Babylon Is Fallen. Be Merciful to the Poor

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

First Sabbath of Advent, November 28, 2015

Hannah was an unlikely prophet.

She still held the affection of her husband. But she was now a second wife. Having been displaced in her husband's family by another woman who had six kids. She endured the social stigma of her position. But the ache of her empty arms was beyond endurance.

On their annual trip to the temple, she was by herself praying. Her praying was so intense, so emotional, the high priest thought she was drunk. When she told him the truth of her situation, he blessed her and said, “May your prayer be granted.”

A year being Hanah give birth to a son. A few years later she brought he son Samuel to the temple and dedicated him to the Lord. He became the old priest's foster son and grew up in the temple, eventually becoming the religious and political leader of the nation.

Hanah was a musician and when she brought Samuel to the temple for his dedication, she sang this song:

"My heart rejoices in the LORD!

The LORD has made me strong. . . .

"Stop acting so proud and haughty! Don't speak with such arrogance!

For the LORD is a God who knows what you have done; he will judge your actions.

The bow of the mighty is now broken, and those who stumbled are now strong.

Those who were well fed are now starving,

and those who were starving are now full.

The childless woman now has seven children,

and the woman with many children wastes away. . . .

He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump.

He sets them among princes, placing them in seats of honor.

For all the earth is the LORD's, and he has set the world in order.

1 Samuel 2:1-8

This is a song of judgment. The ideas of this song are repeated over and over by the prophets. The high and mighty will be brought low. The lowly will be lifted to a place of plenty and privilege. The rich will become poor. The poor will be made rich.

There will be a grand reversal.

Today is the first day of Advent—the season when Christians traditionally give special attention to celebrating the birth and early life of Jesus the Messiah.

Central to our celebration is the Song of Mary. In contrast to Hanah, who was an old woman, long married, desperately hungry for gift of motherhood, Mary was barely of childbearing age, unmarried, just beginning to dream of domestic life. An angel announced to her that she was going to have a baby. A few months later she went to visit her cousin. There she wrote the song which the church rehearses every Advent season:

Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.

How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!

For he took notice of his lowly servant girl,

and from now on all generations will call me blessed.

For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.

He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him.

His mighty arm has done tremendous things!

He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.

He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. . . .

Luke 1:41-55

Can you hear the theme of the Grand Reversal?

He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.

He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. . . .

Skip ahead almost 2000 years to the beginnings of the Adventist denomination. Again, a woman's voice captures the essence of the spiritual vision of the community. And curiously, at the very center of that vision is a song about the great reversal.

Those early Adventists took as their theme song, the vision right in the heart of the Book of Revelation, the vision of the three flying angels in chapter 14. The first angel rockets across the sky announcing:

Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

Then second angel flies across the heavens, shouting:

Babylon is fallen!

The third angel delivers the scary message:

If anyone worships the beast and his image or receives the mark of loyalty they will be punished with fire and brimstone.

When we distill the essence of these three angels, we find the same theme that inspired Hannah's Song and Mary's Song. It is the Grand Reversal. Babylon is the symbol of earthly wealth and power. It is the symbol of successful empire.

In the Old Testament days of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel, Babylon was the literal kingdom that dominated their world. In the days of Jesus and the disciples, Babylon was the iron empire of Rome. Apparently invincible and eternal.

In the days of the Protestant Reformers, Babylon was the medieval papacy, the invincible and eternal power that could make kings bow and burned at the stake anyone who dared challenge her.

In our day, the invincible center of wealth and power is unquestionably the United States. And the message of Revelation reminds us, that our power and our wealth, like the power and wealth of ancient Babylon and ancient Rome is temporary. God will judge us. We who are mighty will be abased. We who are invincible will be brought low. And the poor will be lifted up. The powerless will will triumph.

Given this prophecy, what shall we do? --we who are citizens of the richest, most powerful, most invincible nation ever in the history of humanity?

2500 years ago the Prophet Daniel warned the king of Babylon, that he was facing the grand reversal. God was going to act in judgment and it wasn't going to be pretty. Then Daniel gave the king this advice:

King Nebuchadnezzar, please accept my advice. Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper.

This is not bad advice for us. Especially here in the season of Advent, the Christmas season. Let us remember that at the heart of our religion is the prophetic reminder of the Grand Reversal. God has special regard for those who are disadvantaged. People who are poor, people fleeing war, people whose families are haunted by disabilities, by addiction or mental illness, or even by just plain bad luck. God's plan includes a grand reversal.

We find our happiest work in cooperating with God. Let us use our wealth and strength, our brains and beauty, our American passports and Green Cards, our education and family background to cooperate with God.

Let's show mercy to the poor and know that as we do, God himself is made glad and we will find our richest happiness.

The Impotence of Thunderous Power

Sermon manuscript for the November 7, 2015, sermon at Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Based on Revelation 12, 13, 14.

Revelation 12 begins with a vision of a glorious woman, clothed with the sun, standing on the moon, wearing a golden crown with twelve stars. She is pregnant—great with child. She is the epitome of goodness, sweetness, and promise.

After lingering on this scene for a few moments, the visionary camera pans right into the shadows, and there we see a great red dragon. The dragon is watching the woman, waiting for the birth of the baby.

For the dragon, the essence of life, the hunger that give meaning to his life, is headship, authority. The dragon dreams day and night of arranging the universe so that everything bows his direction.

The baby in the woman's womb is the prophesied king who will rule with a rod of iron. This boy will grow into a man who will whack the dragon on the head with an iron rod. The dragon figures it's now or never. If he doesn't eliminate this child at birth, the dragon's doom is sure. 

We who are watching the vision figure the same thing. Our eyes go back and forth nervously from the glorious woman to the slavering beast crouched in the shadows. Will the dragon get the son or will the son survive to wield the iron rod?

The woman gives birth. The dragon lunges. The child is snatched away. And the next minute we are breathing easy. The baby has been evacuated to heaven. Whew. That was a close call. But we know how this story will play out. The baby will grow to manhood. He is going to master the art of cracking dragon skulls with an iron rod. The next time these two meet, it will be doom for the dragon. Hallelujah.

I like the picture of the knight with the magic iron rod vanquishing this terrible dragon. 

A personal aside:  Right now, my wife and I are taking care of our daughter's cows. Once a week, we go open a new 1200 pound bale of silage for them. These cows have horns. The adult cows have a spread of about four feet. While I'm opening the bale—which takes a few minutes--the cows will crowd in on me and on each other. They fling those horns around, and if you happen to be in the way, too bad. I have to drive them back. My daughter has taught me that cows respect horns. So you have to convince the cows you have bigger horns than they have. So I carry a four foot tool handle with a sharp point on it. When the cows try to crowd in, I spread my arms wide like horns and bellow. At that point, my "horns" are bigger than theirs and they will usually, reluctantly back off. But it that's not enough, I take my "iron rod" to them. I jab them with my pointed handle. Cow hide is really thick. Sometimes I have to jab really hard. But by waving my "horns," making a lot of noise and vigorously wielding my "iron rod," I can manage. I can make even the young bull back off. It's actually kind of fun. They are like bulldozers or tanks and it gives me a real sense of power and manliness to boss them around. 

So, when I read about this child with his iron rod, I smile. I imagine the pleasure he will get bossing and ultimately destroying that ugly dragon.

The text in Revelation seems to confirm this perspective. After describing the Glorious Woman, the Slavering Dragon, and the child who has been evacuated to heaven, the child who is going to rule with an iron rod, the text tells us: There was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. Michael wins. The dragon is driven out. The text further explains the dragon is the devil, Satan, the Great Deceiver, the Accuser of the Brethren. The child is Michael, the mighty prince.

This sounds promising. The child is taken to heaven. There is a war there and the child wins. The dragon loses and is expelled. It's good news that the devil lost the war in heaven, but bad news that he wasn't killed. We thought that when the Son and the Dragon met in battle, the Dragon would die. But not only is the dragon still alive, he is banished to earth. On no! This is seriously bad news.

Now what?

Chapter 13, picks up the earth story, but when we look to see what the dragon up to we don't see the dragon, we a weird, amalgamated beast. It is a hybrid of a leopard, a lion and a bear. It has seven heads and ten horns.

This creature is an evocation of imagery from the Old Testament. The prophet Daniel pictured the great empires of antiquity using animals—a lion, a leopard and a bear, and then a dreadful monster with ten horns. Revelation is telling us the dragon operates through ordinary human agencies, and more specifically through the legal, formal social structures of government. 

As we follow the vision, the amalgamated beast is followed by a two-horned monster who has the same character, the same hunger and drive, as the amalgamated beast. Their single objective is headship. They crave homage, respect, obeisance, obedience, deference. They demand that every human either kiss up or die. Bow or die. Honor our headship or we will eliminate you.

The great red dragon, the amalgamated beast, the two-horned monster all have one ambition: headship.

As you read through chapter 13, you get a sinking feeling. It appears that the drive for headship, for unchallenged authority is triumphant. It appears that every bit of opposition is eliminated. The two-horned beast wins. The amalgamated beast wins. The dragon wins. The woman loses. Her first born son was evacuated to heaven. Her earth-bound children are eradicated. Righteousness dies in the earth.

That's what it sounds like as you read through chapter 13. Then you turn the page and chapter 14 tells us that, in fact, gadzillion people resisted the threats of the dragon, the beast, and the monster. Gadzillion saints have never even thought of bowing, of paying obeisance.

Literally, chapter 14 says 144,000 refused to bow. But as we learned in last week's sermon, in Revelation, 144,000 means a crowd so vast it cannot be counted. This crowd includes a full complement of people from every people group on earth, even apparently-extinct groups are included.

The dragon does not win. The amalgamated beast does not win. The two-horned monster does not win. The Son wins. God wins. Their people win.

But there is a serious twist in this story. It is one of the deepest spiritual truths in Revelation.

It turns out that the Son does not win by whacking the dragon with his iron rod. The Son does not win by wagging bigger horns than the amalgamated beast or the two-horned monster.

Back in Chapter 5, when the joy of heaven was silenced and the prophet dissolved into tears because no one was able, no one was powerful enough, to open the mysterious scroll, the prophet was consoled when one of the elders told him, “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah is able to open the scroll. He is mighty enough to solve the problem and restore music to heaven.”

But when John turns to see this “Lion,” astonishingly he sees a Lamb. And the lamb looked like it had been slaughtered.

Similarly here in Chapter 12. We first read that it is the Son wielding the messianic Iron Rod who will vanquish the dragon. We read that Michael, the Great and Mighty Prince, vanquished the dragon in heaven. But then when we listen to the song of the saints celebrating this victory, we learn that the victory came not from the Son's prowess with the iron rod, but through his self-sacrifice--through the blood of the Lamb.

The dragon, beast and monster are not defeated by an opposite will to power. They do not lose their claim to “headship” because someone stronger crushes them with irresistible power. They do not fall in the face of a "greater headship." The dragon, beast, and monster collapse because the Lamb successfully woos humanity. The Lamb wins our hearts and draws us into the light. The dragon, beast, and monster are left roaring futilely in the darkness. The Lamb wins by giving away authority. And the people of the Lamb demonstrate their participation in his kingdom by similarly giving away whatever authority flows through their hands.

In contrast to the repeated declarations by the dragon, beast and monster—bow or die—the Lamb says I will die that your might live. In contrast to the threats of the evil trinity, the holy trinity promises shared place on the throne. In perhaps the most astonishing picture in the book, God removes himself from the supreme place of headship in deference to the Lamb. Chapter Five pictures the Lamb at the center of the throne, the center of the beasts, the ring of elders, and the countless residents of heaven. At the end of the book, in chapter 22, God gives full authority to the saints. They are not merely pages and ministers in the heavenly court. They are themselves rulers. There is no headship pyramid. The lust for coercive authority and the need for coercive authority have disappeared. This is the fruit of the love and sacrifice of the Lamb.

The Lamb wins. Because God's greatest desire is for the Lamb to win, God wins. Because we are beloved by God and the Lamb and have been enthralled and wooed by their love and goodness, we win.

Father is the metaphor for God used most frequently in the Bible. Christian theology has appropriately elaborated and celebrated this metaphor. We have also been seduced by it. We who are fathers imagined God would solve the problem of evil with the hammers of authority and punishment. But according to Revelation 12-14, this is false.

In these chapters, the essence of sin is portrayed as the the lust for headship. Heaven's response is not a sterner, tougher version of authority and headship, but a renunciation of the headship principle. The Lamb triumphs by dying. It is the blood of the Lamb, not the Rod of the Son that ultimately vanquishes the dragon and his allies. 

Real life application

The Protestant reformers in the 1400s were correct to apply the imagery of the beast to the medieval papacy. It had an insatiable hunger for headship. It demanded that everyone bow.

Adventists are unwise to continue to focus on that historical moment as the only relevant application of this vision. We ourselves, now that we are an 18-million-member corporation, experience our own temptations to lust after headship. We want to be able to command. We want to demand obedience. We are at grave risk of creating an image to the beast.

We cannot save the church by wielding a rod of iron. We can only save the church by “the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.”