Revealing Easter
This is a big week for Christians across the globe, as it is Holy Week: the week remembering and celebrating Jesus’ death and resurrection. I hope you’re able to come to our Good Friday service on Friday night, 7PM. It should be special. I also hope to see you on Sunday for Easter – both at sunrise at the harbor (6:00AM!) and for our own Easter service at 9:30AM. Details below.
It’s also a big week, because this week is the last of our 5-part Revelation class (tonight at 7PM!). If you’ve missed any of the weeks, you can watch them via the links below.
One of the things that has struck me throughout the class is the intersection of Easter and resurrection, with Revelation. Let me share with you three ways this comes out.
First,
the central image of the entire book of Revelation is that of the risen Jesus, who is the slaughtered Lamb that is nevertheless standing (Rev. 5:6). The Lamb of God – who died to takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) – was slain, and yet, he’s standing – alive. It’s Good Friday and Easter in one image – and it’s the most important one in the book, as the new life of Easter is the shocking reversal of the death of Good Friday. As Richard Hays puts it,
“The shock of this reversal discloses the central mystery of the Apocalypse: God overcomes the world not through a show of force but through the suffering and death of Jesus, “the faithful witness”.
Death itself – along with evil and all of its ferocious beasts – is conquered through Jesus’ giving of his own life over to death, leading to resurrection.
Second,
the heartbeat of Revelation is the drama behind the question, ‘what will finally result in God getting what he wants, i.e., the repentance of the world?’. Plagues and bowls of wrath don’t seem to result in what God wants. So what does? What is revealed on the scroll of the Lamb?
What is God’s ultimate plan to save the world?
It is when Jesus followers – the church – live resurrected lives now, in the midst of a broken and painful world, showing the world the power of the God of resurrection in us and through us.
And it’s not what we expected.
This is dramatized (Rev. 11:1-13) with a strange image of two witnesses being killed by the beast behind this broken world, left for dead (with their execution being mockingly celebrated), where three and a half days later, God raises them to new life.
The world sees their resurrected lives – and the power of the God of resurrection working in and through them – and leads to 9/10th of people giving glory to God.
God’s plan to lead the world back to himself involves Christians living resurrected lives today, being faithful and life-giving witnesses to the resurrected Jesus and the God of resurrection. As I said on Sunday,
It’s what the world is waiting for.
Third,
it’s all in anticipation of the final resurrection in Revelation 20-22…not just of people, but of the entire creation. As Jesus says in Rev. 21:5,
Behold, I am making all things new!
The imagery of the new creation, new heaven and new earth, and the new Jerusalem is fantastic, inspiring, and humbling – and it is simply a reflection of the truth that
What happened to Jesus on Easter, will happen to all of creation at the end…or rather, at the new beginning.
Can you see how Revelation is a big riff on Easter?
Jesus, the slain Lamb, is raised by God.
The church, though suffering, is raised as a witness to God and to the Lamb.
The entire creation, though broken, is raised and made new to live in the presence of God and the Lamb.
And all will be well: tears wiped away, pain no more, healed.