Sermon from February 4, 2007
Long ago, amid thunder and lightning, with thick cloud and a very loud trumpet blast, the First Word had come down from Mount Sinai: "You shall have no other gods before me." The prophecy of Isaiah, looking back over Israel's checkered response to the First Word, has reasserted its primacy: "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols" – Isaiah 42:8.

Yet, there around the throne of heaven, before the face of the one who sits on the throne, the many-voiced multitude invoked praise and honor and glory and power to both him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb; and the elders fell down and worshipped both him who sits on the throne and the Lamb. The realities of heaven had overtaken the categories of earth. We must now meditate on this mystery.

Monotheism in Israel
Hear the word of the Lord in Isaiah 44:6: "This is what the LORD says – Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God." Hear the word of the Lord in Isaiah 48:12: "Listen to me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am he; I am the first and I am the last."

When the Lord God of Israel says of Himself twice: "I am the first and I am the last," it sums up "the understanding of the God of Israel as the sole Creator of all things and sovereign Lord of history ... Unlike human-made gods, this God is the utterly incomparable One, to whom all nations are subject, whose purpose none can frustrate (cf. Isa. 40:12-26) ... God precedes all things, as their Creator, and he will bring all things to ... fulfillment," (Bauckham, Theology of Revelation, 27).

John, himself Jewish, knew all this as an insider, jealous to protect Israel's monotheistic gift to the human family. Yet he sailed these hallowed waters in ways that made pious Jews wince. Look at how close to the theological wind he sailed.

John's Line in the Sand
Towards the end of his vision John acted inappropriately. In Revelation 22:8-9, John discharged pent-up emotion in these words: I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. and when I heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me.

We might take that act as simply an excess of emotion. The angel did not tolerate it. But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!"

There is a line that human beings must not cross. Everything on this side of the line may be given praise where praise is due, and honor where honor is due. But it is praise and honor that are due to a creature. On the other side of that line belongs properly what we call worship. On that side is God the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. To worship Him is the proper act of created beings.

The 24 elders had worshiped, when they laid their crowns before the throne and said to the Creator of all things: "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power." Moses and Mohammed could both say that and be at peace.

John's exchange with the angel makes it clear that not even mighty angelic beings are to receive worship. And yet, throughout the book of Revelation, John without rebuke includes Jesus on the side deserving worship. How did he do that, and what are we to make of it?

The Divine Identity
It begins early in Revelation 1:5b-6 when John breaks into this doxology about Jesus Christ: To him who loves us, and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father – to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

Perhaps only sensitive Jewish or Muslim ears or sensitive Christian ears, whether Jewish or Gentile, would be alert to what they had just heard. It is an act of worship, when John says of Jesus Christ: to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

In Revelation 5:12-14, in the throne room of heaven, from which even a whiff of idolatry would have been banished, John reports this thunderous praise of Jesus by the gathered hosts of heaven:

"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!" Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped.

We should notice one more way in which John places Jesus on the other side of the line that separates the Creator from created beings. Follow me through four verses of Revelation.

Revelation 1:8: "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

Revelation 1:17: When I saw him, I fell at his feet (Christ's feet) as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last," language we heard earlier in Isaiah of God Himself.

Revelation 21:6: He (God) said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life."

Finally, Christ in Revelation 22:13 says: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."

Here's what that looks like side by side:

God:     the Alpha and the Omega
Christ:                                                   the First and the Last
God:     the Alpha and the Omega                                           the Beginning and the End
Christ:  the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
John's daring and deliberate language "does not designate (Jesus) a second god, but includes him in the eternal being of the one God of Israel," (ibid., 58). John doesn't explain, and he doesn't define. He interweaves words and evokes mystery, and then he worships. Where we don't understand, we also do well to worship.

Here at the Lord's Supper, as we hold bread and cup in hand, we hold communion with the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Let us together adore the mystery of Love, who stooped down to make us great.