“Worthy is the Lamb”
Daniel
7:9-14
Revelation 5:1-14
The Gospel of Luke tells a story about two disciples sent by John the Baptist to ask Jesus a question, a very important question, a question about Jesus identity. The significance of this question cannot be overlooked, for upon its answer everything depended. The two disciples go up to Jesus and ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Luke then tells how Jesus turned to the crowd and said, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? Someone dressed in soft clothes? What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you more than a prophet.”
John the
Baptist had been telling people that the one coming after him would baptize
with the Holy Spirit and fire, that he would have the
winnowing fork in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat
into his granary, that in him all flesh would see the salvation of God.
Yet, just as people did not understand John’s message,
neither did they understand Jesus’ identity.
But what John had been saying was the absolute truth. The one coming after him was not just some person, he was the Son of God, the very Messiah whom people
had long waited.
John’s message was not some
insignificant claim of no importance, like a reed shaking in the wind, he was
not just some crazy, will-eyed prophet who spoke nonsense and wore goofy
clothes, he was more than a prophet, he was the herald of the arrival of the
Christ, the very Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
How we
understand the true identity of Jesus is hugely significant to our faith and
the way in which we live our lives of faith.
Most of us have a bottom up understanding of Jesus’ identity. We see Jesus as completely human, a person
who was in complete communion with God, who did God’s will, fulfilled God’s
purpose for him, and showed people what it meant to live in relationship with
God. More of us think of Jesus this way
than the other way, probably because we are more used to reading how the
Gospels describe Jesus. In the Gospels,
we see more of Jesus’ human side, the human side that spoke to people, walked
around, put children on his lap, ate food, went to weddings and dinner parties,
cared for and loved people, sometimes got angry and sometimes cried, died on
the cross, and then came back to life to speak, walk, and eat with people
again.
I think many
of us think of Jesus this way because it is far easier than to think of Jesus
the other way. It is easier to think of
Jesus as someone like ourselves with human emotions and feelings. It makes Jesus more personable and
knowable. We think of him as a friend
who is with us in times of trouble, a companion who is with us in times of joy,
one who went through the trials and tribulations of life like we do, one who
felt pain and hunger, who mourned and suffered, who probably laughed and joked
and teased just like we do. To think of
Jesus as human is to make him real and tangible, someone we can relate to,
someone we can model ourselves after by following his example.
Just think of
the ways in which we depict Jesus in paintings and other art. I have three pictures of Jesus in my
home. One picture is of him sitting on
top of a mountain at night praying. One
picture is of him sitting on a rock with children around him. And the third one is just a portrait of
him. You may have some other picture in
your home, maybe of Jesus as a baby or as a boy. Just look at the Windows Three and there you
will see Jesus as a twelve-year-old boy in the temple teaching. Amazingly, in all the pictures of Jesus he
looks just like us – human. He has hair
and a beard, sometimes red, sometimes dirty blond, sometimes dark brown. He has two eyes, sometimes brown and
sometimes blue. He has a nose and two
ears and a mouth just like we do. Two arms and two legs just like we do. This is how we depict him, because this is
how we see him in our mind’s eye, this is how we understand and think of the
one who became flesh and lived among us.
The other way is a little harder
for us to picture. It’s the top down
understanding of Jesus’ identity. You
will probably not find this kind of picture decorating the walls of our homes,
but you will find this picture of Jesus in Scripture. John of Patmos
certainly had a top down understanding of the identity of the one who is the
Christ. In the first chapter of
Revelation, John describes for his readers the vision of Jesus in all of his
glory. John writes,
“I saw
one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across
his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his
eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as
in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand
he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his
face was like the sun shining with full force.
Here we see a very different picture of Jesus than what we
are used to seeing. Like Daniel’s
description of the Ancient One, we see a picture of Jesus in all of his
divinity, who is clothed with majesty and glory, whose eyes are like a flame of
fire and feet like bronze, who speaks the word of God with a voice like the
sound of many waters, and whose face is as bright as the shining sun. This is more than just a picture that I would
like to see, this is a picture of Jesus that I need to see.
With all that we human beings go
through, with all of life’s ups and downs, and inconsistencies, I need to be
reminded that the one in whom I believe is the one who is the Alpha and the
Omega, the beginning and the end, the Lord God Almighty, the one who is the
living Lord of life in all of his glory.
I need to be reminded that the one who sits upon the throne in heaven is
that same one who walked the streets of
In our text
for this morning from John’s Revelation, John continues his description of the
Christ, but this time he paints a very different picture of Christ. When John realized that no one was worthy to
open the scroll and break its seals, he began to weep. But one of the elders said to him, “See, the
Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can
open the scroll and its seven seals.”
And John looked, but he did not see a Lion, instead he saw a Lamb,
standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes. A picture like that hanging on the wall would
most certainly scare the children. But
it is a picture of the true identity of the one who is the Christ.
And as John
looks upon this heavenly scene, he sees something amazing. It is the Lamb who comes forward. It is the Lamb who is only one worthy to take
the scroll from the one seated on the throne and open
its seals to set in motion the final consummation of all of history, the final
victory of God’s salvation over sin and evil.
The one who became flesh and blood, who looked like us and talked like
us and was fully human, and who is fully divine clothed with all majesty and
glory, is the same one who is the Lamb of God, whose majesty and glory, power
and wisdom, triumph and victory, comes not from a position of strength and
might like a lion, but from the position of weakness and suffering. The one who sits at the right hand of the
Father, who is the judge of the living and the dead, is our Lord and our God,
not just because of his humanity or his divinity, but because of his sacrifice
on the cross.
On this
Christ the King Sunday, as we join our voices with the choirs of angels and
with all of creation in the worship of the one who rules and reigns with
authority and power and might, the one who is the King of kings and the Lord of
lords, let us come to the table and remember what the Lamb of God did for us
long ago, for by his blood were ransomed for God saints from every tribe and
language and people and nation and he made them a kingdom and priests serving
God. Amen.