When Every Creature Sings

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church

Sabbath, October 10, 2015

At the beginning of the second vision in the Book of Revelation we hear the trumpet voice again, the same voice that summoned the prophet John at the beginning of his first vision. Penetrating. Commanding.

"Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this."

Instantly, John was whisked away from earth to heaven. He saw a throne and someone sitting on it, a dazzling, radiant personage.

Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones. On those thrones John sees twenty-four people seated—elders, John calls them. I imagine them as old men with long white beards. They were dressed in white and wore gold crowns.

As the camera holds the scene for a few seconds, we see flashes of lighting. We feel the ground shake under our feet with thunder. Nebraska thunder, not Seattle thunder. The kind of thunder that shakes the house, the kind of thunder that when it happens if you're with someone else you both look at each other with wide eyes and go, “Whoa!”

You might imagine the grand throne—God's throne—in the center of the circle of thrones and the twenty-four thrones of the elders are some kind of Van de Graaff generator with massive arcs of electricity sparking here and there.

Out in front of the throne we see seven blazing torches which John tells us are the seven Spirits of God. The fiery light of those torches plays across a vast, shiny pavement. A sea of glass reflecting the lightning arcs and the Grand Central Throne and the twenty-four surrounding thrones and the flaming torches.

Everything is brilliance and illumination. It's like 11 a.m. on the snow field below Camp Muir under a cloudless sky after several inches of fresh snow.

But then our eyes are drawn to movement in the space between the twenty-four thrones and the Grand Central Throne.

The thrones we understand. We know thrones. The elders we understand. We've seen old men with long white beards before—in movies if not in real life. The being on the Grand Central Throne is beyond words, beyond comprehension. But we expect that of God. But our powers of description are severely challenged by what we see in that inner circle between the twenty-four thrones and the Grand Central Throne.

Four creatures, as some translations put it. Or four living beings. It's obvious they are alive, but what to call them? I like the old King James language—beasts. They are four beasts, improbable beasts. The first thought that comes to me is the bar scene in one of the Star Wars movies. Luke meets a cowboy. The two of them are “normal.” But the other critters? They stretch the imagination beyond its natural limits.

It's the same here in Revelation. One of these improbable beasts makes us think of a lion. Another suggests an ox, another an eagle and one is almost human. But each of them has six wings. And they are all covered all over with eyes.

John writes that all day long and all night long they are caught up in an ecstasy of praise.

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty--the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come."

This used to bother me a lot. I imagined the sound track of heaven being Gregorian chant or a Palestrina mass, the music cool, cerebral, and after awhile monotonous and boring. Was heaven really a place with only subdued, carefully channeled emotion? Where no one shouted Hallelujah, but only sang carefully modulated alleluias?

I heard the “Holy, holy, holy” as a drone. Like a bagpipe drone note without any of the fire and flights of the other pipes.

I think I missed the picture. Remember the setting of this worship. Remember the flashing arcs of lightning, heaven's own electric show. Remember the ground shaking thunder. Remember the blazing, brilliant light.

The reason these four improbable beasts seize our attention is the intensity and fire of their worship. Their music is not a drone, not the restrained and elegant tones of Medieval chant. Their holy, holy, holy is the leaping, dancing ecstasy of a rave. They are enthralled with the being on the Grand Central Throne. The charm and glory of God is so intense, so immediately present to them, they cannot help themselves. They have no interest in restraining themselves. They are blissfully lost in heavenly ecstasy.

Their worship is contagious. When they launch into one of their holy, holy, holies, the elders, the old men with long white beards sitting sedately on their thrones catch the spirit. They leap from their thrones and throw themselves on their faces on the floor.

They pull their crowns from their heads and lay them on the floor in front on them. Their version of the Holy, Holy, Holy song goes like this:

"You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased."

This is a grand climax. This is what heaven is all about—a place of eternal ecstasy and jubilation, a concert hall of eternal bliss and happiness.

But while the elders are still on their faces, while the four improbable beings are singing “Holy, Holy, Holy,” the visionary camera zooms in on the personage on the Grand Central Throne. We don't see God's face. In fact, in this scene we don't see God at all. We see a a scroll, a book of secrets. God is holding a scroll in his hand. All we see is the scroll. It is sealed with seven mysterious seals.

As we are puzzling over the scroll—it's shape, it's color, the curious seals, its significance—we hear a foreboding voice. “Who is worthy to open the scroll?” We glance away from the book to see who's talking. It is an angel, but not just any angel, not an ordinary angel. The ancient text calls this being a “strong angel.”

Who is worthy? The camera pans around. Through the lens of the visionary camera, we are looking for someone who is worthy. The camera catches the improbable beasts. We study them. It's hard to know where to look because they have eyes everywhere. Where is their face? Surely, one of them will be worthy to open the book. They are, after all, the very inner circle of heaven. They live immediately next to the throne of God. But even though the eyes make it confusing to know just where to look to “look them in the eye,” their body language is clear. They are themselves turning about. Their bodies say they, too, are looking for the “someone worthy.” Who is worthy? Who?

Next we study the elders. The camera moves from face to face, each of the elders in turn. Surely one of these august ancient elders will be worthy to open the book. But they, too, are looking around, at each other, at the improbable beasts, at the vast throng of creatures in the background of the vision. Unlike the improbable beasts, the elders are people. We know how to read people. Looking at their faces, the tension grows. We can see it in their faces.

A terrifying silence envelopes the place. Heaven comes to a stand still. The flashes of lightning and the shaking thunder stop. All the praising and alleluias go silent. The bowing and prostrating stop. No one is doing anything but looking, waiting.

Waiting. That's got to be the hardest thing in the world to do. Wait. Especially when the wait is indefinite, indeterminate. Wait—for how long? No one knows. Wait—for what? No one is exactly sure of that either.

Who is worthy? The Strong Angel's voice booms again like a gigantic cosmic gong. Boom. . . . Who is worthy. Pause. Boom. . . . Who is worthy? The prophet dissolves in tears.

Heaven is not a happy place.

This is perhaps the most important truth revealed in Revelation. Heaven is not a happy place. Not all the time. Not now. Maybe yesterday. Maybe tomorrow. But not today. Not here at this point in the vision. The tension in the heavenly court is so sharp, the prophet breaks into sobs.

What happened to the ecstasy at the beginning of the vision?

The praising and alleluias, the holy, holy, holies that open the vision are rooted in the magnificence of creation. Note the words of the elders' song:

"You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased."

They have seen Mt. Rainier on a golden October day above maples turning colors in the woods on the Enumclaw plateau. They have stood on the west shore of Lake Union and seen a huge autumn moon rise above St. Marks. They have watched a two year old smile with delight and seen the entire universe justified in the happiness on that face and the happiness created in their heart by seeing that face. These elders have witnessed the enchanting glory of creation and praise God for its beauty.

That is true and right.

But only part of reality.

There is the scroll, the story. And the story raises questions that are so sharp, so cutting and urgent, that heaven itself goes silent staring them in the face.

The story—the history of humanity—has moments of wonder and triumph. And moments of horror and injustice. The story in the book includes tales of children drowning in the Rio Grande and in the Mediterranean, their parents driven by such misery at home that risking death is better than staying put.

The story includes war and famine, sex trafficking and mental illness. The story details failed relationships, husbands and wives who betray each other, mothers and daughters estranged. In the scroll in God's hand there are accounts of dishonesty and cruelty, disappointment and failure.

Who is worthy to open the scroll? Who is worthy to even look at the stories written in its pages?

All of heaven knows that eternal happiness is impossible until those stories are set right. But who could possibly do it? Who is worthy?

Finally, one of the elders comes up next to the prophet and whispers in his ear. “Don't cry. Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David's throne—he has won the victory. He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals."

The tension eases—at least in the prophet's body. He is able to re-enter the vision. He can keep watching. He looks to see this Lion the elder has told him about. To his astonishment, when he finally locates the Lion, it's not a Lion at all. It looks like a lamb that had been slaughtered and been resurrected.

The Lamb was standing at the very center. The “personage on the Grand Central Throne” has somehow been replaced by the Lamb who now is more central in heaven than God—which of course is not possible, but since this is a dream, it's okay. The Lamb is standing at the very center, at the center of the circle formed by the twenty-four elders. Inside the inner circle formed by the four improbable beasts. At the very center of the Grand Throne itself.

The Lamb is also an improbable beast. He has seven horns and seven eyes, which again the prophet identifies as the seven spirits of God which range the whole earth.

The Lamb steps forward and takes the scroll from the right hand of the one sitting on the throne. Once the book is in the possession of the Lamb, heaven breaks loose again.

The lightning flashes and thunder rolls again.

The four improbable beasts and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. They hold harps and golden bowls. The harps are for praise. The bowls represent the hunger of God's people—their petitions, their pleas to God to act in justice and bring about the triumph of righteousness.

The song changes. Instead of praise for the glory of God as creator. They sing the praises of the Lamb who will set right the stories of history. They sing of Lamb and his engagement with humanity.

"You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

And you have caused them to become a Kingdom of priests for our God. And they will reign on the earth."

The vision morphs, as only happens in dreams, and the twenty-four elders and four improbable beasts morph into a choir of billions and zillions—every creature throughout the entire cosmos is gathered around the throne in heaven, around the Lamb who is standing at the center of the throne in heaven.

The choir sings:

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered--to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing."

"Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever."

And the four improbable beasts living beings declare, "Amen!"

And the twenty-four elders throw themselves again on their faces and worship the Lamb.

I am tempted to “explain” this vision. But will resist the temptation. I simply invite us to kindle our faith that the Lamb will finally open the book. The Lamb will fix the world and the universe. And we will join with every other creature in shouting Hallelujah.

May it be so. Soon.