever sin and oppression occur. Delighted crowds merrily dance around the dead bodies and break out the bubbly. They declare a national holiday and exchange presents, glad to finally be rid of the righteous Christians and their tormenting gospel.
The whole thing ends in humiliating defeat. Gospel proof that the two witnesses won. It’s a recognizable pattern. After three days the breath of God enters the dead witnesses and they stand on their feet. “‘Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” Then a voice booms from heaven telling them to “get up here” which may be construed as a rapture, I guess. But unlike the Left Behind kind where believers elevate to escape tribulation, here the Christians ascend having met hardship head on. It is a recognizable pattern: a humble and honest testimony, a devotion to justice and grace, resistance and violence by those whom grace offends, a refusal to do violence in return, loss and death, resurrection and vindication, ascension and victory. Jesus said “If anyone would follow me they must take up their cross to do it. For whoever loves their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake and the gospel will win it.”
Just as after Christ’s resurrection in Matthew, an earthquake shakes the city. A tenth of it collapses. Survivors are shaken to the core by the resurrected life of the defeated church. Did the humble and sacrificial testimony of the two witnesses have its effect? It is worth recalling how back in chapter 8, a third of the earth bore the brunt of divine judgment. Here the toll reduces to a tenth. The terrified survivors give glory to God. And just in time. In verse 15, the last trumpet sounds. “The kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” The dying and rising church, witnesses to the gospel’s power, usher in the end of the world. Indeed, whenever we act according the recognizable pattern—a humble and honest testimony, a devotion to justice and grace, a refusal to do violence against those who threaten, loss and death to be followed by resurrection and victory—whenever Christians act like Christ, that’s a genuine sign of the apocalypse.
