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Foundry United Rev. |
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“The Great Ordeal” Sunday, November 2,
2008 |
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Revelation 7: 9-17
Rev. |
“Who
are these people?” the writer of the Book of Revelation asks. The answer is
that they are the ones who have come out of the great ordeal. The
great ordeal. In the King James Version of the Bible, it was called the Great
Tribulation, a concept that took on a life of its own in apocalyptic,
end-time thinking. Somebody should do a dissertation. The
original Greek word was qli'yiß [thlip'-sis] which means a pressing, like
pressing grapes to make wine, or pressing apples to make cider. It was a
metaphor for oppression or persecution or suffering. Clearly the sweet passage
in the middle of the book of Revelation was meant to be an encouragement for
those who were being persecuted by the Roman Emperors, Nero and his
successors, who used Christians during the time the book of Revelation was
written the way Hitler used Jews as scapegoats for his own failures of
leadership. In the life to come God
would shelter those who had suffered persecution. God would wipe the tears
from their eyes. There
are those in this congregation who know what it is like to be persecuted for
their faith – for being in a position of responsibility and fulfilling it with
integrity, for being honest, for being black and proud, female and assertive,
gay and open. The
older I get and the more personal stories I hear, the more I am convinced that
we have no idea much of the time what is going on inside the hearts and heads
of others. People who strike us as strong and competent sometimes find it
almost impossible to get out of bed in the morning, and every day is an act
of heroism. Every day they are pressured like grapes in a winepress. People
we would not imagine live with addictions that hammer them daily like nails
in a cross. People who look to us perfectly healthy carry cancers and
physical illnesses in their bodies; they hold their breath from test result
to test result. There are people who function well in the world but inside
their heart is inconsolable grief, unhealed wounds, disappointment,
self-distain, or hopelessness – pressing them in ways we cannot see. I
suspect each of us has our own great ordeal. Don’t misunderstand me, please.
I am not suggesting that there aren’t those who suffer more than others. Life
is not fair. It is unbelievably unfair. We are not all equal when it comes to
pain. I am grateful everyday for my access to health care and knowledge and
medicines that most of the world is denied. There are people – the majority
of the world’s people – who suffer much more than most of us here do. Yet I
cannot help but believe that none of get out of here without our own pain.
Each of us has our own great ordeal. The writer of Revelation is saying that God
knows our ordeals and God honors them. None of
us should cling to our ordeals. For God’s sake, go to the doctor if you have
physical pain, see a therapist or a counselor if you have emotional pain, see
a clergyperson if you have spiritual pain. But not
all ordeals can be healed by medicine or therapy – none of us live our lives
and die our deaths without our ordeals. The book of Revelation says God knows
our ordeals and honors them. It says that it is our ordeals that give us
music to sing and voices to worship. It is our ordeals that bring us into the
presence of God who in Christ knows our ordeals because Christ had his own
great ordeal. I know
a man. You would think he was one of the most successful men in the world.
Inside he carries wounds from childhood you couldn’t imagine. Fortunately he
is getting help but the help is an ordeal. I know
a woman. You would think that she is almost ruthlessly competent. She closes
her office door, turns music onto her computer so no one can hear her, and
weeps almost every day. I pray someday she gets the help she needs. This is
life here and now in this world. Whatever
there is other than this life here and now in this world, I am convinced it
is a realm of music and laughter. There
are tears there, too, but God wipes the tears away. God has tenderly washed
away the tears of those who have gone before us. And God will tenderly wash
away your tears and mine. We know this because God already does. www.foundryumc.org |
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