Beeson Podcast, Episode #529
Rob Willis
Dec. 28, 2020

>>Announcer: 


Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. 


>>Doug Sweeney:


Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. We have finally come to the end of one of the most challenging and unforgettable years in our history. This is a year that none of us expected, and none of us would choose to relive. At the same time, however, we are grateful to our God, because we know that we have indeed made it to this point by his grace and sustaining power. 

Some of us have been learning in new and much deeper ways what it means to rely upon and trust in the Lord. I can testify that we at Beeson have experienced God’s care in a special way this year. So, we want to end the year here at the podcast with a sermon on the presence and provision of the Lord in our lives. This sermon was preached recently by none other than Rob Willis, our media manager, who is with us every week behind the scenes on the podcast. 

The title of Rob’s sermon is, “The Presence is the Point.” It is a beautiful reminder that the presence of God is central to our faith and our salvation. We’ve invited Rob to the other side of the sound system today to share with you his story, before we play his sermon for you. So, Kristen, will you please introduce our colleague, Rob, and get our conversation started?


>>Kristen Padilla:


I am glad to do that. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. We, as Doug has already said, are so pleased to have Rob Willis, one of our own team members who edits these shows every week and spends a lot of time making us sound better. As our guest today, Rob has been our media and technology manager for 20 something years, I think, Rob. And he is married to Vicky and they have two daughters. Rob, welcome to the Beeson podcast. 


>>Rob Willis:


Thank you. Thanks for having me on this side of the mic. 


>>Kristen Padilla:


We would like to begin not with going to the very beginning of your story, but we want to hear about how you ended up at Beeson. What brought you to Beeson Divinity School?


>>Rob Willis:


Well, Hurricane Marilyn brought us to Beeson Divinity School. It was in 1995 that Vicky, my wife, and I were doing evangelism in the US Virgin Islands, where I grew up, and the storm came in and scattered the flock that we had been working with. We had to kind of re-group and figure out what was next. So, my wife had family in Alabama, so we came here and found out that she was pregnant and that it was pretty clear that we were not going to move back to an Island that would not have running water or telephone or other things like that for a long time.

So, at the same time I was wanting to work on my MDiv further and a friend from our church, back in Boston, had started at Beeson. He had been sent out literally the same week that we had been sent out as church planters. So, we got in touch with him and he showed us around Beeson. I became interested in coming. And started conversations with the admissions office. Then they began letting me know that they had just moved into this building and were looking for someone to be a chapel sound coordinator and would I be interested in this position. So, I started thinking that I was coming to apply and soon was hired. That was 24 years ago and the rest is history.


>>Doug Sweeney:


Rob, a lot of our listeners will know that we have recently published a story about you on our website. It’s got to be a record. I haven’t confirmed this, but I think I’m speaking very confidently when I say nobody has ever taken 24 years to finish a Master of Divinity degree at Beeson Divinity School. And I say that as somebody who is also eager to testify that you are not only one of my favorite people at Beeson, you are one of my favorite people in the entire world. I don’t want to criticize you for taking 24 years, I just want to let our listeners hear about how it is that you persevered through 24 years of study towards an MDiv, a Master of Divinity degree here at Beeson? Did you ever feel like giving up? Were there obstacles in your way? How did God see you through that long journey towards completion?


>>Rob Willis:


Sometimes I got discouraged, but I remember saying to Kristen recently that if you want to get me doing something tell me it’s impossible. And so I always felt like I’m going to finish this, I’m going to do it – even though it took a long time I don’t know if I would change it. If you listened to the recent interview with Aubrey Johnston, she said something that was dynamite that I really want to bring back up here, which is doing ministry alongside of doing seminary work is probably one of the most profound ways to put practical hands and feet to what’s going on in the classroom.

I spent 15 of those years with a congregation, preaching through the entire Bible. I could actually kind of gear my classes, like Deuteronomy with Dr. Matthews, knowing that in the next year I would be in Deuteronomy. And being able to take that material from the classroom and use it in ministry was probably the most solidifying and most wonderful aspects of that long journey.


>>Kristen Padilla:


Rob, the article also mentioned an award that you received last month. You are our fall James Earl Massey Student Preaching Award recipient. As the person who received this award you had the privilege, right, of preaching in Hodges Chapel for our fall series. We’re going to play your sermon in just a few minutes. But before we do, I’d love for you to share about this award. I know that James Earl Massey was a special person to you. What did this award mean to you? How did you arrive at your message? Can you just tease us about what we’re going to be hearing in a few minutes as we listen to you preach?


>>Rob Willis:


Okay. That’s a few questions. Let’s see if I can ... first of all, Dr. Sweeney came to me after chapel one day and let me know that I was the award winner and I was knocked backwards and just stunned by the news. It was a huge honor for me because of the long time relationship I have with Dr. Smith and Dr. Webster and Dr. Pasquarello, and the way that they’ve poured into my life and my preaching ministry.

It was also a great honor because of my friendship with Dr. Massey for whom the award is named and in whose honor the award is given. He was a friend, a mentor, and a model for me in my life for many years. But then Dr. Sweeney, almost apologetically, pointed out that receiving the award would require preaching another sermon during the midst of a very busy semester. Dr. Sweeney gave me my texts, which were from Revelation 7 and Revelation 21, which were compelling as well as with very short notice pointed to requiring a lot of preparation.

The sermon has in view the rest of the series about God’s promises to call a people from all the nations of the world. It also occurs at the confluence of two events of this past year: the pandemic and its effects and the unrest as a result of the murder of George Floyd that went through the spring, summer, and into the fall. It also draws from some of the thinking I’d already been doing for my preaching class on Jewish and Gentile relationships in Rome as reflected in Paul’s letter to the Romans. 

But really at the heart of it is a thought that’s been on my mind very deeply lately; that it is so impossible to be saved without considering the hurt that we have caused in the lives of others. That God made it only possible for us to be saved by considering the pain that someone has suffered on our behalf. The goal, I would say, of 90% of ministry, including reaching, is the cultivation of empathy so that we will have both a sensitivity to and a hunger for the work of God in our lives and in the lives of others. I hope that comes through in this message.


>>Doug Sweeney:


I want our listeners to know that there are very few people who have contributed as much to the ministries of Beeson Divinity School as Rob Willis has. Of course there are others who have more seniority at this place than Rob does. Dr. George chief among them, our founding dean. Dr. Matthews, Dr. Thielman have been here for a very long time. 

Rob is not the only one who has invested many years in this place, but Rob is among a small group of people who really are the key ministers of the gospel over the long haul at Beeson Divinity School. We are so grateful. We will forever be very grateful to him for that. 

Of course, here on the podcast we know Rob mainly as the media manager here at Beeson. But he is also a preacher and a musician. He’s a model Christian brother. His ministry is variegated and we love him dearly around this place. Thank you very much, Rob, for your many years of service. Let’s go now to Hodges Chapel and listen to our friend and co-worker Rob Willis preach a sermon entitled, “The Presence is the Point” from the Book of Revelation.


>>Reader:


Our scripture reading for this morning is from the Book of Revelation. We’ll be reading from Chapter 7:9-12. Then jumping forward to Chapter 21, with a selection of verses from there as well.

“After this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And crying out with a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. And they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God saying, ‘Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.’

Then I saw a new Heaven and a new earth; for the first Heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there b mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.’ 

And the twelve gates were twelve pearls. Each of the gates made of a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light. And it’s lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. And its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it. Nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.


>>Rob Willis:


Thank you to our leaders and to our worship leaders. I’ve stood in this pulpit and have spoken so many times. Pretty much every time I do I get up and I say, “Testing, testing, 1, 2 ...” I have usually at those moments a while lot more to say, but I only try to say what’s necessary. And I hope I do the same today.

The first thing that I think is necessary is to say some thank you’s to my Beeson family. But first of all, I want to give a thank you to my wife, Vicky. She’s been married to a seminarian for 20+ years. And I couldn’t have done this without her. She wouldn’t have done this except for me. And I recognize that and I’m forever in her debt and her love and support and her constant prayer and her faithfulness. She’s the best seminary that anyone could attend, because she has a heart for God that comes out in everything that she does. Some of the best things that you like about me really came from her. So, I’m grateful and I thank God for her constantly.

But so many others ... in a way I feel like I’ve cheated in getting here because of so many who have poured into my life. I think of our preaching professors and I think of Dr. Pasquarello. I think especially of Dr’s Smith and Webster who long before I was in their classes were my professors. Dr. Smith from whom I learned so much about what it is to be a friend and to make disciples and to be a pastor. Similarly from Dr. Webster, but even more Dr. Webster who took time with a staff member who would come up and say, “Hey, I’m preaching on this,” and he would just pour into me and has probably invested more in my preaching than any other one person.

I could list so many students. I think of my brothers Spike Burt and Drew Phillips and Daniel Logan who week after week read through my terrible manuscripts and always had encouraging words to say. (laughs) But it was part of a 20 year quest – how do we better share the good news of Jesus Christ to people who sometimes don’t even really want to hear it or don’t realize the significance or importance of what we’re saying to them? How do we grab hold of their hearts? So, that’s been my heart for now 20 some years. How do we better express this gospel? 

This day means so much to me, especially because of the man for whom this award is named: Dr. James Earl Massey. Dr. Massey was a gentleman’s gentleman and a scholar’s scholar. He earned the name “the price of preachers” but he was a prince in everything that he did. He was the kindest, truest, gentleman that anyone could hope to be. He had the discipline of a soldier, which he was, the heart of a chaplain, which he had been, and also the skill and intensity of a classical pianist, which he was as well. Here was this great leader. An African American man from Detroit. Over twice my age and for some reason every time he came to campus he would come by my office and sit with me. These were wonderful times for me. But it was more kind of like that wonder that probably Mary and Martha and Lazarus felt when Jesus decided to spend the day with them. It was sort of like this is phenomenal and why are you hanging out here (laughs) with the sound guy? 

But he was investing in me in ways that I didn’t fully understand and in ways that I couldn’t quantify. There were ways that had an effect without having an agenda. And if they had had an agenda they wouldn’t have been love and they wouldn’t have done what they did in my life. Years later I understand better that I was learning something from Dr. Massey that is not only a theme in these texts today, but also is a thread that winds its way from Genesis to Revelation – and that is this – that the presence is the point. 

We have, during this semester, traced God’s purpose as Dr. Sweeney shared about Christ’s great commission, as Dr. House shared about God’s promises to Abraham and Sarah, as Dr’s Gardner and Gignilliat shared about God’s prophetic purposes for the world, as Dr. Padilla spoke to us about the formation of the unified new people in Jesus Christ – Jew and Gentile – as Dr. Parks challenged us to participate in the purposes of God for the world, and as Dr. Smith beckoned us to look for a better king and a better kingdom.

All the way what we’ve seen is this purpose in history that I think the Bible raises and answers and that is this – now that sin, decay, and death has entered the world how can there be a people with whom the holy God can dwell? And today’s text intersects with some of the great issues that are on our hearts even today. The pandemic, the murder of an inordinate amount of unarmed Black people, and political division in our country. Because whether we’re concerned about a tube in our throats or a knee in our neck what we want to know is whether God is near us and whether we’re separated because of reasons of health or partisan division. We wonder if friendship is possible? And the loss and nearness of death have realized the question in us about whether life has hope and suffering has purpose. 

In this time of pandemic and partisanship we have experienced in a very real way the alienation that has always existed in our hearts between us and God and us and one another, but we’ve just learned to live with it. This existence that has followed us ever since we were sent out of the garden and we turned back around and saw the cherubim and the flaming sword and we knew we could not pass back in unless we passed under the sword. When God met us it wasn’t in Ur of the Chaldees, or a great city, it was in the wilderness around Heron. 

In Exodus, when God brought us out by the power of his might and went before us and then we sinned ... Soon, God, we found would not walk with us, but was tabernacling outside the camp. We wondered, “How can he be with us? And how can we be with him?” And Moses begged to know, “Lord, will you go up with us?” And when Moses had done everything, chapters and chapters of Exodus later, when Moses had done everything according to God’s perfect plan there is a sigh of relief at the end of Exodus as God’s presence is finally with his people. But then we flip the page and we find ourselves in Leviticus and we find that the presence of God is so holy that to have him with us is costly.

God is a costly companion, because blood is needed to cleanse the way between us and him. Even the Levites were called to, at times, wear and bear the sword because you could only come into the tabernacle at certain times, certain people, by a certain way. The holiness of God can only be approached by the sanctified priest and the cherubim on the curtain, like the cherubim at the garden, reminded us that the way is guarded back to God. Every human relationship is a decision about risking. Will I give myself to another? But to return to God we definitively have to pass under the sword. The blessing that the Levites gave to the congregation contained this phrase, “May the Lord make his face to shine upon you.” To have the King’s face to shine upon you was the bidding that it was safe to approach. You went before the king and you laid your head down and you bared your neck before the king and the guard who bore the sword would look to see if the face of the king was shining on you. And if it was, you could come near. And if not, it wasn’t so good.

To enter the presence and to know the intimacy and security that is found only in God, we have to pass through what we fear most: death. And because sin stands between you and me and God he must slay us in order to save us. The holiness and justice of God leads us to wonder what can destroy sin while sparing sinners so God who is holy can finally dwell among his people? We are left to ask, as David asked, after Uzzah was killed trying to write the ark of the Lord. He said, “How can the presence of the Lord come to me?” And we’re left with that same reality.

How can we draw near to God? And the first thing we see in this text in Revelation 7. Really, John is invited, if you will, to look both ways before he crosses eternity. He looks back and he looks forward. I’m sorry if most commentators don’t take it this way, I don’t know what to do with that, but I really feel that it’s true to the text that what God shows John is first of all a group that is numbered and then a group that enumerable. He shows the faithful who have entered into God’s presence out of the faithful of Israel and then he shows John the faithful who have come through Christ. 

Commentators kind of rightly reckon that these two groups are the same, but then they say that the first isn’t national Israel. I think that interpretation says more about us than it says about the Bible. I think part of our problem is this: that we see difference as a means of exclusion. When we do we turn the Church inside out. I hope you can follow me here. In doing this we’ve asked what we’ve replaced rather than what we’ve become part of. 

You see, God created a people to call to himself. God created a people into which to include people. God creates a people to be a welcome and a pattern for those who will come. That is the testimony of our great heroes of the faith, like Tamar and Rahab and Ruth, whose righteousness at times exceeded that of God’s people themselves. The faithful of Israel are shown first in this text because of their special role. Israel is God’s means of incorporating the tribes of the world into the family of God. 

Abram was promised to seed Jesus, in whom the nations would be blessed. You. God is not afraid to both be particular and specific as well as to be inclusive at the same time. It doesn’t trouble him like it troubles us. The promise that God made to Abram under a starry sky 4,000 years ago came to pass in you!

You didn’t simply get the promises given to Abraham, you are the promise given to Abraham – sitting right here. You can trace your history back through the nations of the world. At the same time while that’s particular, here’s something wonderful: you can go anywhere in the world and you will find a community of people worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Well, that’s inclusive!

God’s election is a means of his inclusion. God’s blessing has a purpose and when we untie this connection between election and mission and press toward this idea that election is God’s means of exclusion we miss the point. Israel was not called to the exclusion of others. Israel was called for the inclusion of others. You are not called to the exclusion of others, you were called for the inclusion of others. 

So, God creates a people to call people. He also forms a people as a unified diversity. I love this thought that everyone here is from somewhere else in this text. He sees this group from every tribe and nation of tongue. This group is unified without losing its particularity. Both of them hold together in God. Because this multitude is global we basically push it and press it into the future. I don’t think we need to do that. 

I think when we do that we’re forgetting that the gospel was in the Himalayas and in Hyderabad before it was in Heidelberg. That the faith that came to America was forged in Africa. I love it when I talk with students as they discover that some of their early church fathers who they revere were African. We have flipped our history in a strange way that I think speaks something about us. 

When we recapture this idea that God is showing John something that is happening, the immediacy of this message comes to bear. God isn’t saying to John, he’s not communicating, “Someday things are going to be all right.” Which is nice, I like that message. Here’s what he is saying ... I really believe this is what God is saying to John ... “Remember those faithful of Israel who died without seeing the promises? They’re seeing them right now. And your brothers and sisters, while you’re in exile, who are dying for the name of Jesus, they’re dying in Christ now and just beyond this veil of tears they are entering into my joy.”

This vision gives us comfort while confronting our insecurities. Insecurities that drive us to defend our rights and get our share and keep our status, and when pushed they show themselves in the nationalism and isolationism and worse. And the chants that Charlottesville and the murders at Mother Immanuel Church are at the far end of this lie that God’s choosing is all about excluding. And that to be insiders with God is to be insiders in the world. Because you open the veil of Heaven and look into the kingdom and you see God’s people in diversity and unity with the slain lamb at their center. 

Not only is this people everyone from everywhere else, but also wearing the same thing. This event is a cosmic faux-pas. John sees his crowd different enough by complexion and features and sound to inform him that they’re from every tribe and tongue, even though they’re dressed the same way. They’re dressed in white robes. Maybe the simple robes of the priests when they were working and serving. Or maybe the baptismal robes put on after baptism by the Early Church. Whatever they are it’s clearly a picture of unity. And clearly a picture of purity.

There is a diversity and a sameness in Christ. We’re called like him to empty ourselves to be of no reputation, to lay aside our privileges. Every Christian you have ever met has the same testimony. I never tire of hearing it. I was a sinner and far from God and Jesus saved me. That’s it. Every time you come to God you come by the same way. You come by the blood of Jesus. It’s by the same way that you first came you continue to come. You don’t get better at it. There is a way of cleansing that makes it possible.

We sang it earlier, in Revelation 5:9, it gives the key to the possibility of this fellowship. When it says, “worth is the Lamb to take the scroll and open its seals, because you were slain and you’ve purchased by your blood persons from every tribe and nation and tongue.” You know what kind of people Christians are? They’re washed people. We’re washed people. Everyone is doing the same thing. The crowd, the angels, the elders, they share in this united response to the presence of God - they worship. 

Worship is the response that we ought to have to the presence of God. They fall on their faces before the throne. That meeting God compels us to such wonder and awe seems very natural to me. It does make me wonder, though, that we meet people created in his image with such nonchalance. Every person you have ever met who is different from you is a preparation for you meeting God who is far more so. If we’ve not grasped the wonder of meeting persons, we’re ill prepared for Heaven. 

I believe we need a return to awe. I believe we need a return to awe in our conversation. In the way that we talk person to person and in social media. In the way that we talk about all the kinds of things that we talk about. Every conversation you have is a contribution to what that other person will be like in eternity. What are we making of each other? 

In Heaven you’re going to be falling on your face, surrounded by people very different from you. If you are a majority in the US you’re going to be a minority in Heaven. If being a majority is important to you now it’s time to let it go. If your kind of people are some other kind than the Jesus kind, you won’t find your clique in Heaven. I hope instead that you will be greeted by those who brought you and those that you brought. 

You see, the point is God’s presence. The purpose is to bring others with us and love means that we bring people who are different from us with us. But I want us to see one more thing – that this gather of God, of a global people, involves suffering. When we read that these bond servants of the Lord were healed before the judgment would come upon creation we like to take that idea of healing as being about protection. And by doing so we misread Revelation. I think we do it because we are bothered by the idea that following Jesus will involve suffering.

I know it’s just half the verse, but as often as we cling to the promises of God the one that we don’t seem to cling to is in this world you will have trouble. This isn’t about protection as much as possession. Those who are marked by God are those who belong to them. Yes, I know in Ezekiel 9:4 that the sealed were the ones who were rescued out of the city, but Revelation throughout its entirety understands this idea that overcoming is precisely through death. In chapter 12:11 we find out what it means to overcome when it says that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives even unto death. Overcoming in Revelation is following the pattern of the slain Lamb.

But the pattern we too see in Ezekiel is this, that those who are marked are those who mourn over the sins of the city. I think part of what we’ve lost is awe. I think part of what we’ve lost is mourning. I think that we have increased the amount of self righteousness in our conversation. And decreased the amount of weeping. I believe God wants to raise up a generation of Jeremiahs who will weep over the sin in our own lives and in our culture and in our world. And who will long that we and all others would come and return and fall on our faces before the King of Glory. 

We find in Isaiah 66 that God says this is the people to whom I will look. This is where I’m going to put my presence. To the one who is humble and contrite and trembles at my word. Oh, Lord, make us that kind of people. And this, in verse 14, is how they have come out of the great tribulation. They refused to bow to the national gods. They have kept their confession that Jesus is Lord. So, they were so out of their heads for Jesus that they were willing to give their heads for Jesus. Overcoming means self sacrificial love. Overcoming means that when we could have gone with the flow, instead we followed the Lamb. 

These were the rejected of society. They were people who were out of step with their times and conflict with the world because of Jesus. They were makers of good trouble who showed love and kindness and the welcome of Christ in a world that can be selfish and hard and cruel. They wouldn’t give into the world or play by its rules. The enemies of the people of God in Revelation aren’t relics of the past or perils from the future, they’re the dragon, the beasts, and the harlot. They’re these constant calls towards pride, abuse of power, and self gratification. Their acts entice and victimize everyone who hears their call. 

But the tension is will they draw away the followers of the Lamb? The call of God is at odds with our sense of privilege and desire for comfort. Don’t buy the lie that being an insider in the Kingdom will make you an insider in the world. I used to have this book, I kept it on my shelf for years, it had a smiley face on the corner. It said, “How to be a Christian: Happy and Successful.” I kept it there to remind me when I don’t believe, don’t buy it. 

[inaudible 00:37:25] argued against Christianity saying, “This is a religion for slaves and women and children and fools.” And he’s right. I’m one of them! A fool who will not follow the world and its love of power, but will overcome with all my brothers and sisters by the power of love being in Christ involves and transcends loving the outcast. We must be the outcast, because until we concede that we were alienated from God there’s no hope from us. When at least we find our home in God alone we realize that there’s no longer any home for us here. We love those who are rejected of the world not because of what we have to offer them, not because spending time with them makes us feel better about what we do have, but because we belong to them.

And then we get to verse 15. For this reason ... What reason? Because they determined to follow the Lamb and that was more important than the world to these believers before the throne of God, because they have followed the Lamb and it cost them everything. Verse 15 says, “For this reason they’re forever before the throne.” They serve God. And God shelters them. 

In verse 16 and 17, “They’re relieved of hunger because they had gone without food. Relieved of thirst because they have been denied water. They’re relieved of beating sun because they’ve been subject to exposure and heat stroke. The Lord will wipe away every tear.” When he does he will wipe away with his now scarred hands our tear stained eyes. And we’ll know that our tears have been acknowledged and important and behind us. 

Do you long for this loving connection between the Lord and his people? To have him as our shepherd? To have him at the center of our gathering and our worship and our lives? I think we need to reorient our lives around the slain Lamb. We need Lamb centered lives and Lamb centered communities. Because the closer we are to Jesus, this text shows us, the closer we are to each other. One of the best ways to bring people closer to the Lamb is to get closer yourself and make room for those coming up behind you to get closer, too. Bring others with you. 

The whole of chapter 7 is like a movement from first fruits to the Feast of Tabernacles. We began with 144,000 who Revelation 14:5 says were like first fruits unto the Lord. At that first harvest, Pentecost, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, God gathered a harvest of believers in Jerusalem. The Pentecost offering involved two loaves that were placed before the Lord. The rabbis teach these two loaves were Jews and Gentiles presented holy to God. 

At the feast of Pentecost the scroll of Ruth was opened and read in its entirety. The story of a righteous gentile brought under the wing of the God of Israel. It’s a picture of being grafted in. But at the other end of the year is the Feast of Tabernacles, when all of the goods of all of the harvests throughout the seasons of Israel are presented to the Lord and the 70 bulls that are offered at Tabernacles are said to represent all the nations of the earth sanctified to the Lord.

And God showed Zachariah that the Feast of Tabernacles is not just now it’s eschatological. He spoke of a day in Zachariah 13 when all the nations of the world would gather to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. And so now in this scene we see them waving palm branches joyfully at the Tabernacles, awaiting the marriage supper of the Lamb. The Feast of Tabernacles ends with Simchat Torah or the joy of the Lord. It’s a celebration when the Torah scroll is taken and lifted up and danced through the congregation, the way that you hoist up a bridegroom and a bride at their wedding and dance them.

The idea is, “Lord, the readings are starting over, may we commit ourselves fully to you and to your word?” And of the tribes that are gathered and presented at that feast provision was made at the feast. The poor and the orphan and the widow and the landless and the alien were invited to the table. The people on the margin became the honored guests. The portion of the tithes were distributed to those who were in need. Those who came only bringing hunger and hope found that they were laden with food. Those who brought food left filled with joy and thankfulness. 

This is the moment that the bride has been preparing herself for. And everything that the Church does up until this moment ought to be a road sign of what’s ahead. This is the moment when his presence would be with her and she would be with him, and they would be together forever, because God’s presence has always been the point. And so in Revelation we see this picture, more intimate than the slain Lamb as our Shepherd. The Lamb is our bridegroom. We see the city descend from Heaven, not the shaky tabernacles that we built to live with God for a week, but an eternal city that God built to live with us forever.

At long last God will live among his people and he’s wiping our tears and drying our eyes, and we see the end of death and mourning and pain. I want to tell you today if you’re dealing with sin come to the Lamb. If you’re suffering, come to the Lamb. If you’re struggling with hurt and sorrow and despair, the slain Lamb has help for you. If you’ve been sleighted, misunderstood, rejected, falsely accused, devalued, disregarded, or perceived as a threat, if you’ve thought nobody cared if you live or die, the Lamb has been there, too. He bore it for you so that you can find rest in him. You’re not defeated. You’re on your way to his victory. 
Come to him. That’s the invitation that we have. Come and have your robe washed white by the blood of the Lamb. You’ll find in the heavenly city that there’s a tree with leaves for the healing of the nations. You can come and be healed. The city itself, we see, is a structure of the cube, the same shape as the holy of holies. The Lamb himself is the holiest place in the heavenly city. The place where only a certain person could enter at a certain time, a certain way, from a certain direction is now open for all people at all time from all directions. That’s the end that we see. That’s the goal that God has created. God’s presence is finally with his people and that’s the point.

It’s the point and we lose it so easily. Every time we think that ministry has to do more with what we do in the pulpit than what we do with people. Anytime we seek effectiveness over faithfulness, and every time we seek power and recognition over friendship, anytime we think our calling is more about all that we do than who all we love – we lose it.

We’re really faced with a choice in Revelation. We can follow the dragon and the beasts and the women of Babylon, or follow the slain Lamb. But to take up the cross and follow the Lamb leads us to the hill where we and he must be slain. It’s a total surrender of our lives to and for the love of God. I wonder how different we would look if we were as serious about God and his call as he is serious about us. I think it would raise the level to which our lives and ministries would be able other people rather than ourselves. 

I think it would raise the level in which we’re interested in people who are different in other than us. I think it would raise the level in which we desire to turn away from every privilege and comfort to serve the one who is slain for us. And as you do these things, this is what is going to happen, people will begin to stream into the eternal city. By the blood of the Lamb people who never imagined there was a place for them there, people will come to the marriage supper at the Lamb who never thought that there was a place setting or a place at the table for them, people who thought they were too weak or too small or unimportant or too broken, too dirty, too defiled will come and find what they barely dared to hope for – the love and security that can only be found in God through Jesus Christ. There, they and we will dwell with him forever, because this is the point. The presence of God with his people, with us, and with you. 

If we listen, even now we can hear that very last call of the Church and the Bride as they say together, “Come.” 


>>Kristen Padilla:


You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.