I like the contemporary wording of the Beatitudes as was read in The Message translation of the Gospel this morning:
When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were
apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:
You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. / You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you. / You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought. / You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat. / You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared / for You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. / You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. / That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family. / You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!— / for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
Praising those who would get into the good kind of trouble resonates with me, today in particular, on All Saints Day. The Blessing Ceremony of Pastor Ray's Memorial Alaskan Cedar on Thursday afternoon did as well, together with the photos of Creator saints that were honored together with many others at today's service.
What surprised me was that the scripture that spoke to me at this moment was the reading from the First Reading: Revelation 7:9-17 and, in particular, verses 11-14
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures,
and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These
are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
I was surprised because, for one, I normally don't understand Revelation images as I encounter them. I feel like they all mean something else and I need to do the research to "decode them". The second is my aversion to the particular image of being made pure by the blood of Jesus. This is a central image in these verses. The power of blood sacrifice is not something I understand or like to contemplate.
Yet, and perhaps this was because of the pandemic and 2020 being in my thoughts, I thought about this as describing the way of that God's power is made manifest through Jesus. Those who worship God are described as coming through a great ordeal that they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
We often speak of God's power in our lives. When describing how that power is made manifest through Jesus there is a tendency to focus on his resurrection as God's powerful affirmation of Jesus and his teachings. In his life, however, Jesus did go through great ordeals. He was misunderstood by his followers, arrested, tortured, betrayed and died. This is why I am uncomfortable with accepting Jesus as a political figure. In terms of confrontation with the power of politics during his life, he loses big time according to anything that could be observed by the world.
This big time loss is scandalous and doesn't make sense in our everyday life, any more than washing a robe in blood will make it white. Any more than Jesus as shepherd is also the lamb. This is the last made first and the first made last being evoked, a fundamental truth of God's power that most of us cannot accept at face value because of the way we live and observe others living.
The white-robed multitude in Revelation sings songs. They have gone through their ordeals and kept their eyes fixed on Jesus. The blood can be understood as sacrifice but today this is about being washed in the way of compassion through Jesus by following his lead. Their hymns voice counter-imperial claims, saying that salvation, blessing, glory and power belong to God alone. Revelation describes here, a new Exodus, not in Egypt, but in the heart of the Roman Empire. Led by the Shepherd-Lamb Jesus, God calls Christians to “come out” of Rome (Revelation 18:4), in the same way that the Israelites came out of Egypt. The blood on the doorposts was always both an acknowledgement of God's power and a request for God's compassion.
God calls for us to come out as well. The Exodus continues and I appreciate that today's readings prompt me to ponder these things on All Saints Day.
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