All Saints Day: Standing Room Only

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands [Revelation 7:9, a portion of the First Reading For All Saints Day, Revelation 7:9-17, RCL, Year A].

When it comes to the final book in the Bible, I follow the lead of John Calvin, the important theologian in the second generation of the Protestant Reformation. Like Calvin, I avoid it. Calvin wrote a commentary on every book in the New Testament except the last. And while I set aside structured time each week to study Holy Scripture, I tend to stay away from The Revelation to John.

I do so primarily because the book so often serves as a lightning rod for Biblical debate. The secular world, and many Christians alike, see the Revelation to John primarily as a road map for the end of the world. Reading it that way, however, effectively means that this final segment of Holy Scripture meant little to all the generations who have lived and died before us, since they didn’t live in the “End Times.”

I believe instead that John of Patmos—told to do so by God—wrote to a group of humble, marginalized people trying to survive and resist the Roman Empire during the mid-90s AD. John wrote the text at a time and place in which the empire mandated alternative secular liturgies to mold and shape its people.

For example, the empire told its citizens—and those under its powerful thumb—that certain designations were vitally important. Within what bordered area did you live (i.e., Rome, Palestine, elsewhere)? What was your ethnicity (i.e., Roman-born, Greek, Jew, Asian)? What was your social status (i.e., rich, poor, slave, free, male, female)? In what or whom did you believe (i.e., would you declare that “Caesar is Lord)?

In the final book of the Holy Canon, John of Patmos offers an alternative view to so-called Roman reality. What is more, John’s alternative stands in stark contrast to any view that sees God’s everlasting Kingdom as exclusive and limited. Today’s reading, which serves as an interlude between the opening of the famous sixth and seventh seals in Heaven, follows a pattern of Jesus’ ministry—a pattern which at every moment expands so as to include the marginalized instead of excluding them.

Even where John’s words appear to be be limiting, his vision offers something quite to the contrary. For example, in the opening verses of chapter 7, those not included in today’s reading, John appears to say that out of all humanity—the 7.9 billion who are currently alive, the countless souls who have formerly lived and died throughout history, and those who are yet to be conceived—only 144,000 souls, 12,000 each for the 12 tribes of Israel—will be “sealed” [7:4].

Yet, is that what does John actually sees? In today’s lesson, he sees rather a multitude so grand that it cannot be counted, “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and the Lamb” [7:9]. The multitude is not designated by borders, by ethnicity, by social status, by denominational belief, or any other category of exclusion. It is a totally new community.

Well, what solidifies this new community, if not the familiar categories constructed by those in earthly authority? John sees that the multitude are solidified by the One in whose presence they stand. They are joined together not by human fiat, not by social pressure, not by the level of resources they may enjoy; they are joined by God’s Grace. They are robed in white. They hold palm branches. They sing not of a lord named Caesar, but rather of a true Lord named Christ.

In the time of Rome, those in charge protected some and violated others. They chose some as worthy. They chose others as outcasts. Has anything really changed? The Roman world was adversative; the Lamb’s Kingdom is One. It is “bound” only by God’s boundless Love.

John’s expansive vision follows that of Jesus. In the first century, any devout Jew acknowledged that he or she should share love and concern for a neighbor. Yet, the definition of “neighbor” was itself exclusive and limiting. Only a fellow Jew was considered a neighbor. With His parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus stressed that those whom we consider beyond the bonds of neighbor are instead to be embraced. Under Jesus’ vision, you are a neighbor even If you live on the wrong side of the tracks, the wrong side of our country, the wrong side of our planet, or—dare I say it—the wrong side of the birth canal. Jesus sees us all as neighbors. The divisions so carefully constructed by our society are invisible to Him. John’s vision in today’s reading is similarly expansive as he sees the multitude who stand before the Lamb.

The empire within which we live seeks to divide us. On many occasions, it is quite successful. It offers a secular theology that only some lives matter. It preaches that we are automatically privileged or burdened by the level of melanin in our bodies. It judges that some of us are toxic. It often values the academic suffixes behind our names often more than the character within our hearts.

The Lamb offers a different point of view. He offers a Heavenly Kingdom that never pits one against another, a Kingdom based not upon antagonist forces, but rather upon sacrificial love. The Lamb acknowledges the costs of bucking the system, of standing before Him instead of kneeling before the gods our society has erected. He acknowledges that it is generally much easier just to go along and get along.

Instead, He offers impossible robes of white [7:13]. “Impossible” I say, not because we deserve purity, but because these special robes have been cleansed in His blood [7:14]. The contradiction of His claim is powerful. Those who stand before the Lamb hunger and thirst no more [7:16].

The world offers alternative secular liturgies to mold and shape its people. The Christ offers a different worldview, a view in which the Lamb and the Shepherd are One [9:17]. Christ offers an alternative world that under His rule lasts forever. It’s a world where there is plenty of room and yet, because we are singing His praises, there’s standing room only.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.