"LAMB POWER"
Revelation 5: 1-14

There is nothing more exciting and uplifting than magnificent worship. Last week’s worship was a picture of heaven if I ever saw one. Youth and adults, diverse expressions of music, drama, the spoken word, art and architecture – a wonderful diversity of experience offered up to God in praise. And if it can be made wonderful here, just think what it would be like in the direct presence of God, the heavenly hosts, and the people of God from all times and places! Beginning in chapter 4 of the book of Revelation, John is privileged to gaze upon worship in heaven, and it’s so diverse – animals, angels, torches, peals of thunder, elders, jewelry, a rainbow that looks like an emerald. It’s a kaleidoscope of color and creation. Nothing could go wrong here; after all, it’s heaven, we see.

So we think – until we reach chapter 5, where the worshippers prepare to hear the Word of God. God is on the throne, and God has a scroll. It is a message for us. The scroll contains God’s will, God’s purposes. This scroll will answer our deepest questions: "Why do we suffer? Why is their so much evil in the world? Why can we not overcome our love-affair with violence and death?" Scrolls are what contained God’s word in ancient times.

But who can open it? Who is truly worthy? A strong angel steps forward to ask that question: "Who is worthy to open the scroll and to break it seals?" And the answer from the text is: No one! Here’s the dilemma. Who is worthy to open this scroll and proclaim what is upon it? Not your favorite TV preacher, not your pastor, or favorite scholar! Nobody has the hotline to God! Nobody has a claim on God’s truth; nobody can claim they are worthy to open God’s Word.

Then John says: "I began to weep bitterly." John is weeping because his fellow Christians are suffering from Roman violence, and he can’t understand it. John cannot understand why his people are suffering. Do you ever weep? I find myself weeping a lot these days. I weep over our dead soldiers in Iraq. I weep over dead Iraqi civilians. I weep over innocent Israeli’s who are murdered by bombs. I weep because Palestinians are denied justice. I weep because violence and war are seen as the solution to evil in the world. I weep with the still weeping families of those killed at Virginia Tech . I weep because it is so senseless. And I weep because I need answers. I weep because there must be truth somewhere at the heart of reality. I weep because the scroll – the Bible – needs to be opened. And if we could only unlock it, open it, we would find hope.

Such weeping shouldn’t be strange to you either. Aren’t there things in your life you don’t understand? Do you feel paralyzed at times by the world, by struggles so deep that you just want to break down and cry? You work hard, you try your best, you put your best foot forward, and it is all thrown back in your face. You’ve been moral and good, but all you’ve got to show for it is a string of failures. Those with power and influence trample the weak and oppress the powerless. And so we weep, or we should.

Is there no one who can open this scroll and make sense of evil?

In the scene, an old man then strides forward and says that he has the answer. "Don’t weep! Don’t cry! There is one who can open the scroll. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, can open the scroll. This is the conqueror, the victor!" Finally, someone who will tell us the truth!

Lion and conquer – these two words lead us to believe that a fierce animal will appear to open the scroll, like the conquering lion of a Roman coliseum, devouring persecuted Christians.

Amen! That’s what I need to hear: that in the face of evil, we need a roaring lion, someone who can beat up on evil, bash the bashers. Lion power! That’s what we need in our evil world: strong people who can take control of bad situations, leaders who aren’t afraid of stepping out in front of danger and strong-arming the situation, conquering and giving evil a bloody nose. That’s what we need personally when the going gets tough – just true grit. Make us into a swaggering lion of a John Wayne who can conquer it all. That’s what we need. That’s what we want to hear, isn’t it? Or its it?

This is the language the world understands. This is the language our enemies understand. The language of power – it’s the language of history. Lions have no enemies. They bust the chops of their enemies because they don’t tolerate enemies. That’s the answer we need: Lord, give us the lion, for our enemies are all around us!

So the text in Revelation builds like a tense drama to this point of weeping and the dramatic announcement that the conquering lion will now appear to unlock the secret of God’s will in an evil world. The drum is rolling, and the curtain is opening. You can hear the heavenly announcer: "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, we are waiting in the inner sanctum of the Lord God Almighty, waiting for that great moment when the will of God will be disclosed for all time. We’ve been told that the Lion of Judah will be opening the very scroll to give us insight into the mystery hidden from all eternity. The curtain is now opening. I see something. Wait. What is this I see? I see something between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders. But it’s not a lion. It’s a lamb standing as if it’s been slaughtered. It’s got a bloody nose, and it is drenched in blood. I don’t understand."

The text has built to this climax. We expect a lion, but what we get … is a lamb. We want a strong powerful lion-figure to save our world, but what we get … is a lamb. Actually the Greek word that John uses is not just "lamb", but the diminutive for lamb, a word, like "lambkin" or "little lamb". As one writer suggests, we want Leo the Lion, but instead we get "Fluffy" the Lamb, drenched in blood, beaten to a pulp.¹

A lamb! The lamb moves forward and takes the scroll, and all the living creatures and the twenty-four elders, symbolizing all the people of God, all fall before the Lamb and they sing, not the old song of Lion power, but a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals … Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered … To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever."

A world is turned upside down by this revelation. It is not God and the Lion who will conquer. It is God and the Lamb. The Lion is the Lamb. That’s a whole new way to understand God and God’s power. A slaughtered Lamb, the Crucified Christ, is the hidden meaning of history.

It is the Crucified Christ who conquers. Victory comes through his sacrifice. The Crucified Christ is at the heart of the world’s mystery. It is written all over the Bible if only we open our eyes to see it. Paul the Apostle proclaims: "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." (I Cor. 2.2) It sounds so crazy, and it stretches our credulity, but Paul also says in the same letter: "For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength."

And then we think, well, hold on! Lion power does serve some purposes in the world. It can corral the wrongdoer, bring them to justice, quell a riot, and might even win a war. But Lion Power will not change the world. Lion Power will not transform this world into the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Lion Power will not bring lasting peace or justice. It takes Lamb Power to do that. It was the Lamb who said, "Love your enemies. Do good to those who persecute you." It was the Lamb of God who traveled from heaven to earth to be with hostile people, to point them to a new way of living and loving. This is a God who becomes one of us, entering pain and suffering, to bring life. It is not a God who conquers with violence or wins the hearts of people through compulsion. It was the Lamb who, on the cross, embraced his enemies, refusing to return evil for evil, who turned violence on its head and who exposed evil as a bankrupt power. He died at the hands of violent people, but his death was a victory. Sure it killed, but one write says, "That’s how we know he won … It caused his death but it got none of his life. His life belonged to God who sent him to show us another way to live."³ It was this Lamb who was raised by God three days later, vindicating his life of suffering love. It is a Lamb, a slaughtered Lamb, the Christ, not a Lion, who lives within the heart of God eternally.

So Lamb Power then is a new life oriented around the Lamb of God. And we can have that Lamb Power too. It was Paul, one of the Lamb’s followers, who said in the letter to the Romans, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves …‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this, you will heap burning coals on their head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."(Romans 12.19-21)

"Overcome evil with good." Come on, we don’t really believe that, do we? That’s good church talk, just pious-Sunday-morning blather, but it really doesn’t work in the real world when there are lions ready to devour you, terrorists around the corner, empires worse than the Romans, a chaotic world where we beat up on each other just to get ahead.

Let’s get practical here, and bring the notion of Lamb Power right into our present world. All the armies in the world will not bring about the power of love to change the hearts of people. Lt. Colonel Robert Bowman, who flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam, and who knew something about the power of the Lion, knew something also about the power of the Lamb when he wrote 3 years before September 11, 2001, "Only one thing has ever ended a terrorist campaign – denying the terrorist organization the support of the larger community it represents. And the only way to do that is to listen to and alleviate the legitimate grievances of the people."² The power of the Lamb, love poured out for our enemies, leads us to ask those questions and to seek answers.

Here is the mystery that the scroll, i.e. the Bible, holds: it is only love that is victorious. It is the power of weakness and the weakness of power that is strong and victorious. It is the secret that runs the universe: love poured out for others brings life. Think about who really wins in the end: Jesus or Caesar? Martin Luther King or the Ku Klux Klan? Mahatma Gandhi or the British Empire? Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Adolf Hitler? Its this truth that gives us hope when we weep at the world’s love affair with violence.

We are called to sing this new song. I’ll admit up front that the Lamb’s song has rarely been sung. But this song cannot be quenched. The song of a God who lets the world flay him and slaughter him will not be silenced by all the voices that call for Lion Power, for we are not without hope. For one day the new song will be sung in triumph. All the creatures of our God and King will sing the song of triumph: "And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the seas, and all therein, saying, "To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!"