The text this morning is from John’s Revelation, the first chapter:
John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! And John knew that, too. John, the beloved apostle, John, who was locked in the room when Jesus appeared, John, who watched Thomas be offered the chance to stick his hand in Jesus’ side, John, who spent 40 days with Jesus after the resurrection, John knew his Lord was risen from the grave.
John, you remember, saw Jesus in His glory, or at least a shadow of His true glory, on the Mount of Transfiguration. There, Jesus’ clothes turned white, His face shined like the sun, and He was surrounded by witnesses to His divinity, Moses and Elijah, a small part of the heavenly council, those who worship at the feet of God. But now, John sees Jesus even more fully. John sees Jesus for who He truly is: the Lord of all creation, standing in the midst of His Church.
The lampstands in John’s vision symbolize the churches to whom John will write the words of Jesus. And Jesus stands in their midst. Jesus won’t have good words for all these churches, but their light still burns, Jesus is still with them, and He will call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
After all, that’s what a priest does: forgive sins. Jesus is shown in John’s revelation as the Great High Priest, wearing a long robe, a golden sash. Jesus is the Great High Priest, mediating for His Church to His Father. A mediator is one who stands between two parties, reconciling them because they can’t do it on their own. They each come to the table with an agenda, a list of demands, and knowledge of what they can and can’t do.
God, in all of His awesome glory, perfection, holiness, He cannot abide sin. He desires that His creation would love Him, turn to Him, be with Him forever, for it was out of love He created all of us. But, because of our sin, because we are unholy, because we are so full of evil deeds, because we have fallen short of the glory of God, we cannot be with Him. God cannot be with that which is unholy. So, He brings His wrath to the table.
For humanity, we desire to live eternally. We want to live forever, and we want to be like God. But, we bring nothing to the table worthy of that. Every act we do that we think is good enough lacks holiness, lacks perfection, and is filled with sin. There is nothing that we can do to earn a place in eternal life. So, all we can bring to the table, then, is hatred for God, hatred for Him because we can’t take for ourselves that which we demand. That’s our contribution to it all.
But, Jesus is the mediator. He stands between God and man, being both. He is the one who is able to argue both for God and for humanity. He is both God and man. He is both holy and counted as a sinner. He is the one who stands between God and man, and tells God that He will do all that is necessary for eternal life. And He tells man that, while there is nothing they can do to earn what He has done, He will give them eternal life, freely, of His will, and they shall live forever is peace and blessedness with Him.
God’s wrath against sin is satisfied, as it is poured out upon the Son for your sake. Man’s desire for eternal life is satisfied, for it is given freely in the blood of Christ. Christ is the mediator, not only brokering the new covenant of blood that would be between God and man, but also the one who then lays down His life for His friends.
And John, perhaps the best friend of Jesus, sees his friend, the one who ascended into heaven to the right hand of Power, standing in the midst of His Church, doing that which He promised to do. Jesus promised to be with His Church always, and that is where John finds Him. And that’s why John falls down to worship, instead of greeting Jesus just as a friend. Jesus is the Greatest Friend, for He is a friend to sinners, as any priest is.
Jesus is the Great High Priest, telling the Father that which His beloved friends, you, need. He is the one who gives to you all blessing and glory from the Father. And He is the one, the First and the Last, the one who is, and who was, and who is to come, and, out of that authority, He gives His Church then a charge: be priests.
You, in your Baptism, you have been made a priest in God’s kingdom. Every one of you. You are God’s and His alone, and you do the work of the priest. But, what does a priest do?
When we see the work of the priests in the Old Testament, we find out exactly what it is that priests do. They’re not all preachers. They’re not all prophets. But, they all do one thing: they take the blood of the sacrifices that the people would bring, and sprinkle it on those people, offering the sacrifice up to God that God would spare His child and forgive them all of their sins.
Priests forgive sins. That’s what they do. They also, however, turn away those people who bring lackluster gifts to God. Remember for instance, God demanded the Israelites to bring an unblemished lamb for the sacrifice. Pure. What would happen if someone brought a lamb with a broken leg or blind in the eye? The priest would send the person away who brought that. There’s no way they would take that lamb and sacrifice it to God. No way. If they did that, they would break God’s law, and more than that, would be responsible for giving that person forgiveness when they didn’t want it.
Why do I say that person didn’t want it? Because God’s Law is clear. The penitent person would bring an unblemished lamb. The person who brings less than their best to God shows themselves to be impenitent, not sorry for their sins, and not caring about what God’s Law said and demanded. God isn’t interested in your best effort. He demands perfection.
But who can do such a thing? Who can truly bring perfection to God? Who can truly come to God with a clean heart, clean hands, clean mouth? The Israelites sinned greatly, messed up all the time, why would we think, in that way, we’re any different? Our hearts are black with sin, our hands are dirty with misdeeds, our mouths are filthy with evil talk for none of us tame our tongues.
Who are we, then, to come before God, asking for forgiveness? We are human. We’re unholy. We’re imperfect, blemished, fading and falling. What lamb could we possibly offer to God to have Him accept our sacrifice?
None. So, God offers His Lamb. As God provided the sacrifice for Abraham and Isaac by leaving a ram caught in the thornbush, so God provides a greater sacrifice for you. For you, He sends the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, so that He, being perfect, holy, blameless in the sight of God, would be offered up for the forgiveness of sins. And so He is. So Jesus is crucified upon a cross, hanged upon a tree, and so He is cursed by God, dying under the wrath of God and the devil, so that sin would be crucified and you would be forgiven forever, made a priest through His blood.
And as priests, we take the blood of that Lamb, and we sprinkle it upon the people in Baptism. We take the blood and put it in our ears so that all we hear is God’s Gospel word of forgiveness. We take the blood and spread it around the doorposts of our mouths in His Supper. We are spared by the blood of the Lamb, offered forgiveness for all of our sins, and are made right with God through the sacrifice He gave up for Himself.
We can ask God for forgiveness for He Himself provided the sacrifice, and He makes that sacrifice available to all people, at every time and place, to you. While, yes, you are unholy in your works, you are made holy, a kingdom, priests before God. And now you are called, through Christ’s holiness, to be a priest to others, to forgive their sins, to bring them to their God so that they find the same forgiveness that’s been offered to you.
And where there is forgiveness, there is also life and salvation. We want eternal life? We have it in Jesus Christ, and we will live forever with Him, rescued from sin, death, and the devil, for He is the one who is risen from the dead. He is the one vindicated by God. He is the one who made the perfect sacrifice, which was accepted by God, and pleased God so that He raised Him from the dead. And He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Christ being raised from the dead confirms that what He did was good. His mediation between God and man was good, and it was accepted on behalf of both parties. Both parties are now satisfied. We have both gotten what we have desired. God is still holy, and we are now saved by Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the one who brings us into His kingdom, He is the one who makes us priests, He is the one who makes us like Himself, like God, to be like Him forever. We know that we will be glorified in our bodies as He is glorified, but does He make us like Himself now? Yes. He makes us like Himself now, for we offer forgiveness, we use the keys He has given us to death and hades, and we offer it freely as Christ Himself does, both retaining sins of sinners who are not sorry, and forgiving the sins of a person broken by the Law.
We are made like Him, the one who is both God and man, the one who is as wise as any white-haired person, who stamps down His enemies with burnished bronze feet, who purifies all He sees with fire, who speaks a sharp word to all people, the Law for those who need be cut down, and the Gospel for those who need be brought up, who intercedes to His Father for His Church. We are made like Him forever. For He is alive forevermore, never to die, and so are we, and so shall we be. For indeed, He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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