The text this morning is from John’s Revelation, the 7th chapter:
Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad, 12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar, 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
There is much going on in the text for this morning. Let’s hit everything bit by bit. First of all, remember that the revelation of John is not pronounced “Revelations.” That drives me nuts. It’s not Revelations, it’s Revelation. Just like Psalm 46 is not Psalms 46. It’s one psalm. It’s one revelation.
Second, John has been brought up into heaven to watch all of this play out. Revelation is a hard book to understand and that’s because John, a mortal man, subject to the laws of the universe he has been placed in, is taken into a realm where time does not exist. Seriously, in heaven, there is no time, for God is completely eternal. He is not bound by time in that place. So, when we see John describing things in heaven for us to read here on earth, much of it doesn’t make sense because, while inspired by the Holy Spirit, John may not be able to adequately describe it all to us.
Third, John is witnessing the entire time that earth has existed, from the creation to its final gasp before it is remade. You have to figure out where he is during all of that. That’s another reason as to why this hard: John may be describing things out of order, or certainly jumping between them, or two things at the same time.
Fourth, John is witnessing today the end of time found in the judgments of God against the earth. God pours out His wrath against the evil world through the angels He tasks with that solemn duty. But the wrath of God is held back from completely wiping everything away until the tribes of the sons of Israel are all gathered together.
That’s the big takeaway through this text: God is awaiting the end of the earth, even holding His angels back, even holding His Son back from returning, until all these tribes can come together. And who are these tribes? Well, we know the number is 144,000, a symbolic number coming from 12x12x1000. The first twelve is for the literal sons of Israel, the second for the twelve apostles, and a thousand is like a prophetic age. It means completeness, fullness, wholeness. So, it’s not as if only 144,000 are to be saved; this is the number of the saints from Israel, from the time after the apostles, forever until the end of the earth.
This 144,000 is not a real number, it’s tied to what John says next, it’s a great multitude that no one could number. It’s the 144,000, but more than that. It’s the tribes of the sons of Israel, the Church, coming out of the great tribulation. It’s the Church, gathered together, worshipping their Savior, the Creator, their Sanctifier. There is no numbering that throng, at least not from John’s perspective. It’s huge, it’s massive. And you are there.
The reality is, for most of Scriptures, you’re not involved. Yes, it’s for you, but you’re not any of the actors in the script. You are the reader, the one for who it is all written. Until Revelation. Here, you actually appear on the stage, not as a lead character, but a support character, a background character. You are here, one of the huge, unnumbered throng. And what are you doing? Everything you are supposed to be doing.
You stand before the throne of the Lamb, dressed in the white robe of righteousness, given to you in your Baptism, and you cry out as the people did that first Palm Sunday, “Hosanna in the Highest! Hosanna to the Son of David! Salvation belongs to our God!” This is worship of the highest order. This is seeing God face-to-face and living eternally. This is eternal rest and blest. This is you.
And did you notice what happened after you cry out praise? The angels answer back. You get into a call and response with the angels before God. You worship together with them, in person. What is going to be more amazing than that?
You see, this picture we have of heaven is a blessing. It is showing us the end of time itself, the welcoming into everlasting life. And as Jesus begins His bodily return to His creation, we welcome Him into the world with the palm branches of peace. He comes to us in peace and safety. What does it say? “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Under the protection of our Lord, there is no more need to fear or hurt. But, get this: when we die in this life before Christ returns, we go to heaven, the heaven where God resides. Yet, that’s not our final rest. Our final rest is when we follow with Jesus through the air, back to the ground, where He has remade the earth back to its perfect state. How do I know that? Because the only physical body that has ever resided in heaven is Christ. Enoch and Elijah are translated to heaven, but, in Christ, they shall rise from the dead. Christ’s body is the only one to go there, for He is the firstborn from the dead forever and He is God.
Your body is not meant for the heavenly places,, but for this world. And so it will be, that in the resurrection of the dead, with the new earth, heaven will descend upon this place and we shall be with our Lord forever. Does that mean we worship Him in this manner 24/7? Not really. There’s no time there. Eternally? Yes. Will there be other things to do? I suspect so. I suspect it will be much like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but I can only speculate. What I know is you are there.
And I know you are there, I know you are in this text today, I know John saw you with his own two eyes, because you’re here today. Listen to the prayers around the Sacrament of the Altar. Listen to what we teach you through the service. Did you make the sign of the cross this morning? Did you remember your Baptism in that way?
You see, in the worship service, the divine service of our Lord, we find all of these things from Revelation; they are a foretaste of what is to come in Christ. Even right now, you worship with the angels. They are here, even now, reveling in your worship, for they watch you, the saved ones of Jesus Christ, for they long to look at the beautiful things in this place that you do. They long to worship as you do. They’ll never know what it’s like to be covered in the blood of Christ, for they never need the Lord’s forgiveness. They marvel at you for that. And when you cry out Hosanna, they cry out Alleluia! When you sing of the Lord’s salvation, they cover their eyes and bow down before God and do the same.
And you have the robes of righteousness now. You have been washed in the waters of Baptism. You have been given robes which are washed in His blood, so that you never need fear the stain of sin again.
And the best thing, quite honestly, aside, of course, from being in the presence of Jesus Christ, is that your loved ones, those who died in the faith of Christ, are with you in the time to come but even now. Those who sleep in Christ are not lost to us. They worship the Lord along with us. In a real sense, we have a true communion of the saints, not that magically appear before us and eat the Lord’s Supper, but that they are doing exactly that which we are doing, only they see a bit more fully.
It’s like waking up in the morning, which my wife knows, for me, is a difficult task, and that’s me being extremely nice to myself. I’m impossible to get out of bed. When I first wake up, as when I’m first made, by Christ, a Christian, things are fuzzy. I don’t always know what’s going on. I often can’t really control how I feel, but I usually do the wrong thing, like go back to sleep, or still choose to sin. However, as the clock continues to run, as I get closer and closer to the time when I must, must get out of bed and get ready for the day, I’m a bit more awake. I make some better decisions, but it’s still hard. But when the time comes that I gotta move it or lose it, I’m so much more awake. And if it’s my wife, I’m usually argumentative.
With God, it’s perhaps a bit similar. When we are made Christians, live as Christians, it’s hard. And it is hard in this life. We often choose wrongly. Yet, the idea is that, as we approach the day our Lord chooses to have us fall asleep in Him, things become more and more clear, and we seek after the Lord. I know it doesn’t always work that way, but it should… a but. Then, when we are awaiting the Day of Resurrection, we see things a bit more clearly, but not fully. We see God face-to-face, yes, but not in the way it was intended. Our bodies will await us in the earth, even as our souls await God in heaven. Yet, when the time of fulfillment comes, when the time comes that Christ returns bodily to the earth, we shall be made to see fully.
The saints who have gone before us see better than us, but not yet fully. We pray for the day we may fully see. We pray for the day when the sun does not strike us. We pray for the day of full protection of God. We pray for eternal life to come now.
And certainly, our Lord provides these things now, as a foretaste, a foreshadowing of what is to come. What He has in mind is so much better than we could imagine, so much more incredible than we can imagine, more fantastic than we can describe. We feebly struggle through this life, even to understand these things, but you, in this Revelation, saved from your sin by the death and resurrection of Christ for you, you in glory will shine. And you shall shine in glory, even with all the saints of Christ, the entire Church. We await our Lord and we pray, Come, Lord Jesus. Make us whole. And bring the end of this world that we might see life everlasting. 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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