Celebrating
the Victory of God
Revelation
1:1-8
A Sermon
Preached by
First of a
five-part series on Revelation
University
Congregational United
In the beginning, we know the end of the
story:
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the one who
is and who was and who is to come.
(Revelation 1:8)
We know at the beginning, the assurance of
the victory of God.
That though all hell will break loose (and it
will!) in the book of Revelation,
that God is,
God was,
and God is to come.
That promise is never in doubt.
And that promise rises as a song amidst the
destruction of Revelation.
There is pain, death and much that is
terrible in the book of Revelation, but there is not word of despair in
it. For the victory of God is assured.
By the victory of God, I mean:
Though all is taken away, God is there;
Though human hands fail, God’s hand does not.
This past week, I, and some of you, have
known something of “much being taken away”, and of the
“failure of human hands”.
In such times as these, what assures me, what
may assure us, of the assured presence and hand of God?
I have been thinking on this often this
week. And I have come to recognize that
I believe in the “victory of God” because of Worship and Community.
By ourselves we can’t “get it”. But in worship and community, we can know
that the promise of God is true.
Let me tell you how it is:
Last Sunday, I came to worship exhausted, depleted,
and grieving. The day before, Sarita Mullins-Williams had taken her life. I had spent that afternoon to
I came to worship in great need. And if we are honest, at our core, we all
come to worship in great need - whether we know the extent of that need or
not.
At times like this, we need to fall back on
worship to catch us.
Last Sunday, like every Sunday we had to
begin our worship in praise. The
preschoolers were there with us and we needed to begin with joy and celebration
and thanksgiving and Martha Coleman dancing in the center aisle to the introit. That is how worship begins, in praise, in
thanks.
We had to rise out of our depths to the
rhythm of worship - to praise, confession (where we named Sarita’s
death as we were reminded of our great need for God), listening for God’s word,
and offering our response to God. Our
response which includes the covenant promises we make each week “to walk with
each other in trials of the spirit and in times of joy”.
That ancient rhythm of how life is.
It caught us, it
caught me with the news that broke our hearts.
The rhythm and song of worship reminded us once again of the very
promises of God.
Worship carried us through as we rested and
trusted in it. It grounded us, and
helped move us through a time of shock and grief.
The assurance of God’s presence and hand -
there, made real in worship.
And we can know that assurance of God through
community.
A week and a half ago I was with my family in
I ended my letter by writing this:
And finally, Cheryl (my cousin) remembered
Auntie Helen’s scotch-a-roos and little cheesecakes
with blueberry and strawberry topping.
As Cheryl said, the history of our family could be told in food! There is something very wonderful in that -
for over the years we have done a lot of eating together - something many
families rarely, if ever, do together anymore.
That is what made last Thursday, the day of the memorial service, a gift
– a coming together in the vestry to have food and share food together. That is what made last Wednesday a gift - at
the break in the middle of the visiting hours, going to Friendly’s
with Uncle Charlie, Auntie Marion, Auntie Jo, Auntie Shirl,
Auntie Phyl, Mom and Dad. Many meals around many tables over many, many
years.
The last couple of days have been hard ones
and wonderful ones too. Lots of tears,
lots of giving thanks. Lots of coming
together and being together, and lots of recognizing that someone is missing
around the table. Lots we have known how
to share and speak of, and lots we haven’t known how to. Lots of stories and lots of memories. A lot of care and compassion and love in and
between it all.
I think of you all today, as we all step back
into what we all “do” in our grief in our separate ways - as we keep busy, as
we keep on keeping on, as we pause now and again and grieve and cry, as we
forget and remember, remember and forget again and again. As that slow work of grief turns in us all.
I feel all the more blessed today for family,
for all of you, and for what holds, binds, cannot be taken away, amidst all
that is. Something of that very
“persistent” love of God which we know here and now in the love of each
other. A love that despite all, even
death itself, cannot, will not, be taken from us.
My love to you all,
Peter
Vincent Van Gogh wrote, “It is true there is
an ebb and flow, but the sea remains the sea.” Built deep into the fabric of
life and death, sadness and joy, guilt and gratitude, failure and success is
the unwavering love of God. A Presence,
a Love made real in worship and community.
Let us fall back on that promise as we come together in prayer.
Oh God, although we experience many ups and
downs in our emotions and often feel great shifts and changes in our inner
life, you remain the same. Your sameness
is not the sameness of a rock, but the sameness of a faithful lover. Out of your love we came to life, by your
love we are sustained, and to your love we are always called back. There are days of sadness and days of joy,
there are feelings of guilt and feelings of gratitude, there are moments of
failure and moments of success, but all of them are embraced by your unwavering
love.
Our only real temptation is to doubt your
love, to think of ourselves as beyond the reach of your love, to remove
ourselves from the healing radiance of your love. To do those things is to move into the
darkness of despair.
O Lord sea of love and goodness, let us not
fear too much the storms and winds of our daily life,
but let us know that there is ebb and flow but that the sea remains the
sea. Amen.
Prayer adapted from a prayer of Henri Nouwen in Seeds of Hope