May 2, 2010
Getting Washed & Staying Clean - Revelation 7:9-17
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadFrom all accounts, the “big one” has finally hit, and it’s worse that anybody imagined. Gulf coast experts have always talked about the potential for a bad one. In fact, those same experts did a drill just last month in Maine to prepare for what they thought could be a bad oil spill. Yet this particular oil spill, which started when the underwater rig, Deepwater Horizon, exploded on April 20th and sank two days later, is now leaking 200,000 gallons of oil per day into the gulf coast. Unlike earlier oil spills, like the Exxon Valdese, for example, this rig keeps leaking. The earliest that it could possibly be stopped, from what I understand, would be in about three weeks. It may take up to three months. And the leak is more than a mile under water. And, the oil that it’s leaking mixes more easily with water, making it harder to clean. And, the weather is bad, pushing all that oil inland to the sensitive Gulf Coast marshes. And, it just happens to be nesting season down there where thousands of animals come this time of year. And, it might even possibly flow all the way around Florida and come up the East Coast.
It is a perfect storm, and it will take years and years for gulf coast to recover. I even heard one expert say, in fact, that the best thing that could happen to the Gulf Coast now would be a hurricane, because it might dilute all that stuff and somehow wash it away. Can you imagine the Gulf Coast wishing for a hurricane?
Before this oil spill happened, the Deepwater Horizon, was supposedly built to last. In the rare event of an explosion or a leak, it was supposedly built with shut off valves that could stop the leak immediately. Those expensive valves and and a buck fifty might get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks now. I have kept up pretty closely with this thing, and from everything I read, it was an accident waiting to happen. As long as you drill for oil, you’re going to have oil spills. And some of those spills will be bad ones. Oil rigs are, by definition, just a few steps away from a complete disaster. It never was a question of if, but when.
According to John here, that’s true for all of us. In Chapter seven, John talks about the whole world going through this terrible ordeal. It’s going to be really bad, John says. Is it judgment? Is it earthquakes, and volcanoes, and droughts? Is it an oil spill? Is it war? We aren’t very sure, at least in my opinion, but this thing is coming, and it’s really bad. Whether it’s God who makes it come, or Satan, or us, I don’t think we know in Revelation. But whatever it is and wherever it comes from, it’s really bad.
Are you ready for it? There is a great multitude, according to John, that is ready for it. People from all over the world, in fact, from all tribes and people and languages are ready for this thing. It’s not that they don’t have to go through anything bad. They go through the same ordeal as everybody else, and in fact, according to the rest of Revelation, it may even be worse in many regards. But the difference is that they survive the ordeal. Those who have been “washed white in the blood of the lamb” are going to survive this thing. I don’t necessarily know how, but they will.
Now if you want me to project exactly what this ordeal is or when it’s going to happen, I’m not going there. I do not know. In fact, Jesus himself even said that nobody knows. I do remember thumbing through my great grandfather’s Bible one day. He was a Baptist preacher, and his career was winding down around the time of national prohibition. I wish I could find his Bible or that article, but this article in his Bible connected the repeal of National Prohibition to the end of the world. Needless to say, the article was wrong, and I would really rather some hot head a hundred years from now not say the same thing about me. I do not know.
But I do know this: Every single one of us is one heartbeat away from total disaster. There are stories of women coming into Church with their husbands, and leaving church as widows because their husbands had a heart attack in Church. That very thing happened at Duke Chapel one Sunday morning. There was a girl in my youth group who married a guy in my youth group and they had two boys. She was very successful in her business, she was raising her two boys, had a good marriage, and was very active church. In fact, she was even a runner. She went to run one morning, and noticed that she had a hard time breathing. So one of her boys called an ambulance, and she has not walked since. She got some sort of virus, they said. Who knows? She is paralyzed from her neck down.
We are a lot like that oil rig that’s pouring oil all over the Gulf Coast. We all go to great lengths to construct these worlds around ourselves, and we some times think that our world is indestructible. Yet, it’s not a question of if we’re going to explode, but when. Your explosion could be the end of the world. It could be, but it may be a car accident, or an illness, or a divorce, or a death in the family. Either way, the bottom is going to fall out one day, you will come unraveled, and your world will turn upside down. I don’t know how and I don’t know when and I don’t know what, exactly. But for all of us, it is coming. Now according to Revelation, God has given us this gift that gets us through this calamity, whatever it is. God has actually given us another Kingdom that can never be turned upside down, because this particular Kingdom is not from here.
In fact, just about all of you have been baptized into that Kingdom. You have God’s seal on you. You have God’s promise. John has a lot of baptismal imagery here, which is no mistake. God has given us some hope beyond the headlines, and the deadlines, and the sidelines, and the receding hairlines that remind us that we’re finite. Whatever ordeal awaits us may be strong, but according to John’s Revelation, and according to our baptism, God is stronger.
But what have you done to cultivate your baptism? Have you read your Bible? Have you prayed today? Do you ever pray? Do you go to Church? Do you hear God’s Word, and do you think about it much? Do you read about it much? Do you ever have anytime alone with God? Married couple often make the discovers after they have children that they need to spend time alone together or things get unraveled. This baptism thing does not end when you get your head dried off. It just starts there. You have a role to play in it. We all have a role to play in each other’s baptisms. The Church has to provide a place where you can come and grow. We have Sunday School, and Bible studies, and circles, and worship, and men’s groups, and women’s groups and youth groups. I’ll be the first to say that we can do better, but we can’t drag you out of bed. We can’t force you to pray. We have been washed, but are we staying clean?
United Methodist Bishop Scott Jones tells us about a guy named George. George is a 50-year-old office worker who loves watching television in his recliner. The most significant exercise he gets is walking to his refrigerator. He’s fifty pounds overweight. While he is watching TV one day, he comes across coverage of the New York City Marathon and thinks, “I can do that.” His town is sponsoring a marathon next week, actually, so he signs up for it, shows up for it, completes the first half-mile, collapses and goes to the hospital. George was not prepared for a marathon.
Now compare George with Steve. Steve, in this article, is a 50-year-old who has never attended Sunday school. He shows up to Church on Christmas and Easter, and maybe a few times in between. He’s on the rolls and he even drops a 20 dollar bill in the offering plate when he comes. In a two month period, Steve’s mother dies, a co-worker converts to Mormonism, and his children start attending the local Pentecostal Church. He is thinking about his career, about his accomplishments & failures, about his family, and about his purpose in life. He thinks about God and what religious beliefs are true and which ones aren’t. So he goes to the place where you find answers to those type questions. He goes to his computer, online, and types “religion” in his search engine, and gets 263 million websites to choose from.
Steve, you see, is just as ill-prepared to tackle that crisis as George was to run that marathon. Steve may have been baptized, but Steve never did anything at all to cultivate that Baptism or to grow in it. He may have been washed, but he’s not all that clean anymore, and he has no earthly idea how to get clean. But, he’s facing this crisis and all these questions that demand some sort of answers, right now.
I, like George, (we’re back to George now) had this great idea to run a marathon in the middle of June. I was semi-prepared to run one in February, but it got snowed out. So I kept running thinking I could do this one in June. But then Lent hit, and then tax season, and then Holy Week, and then a baby. So I decided recently to punt on this one and do one in the fall.
We can do that with a marathon. Life, however, does not give us that luxury. We are that dad-gum oil rig, secured and locked, cool as a cucumber, and yet all hot and bothered, waiting to explode. I’m not trying to scare you, but it’s just true. And it might well be a worst-case scenario. We don’t know. And it might well happen tomorrow. So what are you going to do, google “salvation” and hope you can find some online? Have you been washed? Are you clean? Have you at least considered God’s amazing grace? We have to work on our faith. We have to be ready. The hard times, they are a coming, but God has given us a Kingdom that this world and all of its threats cannot touch. But if you wait for the hard times to hit, and all you have is a shallow faith that’s a mile wide and an inch deep, you’re out of luck. So the world of the oil rig has gone “kaboom.” One day, our little world will go “kaboom,” too. Then what?
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
