“Salvation for the Living”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 29, 2007
Lectionary Texts: Revelation 7:9-17
It is impossible for us to know the identity of the people described in today’s excerpt from the Revelation to John as “those who have come out of a great ordeal.” The consensus of Modern biblical scholarship is that the last book of the New Testament, like so many other books of the Bible, was composed and assembled in stages over many years, by a variety of writers and editors. Scholars believe that Revelation was completed in its present form toward the end of the first century of the common era. Since we can’t pinpoint the exact date of composition the book, we cannot know for certain to whom the author is referring as “those who have come out of a great ordeal.”
Unfortunately, in our modern times, there is no shortage of well-known candidates for this tragic distinction--the distinction of living in, living through “a great ordeal.”
There are the citizens of Iraq. In four years of war, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in the sectarian slaughter, plus 3,300 US service men and women.
Worse still, the situation in Darfur, in the Sudan. The “great ordeal” there has resulted in 400,000 killed, and more than two million forced to flee their homes. “Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.” Then, of course, there are the 12 million children in Africa, made orphans by the AIDS pandemic— a “great ordeal” for the whole continent of Africa. And here in this country, those who have been through a “great ordeal” include the one million people who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Neither in antiquity nor in our time is there a shortage of suffering. But today I want to lift up to you the beleaguered Christian minority in the Middle East. The Presbyterian Church General Assembly has called for a week of prayer and witness during the “Great Fifty Days” of Easter— prayer and witness this year with and for Christians in the Middle East.
Of course, we hear a great deal about our Arab cousins throughout this region. And our Jewish relations in Israel have enormous support here in the U.S. So we normally give little thought to Christians in “the Cradle of our faith.” Christians living today, as they have for centuries, in fabled Bethlehem, in quiet Nazareth, and in the Holy City of Jerusalem—Christians living as distinct minorities in the very land which gave birth to our faith.
On the first Pentecost, when the disciples were blessed with tongues to tell the good news, one of the languages spoken was Arabic (writes Michael Hirst, in the U.S. Catholic journal, America). So successful was the spread of Christianity across a region that now includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Egypt that by the sixth century it had 15 million followers.
Those 15 million Christians were once 95% of the region’s population. Today, there are still an estimated 12 million Christians in the Middle East, but that number is less than five percent of the population. Five percent and falling, falling fast. In the last decade alone at least two million Christians have left their homes in the Middle East to make new lives for themselves in Europe, Australia, and the Americas. Communities that trace their roots to the first century of Christianity have been diminished, some by as much as 90% over the past century. For Christians in the Middle East this exodus, and the events that have led to it, have been a “great ordeal.”
Why have so many Christians been forced to leave the nations of their birth? The land of Christianity’s birth? Many would point to the rise of fierce Islamic fundamentalism. But Presbyterians closer to the situation “on the ground” in the region say this mass exodus does not stem from a single issue.
The root causes for the declining numbers (they say) are diverse, complex, and often interrelated, including economic necessity, human rights abuses, political repression, corruption in governments, and quality of education.
Christians in the Middle East are caught in the middle. Since America and Europe, strong supporters of Israel, are considered in the Arab world as “Christian nations,” Christian communities in the Middle East have become symbols of the West in the minds of their neighbors. The “clash of civilizations” has left Arab Christians feeling lost in a “no man’s land.” Because of their historical connection, Christian churches in the Middle East often bear the brunt of local anger when the Western Christians are perceived as aggressively hostile to Islam. Examples include President Bush’s ill-chosen use of the word “crusade” in the aftermath of 9/11, reminding the Arab world of the bloody Christian crusades against them during the Middle Ages; and, Pope Benedict XVI’s speech last September, where he quoted strong criticism of Islam. After the Pope’s statement, five churches in the West Bank and Gaza were attacked. In Iraq, two more churches were damaged and two priests were killed.
While Christians in the Middle East get little attention in the press, their mass exodus from the region, the hardships under which they live, and the violence which daily threatens their safety qualify them as among those who are living through “a great ordeal.”
So, we turn to the text, to our excerpt from the book of Revelation, looking for a word of hope for all people who have qualified for membership in the all-too-common society of the suffering. For the Christian minority, hanging by a thread in the Middle East, as well as, for victims of sectarian violence, terrorism, warfare, natural disasters, and cruel diseases of every sort. We look to the text for a word of hope.
Note that the vision described here is of those “who have come out of—those who have survived--the great ordeal.” I interpret that to mean that with God there is a way out—this suffering, whatever it may be, for whomever it may be, is not permanent. It will not last forever. There will be an end to the great ordeal, and today we have a vision of our ultimate destiny. Just how and when John’s vision does not tell us. But our text does tell us where and who.
Where is the very “throne of God.” Those who have survived a great ordeal will stand at the very “throne of God,” and “worship (God) day and night.” And who. . . ? Who will be included in the great congregation gathered at the throne of God? People “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages . . . .” See them, in all their diversity, now together--“all (of these people) robed in white, standing with palm branches, crying out together to God.” In God’s presence, all that separates us from one another—nationality, race, class, and religion—is finally over. “Salvation belongs to our God”—the God of all creation, all nations, all peoples.
Now, I’m afraid some of this may sound like the church’s familiar retreat from the world with “pie in the sky and the sweet bye and bye.” But we can learn something quite significant from a closer examination of this word salvation. The Greek word is soteria. Professor Beverly Gaventa says much is lost when we translate soteria with the single English word, salvation. She says the Greek word has far larger connotations, including rescue from devastation in this world, victory over the oppressive powers of this world, deliverance from danger in the here and now.
Listen to the specifics of the promise here in Revelation 7 for those who have endured a great ordeal: They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat. . . (v. 16)
Hunger, thirst, sun--that describes life on the earth. The promise here is for divine relief from suffering on this earth. And there is more: “For the Lamb . . .will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”(v. 17).
Bottom line here is God’s sacred promise to dwell among us— in the here and now.
No matter how difficult the situation, how intense the pain, how hard the loss, how frightening the circumstances, God is with us, leading us to “springs of the water of life.” God is with us to wipe away every tear from our eyes.
So, what is going to happen to the besieged Christian community in the Middle East? In the previous chapter of Revelation the question is posed: ‘Who can withstand the day of wrath?’ Today, the answer comes: the countless multitudes of God’s faithful will do just that. The faithful will stand because God and God’s lamb will sustain them.
Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”