LETTERS OF HOPE

Sermon Summary (5/2619) “Letters of Hope” (Rev 1-3 (selected))

I first heard about Revelation in Mrs. Nashel’s Sunday School class.  My Sunday School teachers were not purveyors of hope.  Anything fun was sin and needed to be punished.  The punishment was right there in Revelation: huge hail stones, vicious scorpion stings.  As an 8 year old, I had too much baseball yet to play, too much fun to have.

Good news.  I’ve come to understand the Book of Revelation to be a book of hope. 

Many times misinterpreted, we look at the details and miss the big picture.  It would be if we read Ezekiel’s dry bones by examining each bone instead of seeing it as God reconnecting and breathing new life into his children following their exile, we would miss the point  It didn’t mean bone, ie it didn’t mean what it says, it means what it means.  That’s the way we need to view the Heavenly Christ in Revelation 1 and the other visions in later chapters.  We need to be looking for the picture rather than the words.

The message of the heavenly Christ is to the seven churches of Asia, seven a biblical number of completeness, all the churches.  And as we will see, messages for us too. 

The first letter is to Ephesus.  “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”  Have we lost our passion, our enthusiasm for our faith, especially as we have gotten bogged down by the culture that surround us?  Christ calls us to repent, and to do the works we did at first. 

He does commend them for resisting the Nicolaitans.  We can surmise that the Nicolaitans recommended compromise with the culture.  A little temple worship, a little Christianity, a little placating the Emperor, and all would be well.  In what ways might we have compromised with the culture?

The last letter is to Laodicea, a rich community that had rebuilt themselves following an earthquake, so rich that it refused outside help.  They could fend for themselves.  “¹⁵ “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷ For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”

Wow!  Pride. “I can do it myself.”  Again, he calls them to repentance, then extends the hand of hope to all the churches and to us.  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If any hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to them and dine with them and they with me.” 

So may we hear and open the door.   Amen.