At a service like this we try to make no assumptions about how much you believe as far as the Christian faith is concerned, and I’m sorry if you feel we have been making some assumptions: I’m going to try my hardest in the next 20 minutes to make no such assumptions at all – except for this one: that you are open to the possibility that there might be a God.
If this box [fig.1] represents all that you or I know, then I think all of us would agree that it’s not coterminous with all that can be known [fig.2].
And so, even if I have no certain sense or knowledge of God within my own experience and understanding at the moment, it remains possible that there may be a God, who is as yet outside my knowledge and experience [fig.3].
I was chatting with someone last week who, while I
don’t think he would disagree with those three diagrams, did say that he was
nevertheless not open to the possibility that he might meet God himself. I
tried to show him that such an attitude was the product of his will and not his
intellect [fig.m]. He had
actually made a moral choice, that as far as he was concerned there would
be no God: not that there could not be a God, but that there would
not be one. He was not open to the possibility.
It’s my hope that you are prepared to remain open to that possibility – whether it’s very remote as far as you are concerned at this moment (God’s never really impinged on your life at all up until now, but you remain open to the possibility that He might just exist, nonetheless). Or whether you have a sense that God has been there, lurking in the background all your life, but somehow you have never yet met Him for yourself – you have never come face to face with Him – He has never become real to you.
And I want to ask you to look with me in an unlikely place in the Bible, this strange final book of the Bible, and at what the writer, John, saw when he turned round to see who it was that had just addressed him in a loud voice like a trumpet.
(1) The Vision John saw
‘I turned round to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash round his chest’ (Revelations 1:12, 13). This writer, John, was one of those who had actually known Jesus as a man in Palestine. But the figure he now saw, while he was ‘like a son of man’, was clearly far more than mere man: ‘His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance’ (vv. 14–16). You may think it would have been easier to believe, if only we could have had the chance to meet the real Jesus in the flesh: to hear Him teaching by the Sea of Galilee all those years ago, perhaps. But, you know, I doubt it. Many, many years ago I rowed once with a guy who went on, a few years later, to win an Olympic gold medal and a World gold medal. If you had told us at the time that Mike was going to go on to do that, we would have laughed at you. Our assumption was actually that he was the one who was stopping the boat: but he was clearly the guy to whom we owed about 80% of our speed! God did once walk on the surface of this planet, but I’m not sure that if we had been there at the time we would have recognised Him. I couldn’t even recognize a future Olympic oarsman when he rowed two places down from me in an VIII (they say familiarity breeds contempt). How much less God in human form!
But at this point for John, the truth of Jesus’ identity is made clear: undeniably so. The language is symbolic but its meaning is obvious: ‘His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters [I don’t know if some of us will have been close to the Victoria Falls, or the Niagara Falls: that’s the sound that’s being referred to here]. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.’ Do you remember all those strident warnings that were given four years ago before that total eclipse of the sun: warnings not to look straight at it or it would fry our eyeballs (or something like that). No wonder we read in verse 17: ‘When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead’ (v. 17a).
When a human being comes face to face with God (the
Creator who brought this whole universe into being), we will not feel like
shaking hands with Him. Something deep within me tells me that I have no right
to be there in the presence of such a One – no more than a cowpat or dog’s turd
off Midsummer Common would have a right to be in an operating theatre in
Addenbrooke’s Hospital. My awareness of my own moral failure tells me that I
have no place in God’s presence. In fact it is what locks me within that box
[fig.n].
I may have great confidence in my knowledge, but I do not have great confidence in my own goodness. And the reason that I don’t know God and maybe that I refuse to acknowledge that there may be a God, is because I am not good enough for God. Sin and Death lock me up in that little box of my own knowledge and experience and keep me from any relationship with God. And so John fell at His feet as though dead, when he realised that it was Jesus who was God and who was speaking to him – and that the box had been opened.
Now you and I can’t see that sight. It was granted to one man nearly 2,000 years ago on a small, rocky island off the Turkish coast. We cannot see it, but we can hear about it.
2) The Message we hear
Twice in this passage John is told to write what he saw: ‘. . . a loud voice like a trumpet which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches . . .’ (vv. 10b, 11a). Then in verse 19: “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.’ The message reaches us in words. Pictures, sights, visions are vivid; but words make meaning clear. Words are the clearest means of communication available to us.
They don’t always work – one couple after a row were not speaking to each other, but the man had to be up for an urgent business meeting next day and his wife usually woke first. Not wanting to be the first to break the frosty silence in the household, he left a note on her pillow which said: ‘Urgent meeting – get me up at 7.00.’ He woke at 9.00, distraught and furious – to find a note on the pillow beside him: ‘It’s 7.00. Get up!’
Many years ago one of our children came home from
playschool with this picture. I’ve traced it carefully, this is not the
original, But it looked exactly like that. Unexceptional, I think you’ll agree.
We did not assume we had an infant Van Gogh on our hands at the time. If you
haven’t yet got to this stage in your life, let me assure you that there are
fridges all over Cambridge with pictures that look like that ‘magneted’ on to
them. Let me give you a further little tip (this is nothing to do with the
sermon this morning, but it is just a little something for future life) when a
child of yours (if so be it happens) comes home with a picture like that, don’t
look at it and say, “What on earth is that?!!” This is the valuable tip you
need to remember: you say, “Tell me about it!” But in the case of this
particular picture when it came home, on it the teacher had already written on
it these words: ‘Snakes with their daddy.’ You see, the words did it all,
didn’t they? They made sense of it for us. And it is God’s words to us
that make sense of what He has done for us. Without the words, without
the spoken message, we would not be able to make sense of it. That’s why the
spoken message is important.
Now notice what it was that Jesus said to John: ‘When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he [that is the risen Jesus] placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” ’ (vv. 17, 18). “I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” The death and the resurrection of Jesus are the keys that unlock that prison in which I find myself, that little dungeon of a box of my own ego, my own knowledge, my own experience, my own life, my own selfishness; that little kingdom that I rule for myself and to myself; and that I know cannot possibly match up to the moral standards of a perfectly holy God [fig.n]. It is actually right, it is actually just, that I should be sealed shut by death; and that I should be kept from a relationship with Him for ever.
But why then did Jesus die? No moral failure ever
marred His life. There was no moment in His life when he was cut off
from God, until He uttered an awful cry just as he died on a cross: “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He entered
that box of death for you and for me. There was no box round His life: it was
always open to God, unlike yours and mine. Our sins cut Him off from God, His
Father, in death. But death could not hold Him: “I am the Living One; I was dead,
and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and
Hades.” When Jesus rose from the dead, He didn’t just burst through the
prison gates. He called at the Porter’s Lodge and He collected all the keys,
every one of them. And He holds them now. So the box can be opened [fig.o] and I can know God – not just as an idea, a theory,
a proposition; not just as the best explanation there is for how things are:
but as a Person; I can know God in His Son Jesus. And the key that unlocks the
box is the Cross of Christ [fig.p].
John saw a vision of Jesus as God and Man. We hear a message of Jesus as the One who holds the key to death and life.
3) What response will we make? The Response I make
Notice John first heard: ‘On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet . . .’ (v. 10a).
He heard, and then he turned to see: ‘I turned round to see the voice that was speaking to me . . .’ (v. 12a).
When he saw him, he fell at His feet: ‘When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.’ (v. 17a).
He heard, he turned to see and then he fell, acknowledging who it was who was speaking to him.
If you will forgive me for saying so, I don’t think there is anybody present in this room now who has not heard. You’ve come that far whether you’ve wanted to or not (unless you’ve been asleep these last 18 minutes or so), because as best as I am able I have been sharing this message with you in words.
But turning to see (John’s second stage) may be a little more than listening to a sermon. I guess it implies a willingness to confront what is being said, to look at it, to consider it, to think it through. If you are studying here in Cambridge, it is a wonderful opportunity to consider these sorts of things further. You’ve got friends to argue with, talks to listen to, courses to attend. We are about to start one (called Arena) at Caffè Nero on Monday evenings. I wonder if you think you are open to the possibility of God’s existence. How can you really know that, if you’re not prepared to consider this sort of course? We’re going to work our way through one of the gospels, and sit around tables and talk about any question you can raise. No assumptions will be made. May I suggest that that might be an appropriate way to turn and to look, as John did?
But when John had turned, and he saw Who it was speaking to him, then: ‘When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.’ What John had just encountered was greater than anything else. It overpowered him entirely. The reality of God must do that for everyone of us, mustn’t it? There is something out there beyond the box of my own knowledge and experience, infinitely greater than me. If you are open to that possibility, then you have to be open to the possibility that it will overpower you. And it will have to change the whole of your life: every thought you think, every word you say; every action we take is going to have to come under this God, if He is really there.
Notice that John, having fallen as if he were dead, is not left lying there. He’s touched by the hand of Jesus: ‘Then he placed his right hand on me and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” ’ (vv. 17b, 18). John had heard, he’d turned, he’d fallen; but then Jesus touched him. There are several hundred people here in this room at this moment who could stand up and say, “Yes, to know God through Jesus is wonderful.” It is wonderful: it happened to me and it changed my life – it has never been the same since that day. It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me by a million miles. The wonderful, life-giving, life-changing nature of the touch of Jesus Christ upon a human life. If you’ve not felt it yet, I want to say to you today that there is life outside the box of your own knowledge and experience. It is worth seeking the key to unlock it. Don’t be content, please, with mere religion. Whatever your present knowledge and experience of it is, if it isn’t a living relationship with God, don’t be content with that. Because that is not all there is in this universe (as many people present here would also tell you). There’s a living God. And He has a purpose for your life and for mine.
(All scripture quoted is from the New International Version of the Bible unless otherwise stated.)