The Senior Sermon of Edson Way, Class of 2008 from the Diocese of Northwest Texas, given in Christ Chapel on November 7, 2007

10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, …..for the accuser of our kindred has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. [ Revelation 12:10-11]

REVELATION! How long have I shied away from it…. And apparently not just I myself alone who has done so, for Matthew Henry, the non-conformist commentator, wrote 300 years ago: “It ought to be no prejudice to the credit and authority of this book that it has been rejected by men of corrupt minds, such as Cerdon and Marcion, and doubted of by men of a better character; for this has been the lot of other parts of holy writ, and of the Divine Author of the Scripture himself.”

And so, therefore, to wrest my feet from the mire of such company, even at this late date in my seminary education, I offer myself like Samuel, approaching today’s reading from Revelation, saying: “Here I am: You called me.”

There is a hallucinatory character to this passage from the Book of Revelation, dreamlike, even nightmarish, as the images pile on, a fragmented narrative careening through time: a laboring woman crowned with stars standing on the moon,; a blood-red seven-headed dragon sporting diadems; a male child born to rule with a rod of iron, whisked away to heaven; a cosmic war between the victorious Archangel Michael and his angelic troops, set against the dragon and his own angelic legions, defeated and thrown down to earth; and then that… heavenly voice… proclaiming salvation and power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. They have conquered by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. And then, Rejoice in heaven, but woe on earth, for the devil is here and he’s wrathful… for his time… is short….

There are so many ways to read and interpret this kaleidoscopic vision, this jumble of persons and images. Yet each effort at interpretation and understanding is as personal as our own dreams, our own circumstances, and our own demons. For Matthew Henry this passage is about the Bride of Christ, the queen of heaven, giving birth to the church while the devil waits to consume it. Interesting idea that. It comes from a non-conforming pastor, an early Presbyterian. He is one who remembers the recent reign of Bloody Mary. He speaks as one called to his own ministry in the reign of Elizabeth , holding to his convictions outside of even the broad scope of the Elizabethan Church of England. Interesting, and arresting, when we consider the dangers through which his church has come in his times. No wonder he sees in this passage the birth of the Christian Church… with the devil in attendance.

But what might we then see in this text in these times of ours. We can read with our historical critical eyes. We can benefit from the analytical tools of our own age. We can explore and ponder the reasons behind its authorship….

But in the final analysis we must read it, like Matthew Henry, with the eyes of our own faith and experience.

Now…Numbers are important in Scripture. Numbers, as in the integers, not referring to the Book of that name in this case…. When numbers are mentioned we are advised to consider them carefully. Wilfred Harrington, O.P., the Irish Dominican priest, views the series of numbers cited at the beginning of this passage as crucial to our understanding of the events described here. He sees the passage as encapsulating the entire Christian Promise of a Savior arising out of Israel , enthroned in Heaven and heralding the defeat of sin and death, with our earthly travail as bounded by evil but facing imminent redemption. That’s a load of meaning to carry in just twelve verses. Let’s look.

We begin this passage with the heavenly portent…, the woman, Israel herself, crowned with the twelve stars of the twelve tribes, with the moon at her feet. The Book of Sirach tells us: “It is the moon that marks the changing seasons, governing the times, their everlasting sign. From the moon comes the sign for festal days…” The woman is in labor, crying out, bringing forth a new life, the Messiah as we shall see, and fulfilling the pronouncement in Genesis, ( 3:15 )

to bring forth life out of pain, born in the enmity between her offspring and the serpent in the Garden.

The prophet Micah presages this vision of deliverance when he proclaims:

Micah 4:10 10 Writhe and groan, O daughter Zion, like a woman in labor; for now you shall go forth from the city and camp in the open country; you shall go to Babylon. There you shall be rescued; there the LORD will redeem you from the hands of your enemies.

The other portent in this vision… is Rome , the Imperial occupier of Israel , the pain of the woman. This symbol is a red dragon with seven heads, one for each of the seven hills of the Imperial City . Each head is crowned with the Imperial diadem, and the dragon is adorned with the ten horns of the ten Imperial Provinces established by Caesar Augustus. The tail of such a dragon can sweep away even the stars!

The Roman dragon stands before the woman Israel ,.. ready to devour the child she is to bear. But the child is snatched away and taken to God and to his throne. We know by what means this is to happen. And the dragon has not devoured Him! And the Greek text demonstrates that the throne is indeed the child’s… and not God’s… to which he is being taken up. And the woman flees into the wilderness, another Exodus, where she escapes the power of the dragon and is nourished.

Shift time and place in this dream: War breaks out in heaven between the Dragon and the angel Michael and the forces of good. The dragon and his forces of evil are defeated and there is no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon, Rome ,… now called the devil and Satan the great deceiver,.. is reduced to a merely earthly existence, driven from its lofty pretensions. And the voice from heaven is heard proclaiming salvation and power and the Kingdom of God under the authority of the Messiah.

And how has this victory been achieved? Not by earthly standards of victory, but by the Blood of the Lamb, by the sacrifice. The messiah is brought forth, and is proclaimed as the ruler of the nations,…. to rule with an iron rod. And so that we may be sure to recognize Him we are reminded of the words of the Second Psalm:

Psalm 2:7-10 7 I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, "You are my son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." 10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.

And that Son, despite the dragon’s intentions against Him, despite our human expectation of how his iron rod is to be wielded, He is whisked away to heaven and seated on His throne in the presence of the Father God. And we are to rejoice with those who dwell in heaven.

Luke also invokes portents and signs to herald the heavenly reign… and to announce the joy of our redemption:

Luke 21:25-28 25 "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26 People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

And then the passage in Revelation ends with the words:

“Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows his time is short.” And that is the ultimately optimistic message of this Passage, this encapsulated message of the Christian Promise. It is not some Polly-Anna-ish view of the world, some rose-colored declaration that all is well. It is not well on earth and in the sea of chaos that surrounds us. But the author of Revelation, like the gospeller Luke, tells us that the time of evil is shortly to be ended, that our redemption is brought near.

But How is this so???

Through the sacrifice on the Cross! The most important sentence in this reading for me, the one that sings in my heart, the one that speaks to my condition and to yours, the one that calls us to mission is this:

But they have conquered him, (“evil”), by the Blood of the Lamb and by the Word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life… even in the face of death.

Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God born of a Woman, embraced death,… even a Roman death on the Cross,… to overcome evil. The dragon couldn’t devour Him, even as it killed him. For He wouldn’t stay dead! In His death and by his Resurrection he triumphed over the powers of the earth. He overcame death itself in the world, to assume his throne in heaven. He was born to show us by his life and by his faithfulness, even to death, what it is to see the Kingdom of God . And as the Pascal lamb, sacrificed to overcome evil in the world, sacrificed for us on the hard wood of the Cross,… he conquered. By the Blood of the Lamb temporal evil has been shown to be vanquished. The sacrifice of His death and the new creation of the world by his Resurrection open the doors of eternity,… even to us.

And we, you and me, we also have a responsibility, a charge to fulfill in this victory. For we are told here that it is by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, that evil is conquered. We are called to testify. We are called to give our witness to the truth of His sacrifice. We are called to share our sure knowledge that the dragon was unable to contain Him… and that he ascended up to heaven… and is seated enthroned at the right hand of God.

The Blood of the Lamb is linked to the word of our testimony, for although the great victory has been won, the world still knows Him not, and the forces of evil yet exist in the world. We must speak out to proclaim his sacrifice and to denounce evil where we see it. Look around. We see it. War. Violence in the home. Hunger in the presence of plenty. The strong victimizing the weak. The dragons of our times are out there…waiting. This is the responsibility to which we have been called,… to testify.. every one of us, and this is the reason that every one of us is here today.

“For they did not cling to life, even in the face of death.” Jesus did not cling to life, and he entered life eternal. We, too, have not clung to life,… at least not to the lives that we once led. We have faced the death of many of our worldly desires and ambitions, and we live here together as we prepare to go out into the world, that we may deliver the word of our testimony. And heaven will rejoice when we do, and the devil will be full of wrath, because he knows that his time is short.

So beware out there as you go to testify. Pray!

For as Matthew Henry also wrote: God’s grace can save souls without preaching, but our preaching cannot save them without God’s grace, and that grace must be sought by prayer.”

By the Cross and by the Resurrection a new world order has been created, and the Kingdom of God has been brought near. Rejoice! And as we pray the Daily Office in the Morning in the words of the Prophet Isaiah: Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion , ring out your joy, for the Great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel!

AMEN!