Please Say Yes

FOCUS READING 1

Revelation 7:13-17 (NRSV)

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.

For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

DAILY BYTE

Today, we notice a 3rd and final thing about the passage from Revelation we’ve been exploring this week. In verse 13 we hear that one of the elders speaks to John in his vision saying, “‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’

In other words – who are these people?

And John says to him, “‘Sir [which also can be translated in the Greek as Lord], you are the one that knows.’

Then this sir – this Lord says to John: ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal...”

What is that – the great ordeal?

It’s not found anywhere else in scripture, so we don’t know exactly what he was referring to.

But we do know, don’t we?

The struggle and temptation and pain of this life is a ‘great ordeal.’ Each one of us has experienced that ordeal in a different way.

The scripture doesn’t say that the people who made it to this glorious moment are the folks who never had any problems – who never doubted – never were tempted – never sinned. No, it’s the people who went through the great ordeal who come into the fullness of the kingdom of heaven.
Somehow, God welcomes those who’ve struggled in this life. Somehow, God hands us the washing powder, as a gift of grace, so we can become new and pure and sing about how miraculous his saving power really is.

Part of the great privilege of my job is that I get to be with people on their deathbeds. And I’ve noticed something through those experiences of being both with people who have been extremely faithful to God during their lives on earth and people who have shunned God and done some terrible things.

What I’ve noticed as I’ve looked at them is that they look to me a lot like children. Wide-eyed, resigned to the fact that they are no longer in control of their bodies and what happens to them. Totally vulnerable – like babies. And as I call to mind images of these people, a passage from 1 John 3:1-2 is like a caption beneath them – “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.... Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.”

We are fragile creatures. Vulnerable. Children. Of the living God.
And I have to believe that because God loves the world so much and gave up his son for us that God is strong enough to find us in our vulnerability - that God will try for an eternity in this life or the next to get us to turn away from the things that tarnish us – that God will keep enticing us, wooing us in our stubbornness to let go of a life that fails to honour him and his beautiful creation – that God will never stop trying to show us how to wash away everything that’s impure and unholy about our lives so that we will be able and ready to participate in the goodness of the kingdom of God – today and in the life that’s still coming.

That’s the God I see in the scriptures – the God who is always faithful to us and never gives up on us. The God who says no ordeal is too great for me to penetrate it with my message of love.

So we don’t have to worry about who gets to heaven and judge who goes to hell. Jesus says, how I choose to save you is my decision.
But please, please say yes.