Ephesians 1:1-14
June 1
David A. Davis
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Our granddaughter Franny celebrated her fourth birthday in April. Her mother broke the rule of inviting the same number of children to the party as the age of the one celebrating. But there is a rule in Franny’s pre-k class that if you invite one, you understandably have to invite all. Cathy and I went to the Bronx a day early on a stunningly beautiful spring Friday to help set the backyard for a party of 15 four-year-olds and their families. Saturday, the day of the party, was, of course, cold and rainy. So we spent the morning moving furniture around the house and getting the toy room formerly known as a home office ready for the afternoon guests.

As the children started to arrive, they represented all the diversity of a NYC pre-school one can imagine. Otto had brown skin and came with her two abuelas, who spoke little English. Rachel came with both parents after Shabbat services. Malachi, with black skin, came with both his Puerto Rican moms. Dillan, who looked a bit like me when I was his age, was stocky, and his blond hair was sticking out pretty much in every direction. At one point during the exhausting afternoon, I stuck my head into the toy room. I think all fifteen four-year-olds were in there. Most of the parents were just in the next room getting to know each other. The toy room, though, was strangely quiet. There was no arguing about toys. No tiffs about space. Then I realized that the children were all playing by themselves. Surrounded by Franny and her little sister’s toys, which were all new to the classmates. It was like being in a toy store. But they weren’t playing with each other. It was like speed dating with toys as they moved around the room. Each child is playing with a toy of some sort. They all seemed to rotate to the next toy like gymnasts rotating around the various pieces of equipment. They were together, but they weren’t. They were playing but not collaborating. They were all in the same room while being in their own four-year-old world.

My observation must have still been hanging around in my head as I read the first chapter of Ephesians over and over this week in my office. “…blessed us in Christ…God chose us in Christ…God destined us for adoption as God’s children…the glorious grace that God freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption…the riches of his grace that he lavished on us…God has made known to us the mystery of God’s will…In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance…we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ…as God’s own people, to the praise of God’s glory.”  Us. Us. Us. We. We. We. God’s children through Jesus Christ, “according to the good pleasure of God’s will”. God’s good pleasure made known in and through Jesus Christ to us. Us. Us. Us. It’s not the royal we but it is the “holy we”.

Another observation hanging around in my head for a few weeks was the morning of Confirmation two Sundays ago. The incredible morning of worship and affirming faith in Jesus Christ included the baptisms of Sterling, Isaac, and Nico. Like Mark Edwards in his sermon, I was focused on getting through the baptisms without too many of my own tears. A choir member told me afterward how meaningful it was to be up here in the chancel and able to see the faces of the parents and siblings. I had to try not to look and focus solely on the young men standing before me. I joked with the families about having to reach up for the baptisms. You probably have observed that our common practice at Nassau Church for infant baptism is one family, one child, one baptism per service. But that trinity of baptisms underscored the “holy we” to which God calls us. As the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) puts it, “No one comes to Baptism alone; we are encouraged by family or friends and surrounded by the community of faith.”

The community of faith, together, standing along the river bank of God’s grace, affirming over and over again the reach of God’s mercy, the first touch of God’s love, and the endless nature of God’s compassion. Here at the fount, basking in what one liturgical theologian describes as “the kiss of God.” Hearing not once, not twice, but three times, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”  Celebrating our adoption as God’s children in triple forte. Marking with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, “the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of God’s glory.” The “holy we”, experiencing in sacramental form what the Apostle Paul tries to express in words in the first chapter of Ephesians. The inexpressible giftedness of our life in Christ. The seal of God’s love. Marked forever as children of God. We are God’s own forever etched with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s mark given in the very fullness of God’s time, in all the mystery of God’s will, far beyond our comprehension, affirming deep within that we know far more than we can ever say about our life in God. About belonging to God now and forever. That you and I, we, us, are indeed God’s good pleasure.

Yes, of course, God’s good pleasure, this “holy we”, is much, much more than Nassau Presbyterian Church. The embrace of God’s everlasting arms reaches far and wide. Every time we gather at the fount, every time we come to the Table, it is a splash, a taste of the kingdom God intends for the world. One of the reasons the we, we, we, and the us, us, us leap off the scripture’s page this week is the gospel teaching that “we” and “us” in the eyes and heart of Jesus is always bigger, broader, greater than you and I can comprehend. God’s promise and God’s mercy stretch far beyond what you and I can imagine.  The we, we, we, and the us, us, us leap off the page this week because the powers and principalities are in the business right now of demonizing, dismissing, dehumanizing, threatening, harming, getting rid of “THEM”.  Hundreds of thousands of “them” near and whose lives and families and children are at risk with mass layoffs in the blink of an eye, benefits being crushed buried deep within budgets, decisions released unsigned by courts late on a Friday afternoon, and orders callously signed and celebrated by the wealthiest and most powerful in the world.  You and I know in the deepest parts of our soul, way down in our bones, you and I know and dare to believe and so live, that “THEM” is and will always be “US”, we, the children of God. They, too, are God’s good pleasure. All of humankind. All is God’s good pleasure. All within the embrace of the everlasting arms.

A couple in my first congregation had a farm in Maine where they would spend the summers. The husband once described to me the small country church they attended each Sunday. It was a Methodist Church that could seat maybe 100 people, and it was about a third full, he said. “I still sit in the back, though,” he told me, knowing that I knew exactly where he sat when they were in New Jersey. “But up there, I don’t sit on the right, I sit on the left. That way, I can see the cows in the pasture next to the church.” The son of a Methodist preacher, he went on to say that when the preacher was going on too long, he enjoyed looking out the window. “With all due respect”, he said with a chuckle, “the beauty of creation proclaims the gospel promise of God better than the preacher.” I can’t disagree. As Norman Maclean put it in his description of the beauty of creation in his book “A River Runs Through it”: “Every afternoon I was set free, untouched and untutored to learn on my own the natural side of God’s order. And there can be no better place to learn than the Montana of my youth. It was a world with dew still on it, more touched by wonder and possibility than any I have since known.” The world with dew still on it.

Have you noticed that most, if not all, the Sundays we have been worshipping here at the Seminary Chapel have been stunningly beautiful? Like that Methodist Church in Maine, here in the Chapel, we can look out at the world. There are no cows to look at, but there is creation in full bloom. This morning, with a sky so blue that it points to “a world with dew still on it, touched by wonder and possibility.” A sky that whispers of the world God intends.  Creation can proclaim the gospel promise of God.

No one comes to the fount of baptism alone. No one comes to the table of the Lord’s Supper alone. Coming forward for communion this morning puts an exclamation point on that. Our Savior invites each one of us to this table prepared for us. The table of his promise. The meal of his grace, mercy, and love. A foretaste not just of glory divine but a foretaste of the kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven. Jesus invites us here to remind us that we are indeed God’s good pleasure. Jesus invites us here, for when the earth shakes and the nations totter, we still feast on his love, crave his mercy, and are nourished by his grace. For as Jesus says in the of times like this in gospel of Luke, “This will be a time for you to bear testimony”.

Come to the Table this morning. And before and after you receive the bread and cup, look around and give thanks for the “holy we” to which we have been called. Don’t taste and see that God is good by yourself. And when you turn from the table, toward the outer aisles, make sure to look out the window.  Look out at the world God created. For it is by the wonder and mystery of God, still a world with dew still on it touched by the wonder and possibility. A world of God’s promise. A new heaven and a new earth. Take a look out the window and remember that in Jesus Christ, our best days are always yet to come.

Revelation 22:1-5
May 25
Len Scales
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For those of us who were journeying through the season of Lent with Nassau, we will remember that we started with the beginning of Genesis and found our way through the Garden of Eden. In the garden, there was a tree of life.

Now near the end of the Easter season, we are in the last chapter of Revelation. We’ve gone from the starting point of the Bible to its conclusion and we are in a beautiful city, radiating because of God’s light, the Lamb of God sits on the throne and living water of crystal flows through the city. Here, the tree of life reappears, and this time it’s not one tree eventually cordoned off from humanity, but an arcade with the tree of life on either side of the river, and it bears fruit continually, the abundance is new in every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Brian Blount in his commentary on Revelation, points out “John’s new Jerusalem out-Edens Eden!”^[1]

God’s proclamation of all of creation as “very good” in Genesis is bookended here with healing of the nations. God’s healing is not for 1 individual, nor is it for 1 group of people, it is inclusive and sufficient for all.

It can be hard to imagine the healing of the nations when we know there is such grave suffering being inflicted across the world. Children are cut off from humanitarian aid, hospitals attacked, corruption and violence seem to take the day all too often.

Revelation was written when Rome was teetering on the edge of self-destruction due to its injustices.^[2]

While the new Jerusalem with perpetual light, life-giving water, and leaves of healing may seem far off from our imagination, perhaps that wider context doesn’t. There are injustices in every age that are moral wounds in society. So much so that it can be hard to metabolize all the horror in our news cycle, lack of care for the neighbor in our country, and personal losses we each experience.

The tree of life along with the crystal river flowing from the throne of God is a relief and a promise. When the wild world seems to be spinning apart, we are led back to the refreshing waters provided by God. This image, this promise is not made so that we can hang back and say God’s got it and not do anything in response. It gives us a reassurance of what will be and a model of what we can work toward.

One of the greatest gifts of working with the campus ministry Princeton Presbyterians is seeing the diversity of how students and alums follow God’s call to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.” There isn’t one profession or one region of the world that is the center of what God is doing. Rather, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God can be at work anywhere. We have the privilege of seeing the goodness of God everywhere the fruits of the Spirit are present—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.^[3]

We can test what is of God and what is not by whether healing is a part of the impact. So where people’s access to healthcare and food and housing are cut off, that is not where God is leading us. Where creation is abused, that is not of God. God is present in the support of community, the flourishing of creation, a vision for life-giving future.

John is caught up in a dream in Revelation, he is angry at the injustices tearing his people and community apart. In the midst of the rubble, he is taken up and shown an apocalyptic story. It is not polite, nor the maintenance of the status quo. It is a complete turning over of all that is against God and a prophetic call for repentance. In the end, John is shown the vision we read today—a city of God, the Lamb that laid his life down for us all is sitting on the throne. There is no need to have gates that protect or fear of running out of water or fruit. There is abundance with a promise of healing what is broken and hurting and raw.

Revelation comes to John when it seems like life is falling apart. It is then the angel shows up and reveals a promise that imagines a new world.

In her book, Imagination: A Manifesto, Ruha Benjamin calls on the power of collective imagination to bring about a life-giving world. The stories we tell and the dreams we fan matter. Benjamin says, “So, one of the things we can all do starting yesterday is to actively work to topple the steel curtains and bulldoze the wire fences lurking in our own imaginations—confronting the treacherous ‘aliens’ and dangerous boogeymen distorting how we see others and warping how we understand ourselves. … We must populate our imaginations with images and stories of our shared humanity, of our interconnectedness, of our solidarity as people—a poetics of welcome, not walls.”^[4]

So where are those positive avenues for your imagination to run? Is it through reading or enjoying art or playing with a three-year-old or listening to a young person share their vision for the world? Where might God be catching us up into a vision that is beyond the horizon of what we can see on earth? Who are the conversation partners that help you envision a world that is in line with the love and justice of God?

I invite you to take moment, stare out the windows and daydream.

A worship space like this is built with clear windows so that the world can see the church at worship, AND it also allows the church to look out at creation.

The leaves of these trees on either side of the chapel help change the color scape in each season. Whether it is buds in the spring, steady green in the summer, the turning of leaves in the fall, or the bare branches in the winter, these trees stand as testament to God’s good creation.

See God’s goodness and hear God’s vision:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life,
bright as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb
through the middle of the street of the city.
On either side of the river is the tree of life
with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month,
and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

May it be so.

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^[1] Brian Blount, The New Testament Library: Revelation, (Westminster John Knox, 2009) 397.

^[2] Christianity and White Supremacy: Heresy and Hope Conference at Princeton University, opening panel in the University Chapel, March 20, 2019.

^[3] Galatians 5:22-23

^[4] Ruha Benjamin, Imagination: A Manifesto, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024) 102.

Revelation 21:1-6
May 18
Mark Edwards
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Revelation 7:9-17
May 11
David A. Davis
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I have admitted it before in a sermon. Some may remember it. I own up to it. I am not ashamed to admit it. I embrace it without bragging about it. It is part of who I am. I come by it honestly. It comes from my father, and I passed it on to one of our two children. Cathy no longer rolls her eyes at me. She has rather come to expect it. I am a crier. I cry at commercials. I cry at standing ovations. I cry at ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries. Not a sobbing sort of thing, but enough for a tear or two to run down my cheek. I cry at sappy sports movies like “Rudy”. I cry at acceptance speeches. I cried Wednesday night at the Farminary listening to Nate Stucky share his testimony. And I have heard Nate share it on multiple occasions.

So I took great comfort, great encouragement, this week as I did my homework in preparing for this sermon this morning. I discovered what I already knew, but I discovered it as if for the very first time. There are a whole lot of tears in the bible. More often than not, when I share some of my homework, like the study of a particular word and where it shows up on the scriptures’ page, more often than not, I am pointing out how rare or unique the use of the word may be. On Easter morning just a few weeks ago, I argued that the use of the word “Greetings”, as in the Risen Christ saying “greetings” to the women outside the empty tomb, only occurs three times in the gospel. But this morning, I rise before you to tell you what I think you already know as well, there are a whole lot of tears in the bible.

“Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears. (Ps 39)…My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”  (Psa 42)…Again, I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun. Look, the tears of the oppressed– with no one to comfort them! (Ecc). “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” (Mat 2). “Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears.” Paul in the Book of Acts. “Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy.” (II Tim)

In the Book of Genesis, at one point in the dramatic reconciliation with his brothers, Joseph wept so loudly that the Egyptians could hear him. Hannah wept so hard in the first Samuel that Eli the priest thought she was drunk. There was the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears. The weeping that filled the house when Jesus arrived to heal the daughter of Jairus. You remember that when Peter heard the cock crow the second time, he “broke down and wept.”  In John’s gospel, after Mary Magdalene had told the disciples about the empty tomb, after they ran to look in and then returned to their homes, Mary stayed at the tomb. “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.”

And, of course, when Mary confronted Jesus about the death of her brother Lazarus, and Jesus saw her and everyone else weeping, “Jesus wept.”  When Jesus  came near to the city of Jerusalem in the Palm Sunday procession, “he wept over it.” The verb used to describe Jesus’ last words in the gospels is “cried”. “He cried out in a loud voice.”  The preacher in the Book of Hebrews proclaims, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death.” (Heb 5).  

Yes, there are a whole lot of tears in the bible. There is a whole lot of weeping on the scripture’s page. That’s because the bible says as much about God’s people as it says about God. Though in the tears of Jesus we see the very tears of God. As Nicholas Wolterstorff writes in his moving memoir Lament for a Son, a memoir dripping with his own tears: “How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity’s song–all without lifting a finger that we could see…. If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself. We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer, we catch sight of God [In Christ himself] scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God.”

In a similar way, William Sloan Coffin points to the tears of God in the first sermon he preached after coming back to the pulpit after the death of son. “For some reason, nothing so infuriates me,” Coffin preached, “as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn’t go around with God’s fingers on triggers, God’s first around knives, God’s hands on steering wheels….My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die…that [on that night] God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”

We had around a hundred people at the Seminary’s Farminary for the tour and worship, and potluck dinner. Once again, I heard Nate say a version of what I have heard him say multiple times: “Farmers and pastors have a lot in common. They both have to learn a lot about life and death.” You won’t be surprised that I have had a multitude of conversations that no one can number about dying, death, and eternity. The older I get, as the conversations keep coming, I find myself willing to say less when the topic turns to what heaven will be like. As Dan Migliore writes in his seminal work “Faith Seeking Understanding”, “We should not pretend to have precise language and detailed information about the future.” He argues that we can only speak in images, metaphors, and parables. Here, Professor Migliore quotes Martin Luther: “As little children know in their mother’s womb about their birth, so little do we know about life everlasting.”

Saying less for me about is not a reflection of a lack of faith or rising doubt in a grizzled old pastor. I cling ever more and more to the resurrection promise of God for you and me and this broken world. I will admit that some of the biblical imagery regarding heaven is less compelling to my own hopes and longings. Or maybe better said, the imagery surrounding eternal life with God has shifted for me. Life forever nestled into the beauty of the very heart of God. Well, I find myself praying that with people, proclaiming that more and more. But there is one biblical image about heaven that I won’t let go of. “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

When the bible is so full of tears, is there a more compelling resurrection promise? The Word of God is so full of tears. The tears of humankind. The tears of creation. The tears of Jesus. The tears of God. So many tears. So many tears. Yes, the tears of the sacred page. But yes, the tears that define humanity then and now and every time in between, so full of tears. You can’t miss, you ought not miss, you better not miss this eternal promise of God in and through the Risen Lamb upon the throne. That by grace and his righteousness, and the everlasting mercy of God, one day. One day. God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. God will wipe away every tear but the tears of joy. For weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

Cathy and I fell in love on this campus forty years ago this spring semester. Part of our romance was sneaking into this chapel later at night. Believe it or not, it wasn’t locked. The piano was locked, but I knew where the key was hanging. I would sit at the piano and play, and we would sing.  One of the few songs I knew how to play was a song by Andre Crouch. Noel Werner has chosen it for our final hymn. Noel didn’t know this part of our story when he planned the hymns for this morning. “No more crying there, we are going to see the King.”. Here is another one: “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine. O, what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story; this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long”.

Stick with me here, church. If our life in Christ is a foretaste of glory divine, if God in God’s infinite love and mercy offers just a glimpse of the kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, if Jesus with a grace that greets us fresh every day, invites us to taste and see now the love he has for us, if the Holy Spirit is on the loose in our lives planting a seed deep within us of the knowledge of God’s dwelling place, the Wonderful Counselor reminding us today and tomorrow and the next day that the Savior has gone to prepare a place for us, if this life we live together as the body of Christ is somehow a foretaste of glory divine, than that means God is wipe your tears and mine this side of glory.

The wordless comfort of the Holy Spirit at work when really, no words should be said. The Savior’s love tends to a broken heart and allows just a bit of light to shine in the darkness. The resurrection promise of God that even in the chaos and turmoil of this blasted, broken world still points to an open door that no one can shut. Luther seems right when he writes about “how little do we know about eternal life”. But when it comes to this foretaste that I am trying to describe, when it comes to God wiping away, receiving, sharing, joining the tears of God’s children in this life? Maybe I can’t describe it. Maybe I can’t give you a great sermon illustration. But that’s because too many of you would be in it. Because when it comes to God and your tears and my tears now, I believe, I know it, because I’ve seen it.

A whole multitude of times that no one can count. The tears God wipes.

“God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 5:8-14
May 4
David A. Davis
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Our second scripture lesson for this morning comes from the Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse to John, the last book of the New Testament. The apocalyptic literature of the bible, like Revelation, and in the Old Testament, Ezekiel and parts of Isaiah, can be rather inaccessible, dense, and even foreign to the reader. Sort of the epitome of the strange old world of the bible. Let me try to give some context to our reading this morning by describing the movement of the Book of Revelation. After an initial salutation and instruction from John the Revelator, the beginning sections of the work describe a breathtaking vision of the Heavenly Christ: “his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze…his voice was like the sound of many waters”

The next view chapters include letters to seven churches with some memorable quotes like “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had a first” and “I knoe your works- your love, service, and patient endurance. I know your last works are greater than the first” and  “I have set before you and open door, which no one is able to shut” and “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

After the letters, the scene shifts, the image shifts, and the reader is invited to look through the door of heaven into the very throne room of God. The word picture tells of colors as radiant as jewels, and a sea of glass, living creatures gathered around the throne, twenty-four elders casting their crowns before the throne of God in adoration and praise. As John encounters the very beauty of heaven, the focus again shifts to the scroll held in the right hand of the one seated upon the throne. An angel cries out “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” No one is found either in heaven or on earth who can break open and reveal the plan of God. John weeps bitterly. But he is told to weep no more, but to turn and look at the Lion, the mighty conqueror, the Root of David. The Lion who can open the scroll of God.

John turns to look and sees not a lion, but a Lamb. The slaughtered Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. A number, a symbol that speaks of all power and knowledge. John sees the Lamb, whose weakness and vulnerability only God could define as perfection. The Lamb takes the scroll from the One seated upon the throne. The Lamb steps forth to bear the will of God. All who surround the throne fall before the Lamb in adoration and praise.

Revelation 5:11-14

“Then I, John, looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders, they numbered myriads if myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and blessing!’

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and in all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’ And the four living creatures said ‘Amen!’. And the elders fell down and worshiped.”

What follows in the Book of Revelation is the opening of the seals, and the four

horses of the Apocalypse, and the great gathering which no one could number, and the silence in heaven as the seventh seal is broken, and the plagues, and the beast and the pit, and the dragon and the seven bowls of God’s wrath, and the fall of Babylon, and the New Heaven and the New Earth, and God wiping away every tear, and the river of the water of life, and the throne of God and the Lamb and no more night, for God will be their light, and the Lamb together with the Lord God, shall reign forever and ever. What follows the text we just read is the intended chaos of apocalyptic literature and the always puzzling, often troubling piling up of image after image, symbol after symbol. This heavenly hymn of praise comes on the threshold of the Lamb’s rolling out the mystery of God and all hell about to break lose, and right then and there every creature in heaven and on earth and in the sea and under the earth; every creature pauses to join in a song of adoration and praise to the Worthy Lamb.

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and blessing!…. Blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” Reading the text this week, coming back to the Book of Revelation this week, pondering the biblical apocalyptic literature this week, it landed in my ear, my head, and my heart a bit differently this week. It all felt oddly relevant this week. The chaos and mystery that leaps off the page of the Book of Revelation, all that can be so disorienting and troubling to the reader, comes with a familiarity this week.  These age-old chapters have a jarring unsettledness that has resonance when chaos, fear, and uncertainty are on the loose. The endless battle between good and evil never seems to stop. When death continues to be on the loose among the lives of people we love. When institutions teeter and long-held expectations shake. The jarring unsettledness of the Book of Revelation meets the jarring unsettledness of life.

In his commentary on the Book of Revelation, New Testament scholar Brian Blount argues that apocalyptic literature has an ethical motivation. “It implores people,” he writes, “to act in the present in a way that agrees with its understanding of the future.” Blount goes on to explain what that means. The followers of the Worthy Lamb “must put themselves on God’s side…They must live for God’s future in the present, even if making that choice means that they will come into conflict with the leaders of the present…”. Or to say it another way, there is something timeless about a community of faith struggling to live the faith in a hostile world. To read the Apocalypse to John these days is a lot less about trying to unlock God’s intended future and a lot more about discerning God’s call in the present. Because the Book of Revelation has less to do with what heaven is going to be like for you and me and a lot more to do with what it means to be a faithful follower of the Worthy Lamb here and now.

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and blessing!…. Blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” The jarring unsettledness of the Book of Revelation and the jarring unsettledness of life. The intersection comes in a timeless moment of all creation bowing before the Risen Christ, the Lamb who is worthy to be praised. Every now and then, the beauty of God’s resurrection promise and the mystery of God’s plan of salvation, and the assurance of God’s victory break through the tumult of our lives and the calamity of this world. Apocalyptic moments are not reserved for the end of time, rather for the inbreaking of God, when the distant holiness of the One on the throne once again shatters the darkness with light, and Lamb anoints the messiness o life with grace, and the faithful feast again on the breath of God forever singing God’ praise. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and blessing!…. Blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

When I was in college and going through a rough patch, I decided to do something I had been doing since kindergarten. I joined a church choir.  It was an auditioned choir that would sing every Sunday at Memorial Church on Harvard’s campus. I was actually paid to go to

church back then, too. My warm and fuzzy experience of church choir was soon rocked a bit when the conductor in the midst of a particularly frustrating rehearsal, stopped everything and called out for quartets. I didn’t know what that meant, except I knew those around me in the bass section were not happy. For the next hour, the conductor would randomly call out a bass, a tenor, an alto, and a soprano. We would proceed to the front of the room, and he would pick a part of the piece to be sung right there before him and God, and everybody. When the four were finished, they were told to go sit together. And the last thing we did that afternoon was to sing the piece through completely, sitting not in sections (basses, altos, sopranos, tenors) but in quartets. One

voice alone, surrounded by the other parts, together then, in full voice. And the sound was glorious; the uniqueness of voice, clearly bound to something greater that grew and grew with each quartet.

John’s vision of the faithful at worship includes that factor of multiplication. A growing choir, myriads upon myriads, thousands upon thousands. He hears every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. The song burst forth from everywhere and everyone. Quartet after quartet after quartet. To stop amid the chaos when it seems like all hell is breaking loose, to stop and bow down to offer all praise and worship to the Worthy Lamb is a subversive act that affirms we are a part of something greater. So much greater. To join our voices with all creation’s praise right smack in the middle of trying to figure out what it means to be faithful in a hostile world is a bold commitment that we are choosing God’s side and choosing to live today. We are striving to act for, to live for, God’s future now in our life together and our discipleship out in the world. To stand together before the Lamb that was slaughtered and shout Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! is an act of resistance when death’s power is on the loose.

To come to this table, to remember and give thanks for the Worthy Lamb and all that the Savior Lamb has done for us, is an act of praise and thanksgiving that testifies to something so much greater. Come, for the Worthy Lamb, invites us to be nourished by the grace and mercy ,and love of God that is so much greater than our hearts.

John 20:19-31
April 27
Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton
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Matthew 28:1-10
April 20
David A. Davis
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It starts with a “great earthquake”.  The resurrection morning, according to Luke, begins with the earth shaking at sunrise as the women are on their way to see the tomb. Perhaps the earthquake was the divine tool used by the descending angel to roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb. The angel’s countenance and attire has quite a glow. So startling that those guarding the tomb are scared to death. Like most angels in the bible, the radiant one perched on the rock tells the women not to be afraid. The angel goes on to explain that the crucified one they are looking for was not there, for “he had been raised, as he said.” The women are invited in to see where the body had been. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” The women leave quickly with “fear and great joy” to run and tell the disciples. It must not have been far from the tomb when the Risen Jesus suddenly appears and says, “Greetings!”

You will remember that when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in Luke, Gabriel said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Also, when Judas leaned in to betray Jesus with a kiss in Matthew, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi”.  If I have done my homework correctly, I have just shared with you the only three times in the gospels that “greetings” occurs. The Greek word translates as “joy”. These three occurrences represent a formulaic use or expression that was a common form, even an informal greeting. Like “hi there” or “how’s it going”.  On the one hand, these three “greetings” happen at pretty important moments in the gospels: the Annunciation, the Betrayal, and the Resurrection.” On the other hand, the Risen Jesus suddenly appears and uses an everyday, mundane, routine expression of greeting that seems a bit out of place, even underwhelming, after a great earthquake, a stone rolled back, a blinding angel, guards frightened out of their minds, and an empty tomb.

Like any grandparent, when a phone or an iPad in our house rings with a FaceTime chime, Cathy and I race to answer as quickly as we can. We run not with fear but great joy, we run great joy and greater joy. If I am being honest, most of the calls are at the instigation of soon-to-be four-year-old Franny, who wants to talk to Gram. You answer the call, and there isa  screen full of Franny’s face as she holds the phone. Franny wants to talk to Gram about their respective cups of seeds growing and their gardens, soon to be planted. But last week, a FaceTime call came that warmed a grandfather’s heart. It was fifteen-month-old Maddie calling to talk to Pop. She was holding the phone, and all we could see was from her nose up. I could hear her smile, though. We exchanged the greeting I taught her. “Pop”, she says. I say “Haaay,” To which she says, “Haaaaay!” That was about it. That was all she wanted. She dropped the phone on the floor and ran off.  That was about it but it was way more than enough!

The Risen Jesus appears to the frightened, joyful women on the run to go and tell the news. He suddenly appears and says “Haaay”. No don’t be afraid at first. He doesn’t call Mary by name like in the book of John. Here, after all the divine, bible-like special effects that one would expect to trumpet that first Easter morning, with the rolled away stone still within view, Jesus says “hi there, how’s it going, good morning, cheers mate, what’s up, hey there, yo.” A startling every day, informal, common greeting amid what was a far from everyday encounter. The women fall to his feet as both fear and great joy escalate. They take hold of his feet to try to somehow tell if he is real or not. The same feet the woman anointed with expensive perfume. The same feet that had been nailed to the cross. Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

In Matthew, the only appearance of the Risen Jesus beyond the fist bump with the two Marys somewhere near the tomb is in Galilee. The eleven disciples returned to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. They saw him there, the Risen Jesus. The bible says, “They worshipped him, but some doubted.” That’s when Jesus gave the eleven the Great Commission. “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

There’s not much else happening here at the end of Matthew in terms of resurrection. Oh, there are a few verses about the powers that be cobbling together a story about the disciples stealing the body.  But in Matthew, not much else is going on after Easter morning except the Great Commission. No Emmaus Road; that’s in Luke. No breakfast on the beach; that’s in John. No Jesus putting Peter on the spot with, “Do you love me more than these?”; that’s John as well. It is as if Jesus’ ordinary greeting here in Matthew marks a shift away from the miraculous way the morning started and a shift toward an extraordinary promise of how resurrection power is unleashed in the world. “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

In Galilee. In Galilee is where Jesus called the disciples. It is where he taught. It’s where he ate with sinners and tax collectors. In Galilee is where he healed the sick. It’s where he fed the thousands with a couple loaves and fish. It’s where he told parables. It’s where he drove out demons. In Galilee is where he preached the Sermon on the Mount. It’s where the Pharisees and Sadducees first came to test him. It’s where he welcomed little children and challenged the rich young man by telling him to sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor and follow him.

“He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” “Go to Galilee, they will see me there”, he said. In Galilee is where you will find my resurrection power unleashed. A resurrection life that comes not with trumpets blasting, or the earth shaking, or angels appearing, but with the poor being fed, and with the outcasts being served, and the unclean are embraced, with the first being last and the last being first, with turning the other cheek and loving one another, with the kingdom of God being taught, announced, proclaimed, served. In Galilee. In Galilee, there they will see me. An extraordinary understanding of how resurrection power is unleashed in the world.

I remember visiting a saint of the church years ago. I was a young pastor, nowhere near 30, young enough that he had been widowed longer than I had been alive. His name was Ray. He had his struggles when it came to health, but he explained that his father lived to be 102 so he didn’t expect to be going anywhere soon, though he wished the good the Lord would take him just like his wife, take him when he was sound asleep. “I’m ready anytime,” he said with a smile. His personal faith statement was as well-worn as the Apostles’ Creed itself.

Much of our conversation was about his worries and anxieties about life; his children, grandchildren, great children. He was worried about their marriages and jobs and challenges. He was worried about the economy and politics and the war in Iraq, and the Phillies who were in a slump. He wasn’t just complaining or being cranky. His worry was genuine. Then Ray used one of those clichés that are so often said, but his use had a weight to it. “David, I just don’t know what this world is coming to.” And he waved a hand like he was swatting a fly.

We all know I could have had that conversation yesterday. I’m sure I had little pastoral wisdom to offer back then for that saint who has long since gone to glory. Not sure how much I have now.  But his faith statement and that weighty cliché of his, the assurance of his own spot next to the throne of grace and his angst about what this world’s coming to….they don’t match real well when it comes to the power of God’s resurrection promise. The promise of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ has been unleashed in the world now. Because the promise of the resurrection is for life eternal, yes! And it is also for the kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. “In my Father’s house are many mansions, I go to prepare a place for you…..and…Go to Galilee, you will see me there…I will be with you always”.

You may have read or heard of some conservative Christian pastors who have quite a following on social media. They embrace the evil of Christian nationalism. Recently, they began calling for an end to empathy. Here is one astonishing, heretical quote: “Empathy almost needs to be struck from the Christian vocabulary. Empathy is dangerous. Empathy is toxic. Empathy will align you with hell.” It is way past time for everyday preachers, disciples, congregations, denominations, for the Christian Church to respond in word and deed with “umm, hell no!

The followers of Jesus who listen and believe what Jesus taught us don’t have the luxury of basking in the piety of our Easter finery, or waiting for divine earthquakes or angel mic drops. Because the Risen Jesus is calling us to Galilee. The Risen Jesus yearns to say hello where the poor are being fed. The Risen Jesus is waiting to say “how’s it going” where the outcasts are being served. The Risen Jesus is saying “good morning” where the strangers are being welcomed and immigrants are protected, and international students are embraced. The Risen Jesus is shouting, “What’s up?” where acts of kindness and mercy carry the day. The Risen Jesus is hugging it out every time and every place where the people of God live resurrection power with the strength to love, the courage to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and the bold resistance to love your neighbor as yourself. I have said it before from this pulpit, and I will keep saying it louder and louder. In the most difficult of seasons of life, the simplest parts of the gospel of Jesus Christ become all the more compelling, essential, and true.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Keep the strength to love.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Don’t lose the courage to do unto others as you would have them to unto you!

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Live the bold, resistant to love your neighbor as yourself.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!