Revelation 1,9-18. Last Sunday after Epiphany

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever 

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

Revelation 1,9-18   0918

Letzter Sonntag nach Epiphanias  019

Agnes, Virgin, Martyr at Rome, 304 

21. Januar 2018 

1. О Gracious God, what great mercy You have shown us, direct us to trust in the merit, blood and death of Jesus Christ, so that our faith is grounded upon Him for the certainty of salvation (die Heilsgewißheit) (Starck 138).  Amen.  

2. I, John your brother and partner in the tribulation and the reign and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying: »Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.« Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around His chest. The hairs of His head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, from His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead. But He placed His right hand on me, saying: »Fear not, I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I hold the keys of Death and Hades.«

3. The Gospel according to John does not contain the Transfiguration event like the Synoptics do, but in his Revelation he does describe Jesus in Transfiguration imagery: »in the midst of the lampstands stood one like a Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around His chest. The hairs of His head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, from His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword and His face was like the sun shining in full strength.« This Glorious appearance appears to have been much more majestic than Jesus’ earthly Transfiguration. The first time, John was simply left speechless, but here in his Revelation John fell at Jesus’ feet as though dead. 

4. Matthew 17 and Revelation 1 describe two different levels of Jesus’ Glory. The Gospels describe Jesus’ Glory before His Resurrection; the Revelation describes His Glory after His Resurrection. Luke’s account of the Transfiguration tells us that Jesus, Moses and Elijah spoke about Jesus’ exodus that He was about to complete in Jerusalem (Luke 9,31). The exodus of which these three men discuss is the imminent death of Jesus. Six days earlier, Jesus had discussed this very topic with His disciples, telling them: »I must go up to Jerusalem and endure great suffering at the hands of the elders, chief priests and scribes, be killed, but on the 3. day be raised from the dead« (Matthew 16,21-22). Thus the Transfiguration is about Jesus (Gibbs 867); His path took Him to the cross, the grave and the Resurrection. 

5. John saw Jesus in His Resurrected Glory and put to words what he saw as best he could in his Revelation. Jesus told him: »Fear not, I am the Alpha and the Omega, and the Living One.« He emphasizes His eternal existence and Resurrection. The Apostle Paul uses a title similar to John’s Living One for Jesus; Paul refers to the Living God in his epistle to Timothy, saying: »Christ, the Living God, was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Holy Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the Gentiles, believed on in the world and taken up in Glory« (1. Timothy 3,15-16). Both apostles link the Living One/God title of Jesus to His manifestation of glory of His Resurrection and Ascension. The application is that the Living Jesus gives eternal life in the new heavens and new Earth to all who believe on Him. Jesus told John in  the Revelation: »I died, and behold I am alive forevermore.« Christ gives us the gift of His Resurrection and immortality. 

6. Jesus finally declares: »I hold the keys of Death and Hades.« To John, this was an extremely comforting statement, for when he had received this revelation he was the last living apostle. By the early to mid ad 60s all the apostles had been martyred for their faith in Jesus, thus leaving John the last of the apostles for 25 years. Several persecutions against the Christians had been conducted and John was sentenced to several years of imprisonment on the aisle of Patmos where he received this apocalypse. Jesus manifested Himself to John in Resurrected Glory to assure him that He indeed is the Victor over Death, Hades and the Grave. God the Father declared: »This is My Beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.« at Jesus’ Transfiguration precisely because He would soon conquer Death and the Grave, purchase forgiveness for all the world and redeem mankind from sin and it’s curse. All the Prophets prepared the way for this Divine epiphany. Jesus has fulfilled it, reigns in heaven and promises to preserve the lives of His saints and deliver them from the hands of the wicked (Psalm 97,10). Blessed are those who hear the words of Jesus and keep them, for His 2. advent is near (Revelation 1,3).  Amen. 

7. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, the Eternal Light of God; shine forth before us the path of salvation, so that as we walk this path by faith in You alone we will one day enter the gates of everlasting life.  Amen. 

To God alone be the Glory 

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart. 

ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2013 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. 

The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, Vol. 4. © 1963 Henry Regnery Co. 

VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2013 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. 

Gibbs, Jeffrey A. Matthew 11:2 – 20:34. Copyright © 2010 Concordia Publishing House. 

Starck, Johann Friedrich. Starck’s Prayer Book. Copyright © 2009 Concordia Publishing House.