Before we really begin to dig into this text
today I have a confession to make. When
we ended our time together last Sunday, this was not the text that I had
planned on preaching from this morning.
I had planned on talking about the relationship between the Passover and
the Lord’s Supper. We were going to look
at the sacrifice of Jesus and link it with the Passover Lamb from Exodus
12. However, there was something in me
that as I kept digging into these two texts caused me to be uneasy. Some voice was in my head that just kept
yelling “Maundy Thursday! Maundy
Thursday!” So, we’re going to table them
for later on this week (Thursday at 6:00 pm) when hopefully you will all be
here for that special service in the life of the church; one of my favorite
worship services of the year.
As
luck would have it, I am currently finishing up working my way through the book
of Revelation, and fairly recently I came upon Revelation 7, where our main
text for today is from. Now, typically I
probably would have just glossed over this text, but seeing as how we are right
in the middle of looking at the significance of the lamb to our faith and our
salvation, these verses stood out to me in a way that they never had
before. When I read the words, “a
great multitude that no one could number…was standing…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!”
my mind immediately jumped to the story
of the Triumphal Entry. Immediately my
mind went to that scene of people lining the street and waving palm branches
and shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.” As I read the word lamb in Revelation 7, I couldn’t picture a lamb at all, but Jesus
Christ. Well, I guess I did picture a
lamb, the Lamb of God.
Now,
I want to take a minute and remind you about some of the things that I’ve said
previously about this scene there at Jerusalem during the Triumphal Entry. I’ve said before that the estimated number of
people there lining the streets as it is figured by church historians (folks who
have studied the attendance of particular festivals held in Jerusalem about the
time of Jesus’ arrival) is thought to be somewhere around two million
people. To put that in perspective, I’ve
been told that that number is about 3x the estimated amount of people who
attend a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans on Fat Tuesday, and about 500,000
more people than the number of those who will attend the sum of all Mardi Gras
parades in New Orleans in a given year.
And all two million are lining this street, this road entering into
Jerusalem, waving palms, and looking for Jesus.
They’re waiting for this man to come riding in on the back of a donkey;
it had to be just chaos. Y’all I’ve been
in the thick of the Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans many times. I’ve been to national conferences with over
250,000 people in attendance. I’ve been
to sporting events with over 100,000 people in one little area. So, I think I can imagine what a crowded
situation looks like. No matter how many
times I read that number of projected people there that day to see Jesus enter
into Jerusalem, it still leaves me with a sense of disbelief that that many
people lined the streets of Jerusalem and yet hardly anyone had any clue what
Jesus had been talking about the entire time during his earthly ministry. In fact, no one had any clue as to the true
nature of many of the things that he had been saying and teaching about
himself. No one had any idea that Jesus’
ultimate conquering and eternally reigning were to come about as a result of
his death. We know that from the reaction
of those around the cross at the time of Jesus’ final breath.
Getting
back to the text for today and keeping our focus there, I want to talk about two
things mentioned in this passage in Revelation that carry with them more
meaning than we might commonly pick up on. The first is the white robes that John saw the
people of the crowd wearing. Just a
little prior to this (Rev. 6:11) John saw “the
souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they
had borne” wearing white robes as well.
What is the significance of the white robes? Well, obviously we can guess that with white
representing purity and a robe being an article of clothing that you put on,
that this probably has something to do with putting on righteousness or purity,
and that might be true. However, there
is also the popular suggestion that these white robes have to do with
blessedness. In this particular case,
the blessedness of those who are fortunate enough to find themselves gathered around
the throne and around the Lamb. John
even goes on to say that the ones in the white robes are, “the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb.” Now
that I’ve introduced both the concepts of symbolism in Revelation and the
tribulation, I need to comment that I won’t have time to fully go into these
topics here today, but would love to talk further with anyone if there is
particular interest. Suffice it to say
that for everyone that reads this passage, there is almost an equal number of
interpretations and significance attached to it.
However,
let me suggest a contextual meaning for the white robes worn by the multitude
in John’s vision. We’re told that they
were standing “before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their
hands.” Well, there’s a possible
indication as to the answer to our question.
You see, the palm branch was a symbol of victory. The waving of palm branches was the primary symbol
of victory in the Jewish culture. During
the intertestamental period, the 400 years between the Old and New Testaments,
the Jews had waved about palm branches immediately after any major military
victory. After a period of time, the
palm branch became somewhat of a symbol of freedom and victory for the Jewish
people. So much so that after the Jews
revolt against the Romans, sometime in the AD 60’s, the people of Jerusalem
minted their own coins with the image of a palm branch on them. So you see, the palm branch was the people’s
way of acknowledging the freedom and victory that Jesus represented to them
that day. Now, keep in mind what we said
earlier about the fact that even as they are declaring victory, they still have
no idea what that victory was going to look like nor how it was going to come
about.
So,
if we combine this very common and primary symbol of victory (the palm branch)
with the wearing of white robes (which just as a side note the white flag
didn’t always mean surrender, but instead stood for a truce, indicating that
the fighting was over) as another symbol of victory, then we start to see what
all the fuss was about both during the Triumphal Entry and during John’s
vision. During the Triumphal Entry, the
people in Jerusalem (majority Jewish) saw this as the restoration of the
kingdom of David. They saw this as the
completion of the restoration of God’s people.
They saw this as the promises of God made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Moses, David, Solomon, and everyone else all coming to fruition. They saw the words of the prophets that they
had heard for so long (some of them now being over 1000 years since first
spoken) coming about in a powerful way.
This was the moment that they had so long awaited. It’s no wonder that they lined the streets
shouting about salvation and completion and kingdom renewal and declaring
victory over all their enemies. The only
problem was that they really didn’t understand who the enemy was that they were
at war with. After all, they were pretty
much battling themselves seeing as how after only three days they shouted to
have Jesus crucified. I think that if
nothing else, that is a point that we can very easily relate to. How many times are we fighting a war against
the wrong enemy? How many times do we
have hatred in our hearts towards someone else, when the real enemy that we
ought to be fighting is the sin that exists within our very own hearts?
Now,
the white robes and the palm branches in John’s vision, however they are interpreted,
are I think more directed at the true meaning of this victory. After John spoke about those wearing the
white robes being washed white in the blood of the Lamb, he went on to record
these words, “Therefore they are before
the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits
on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst
anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will
be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God
will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Remember a few weeks ago when we saw Peter in his first epistle say, “By his wounds (meaning the wounds of the
Lamb) you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have
now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of you souls.”
This
Triumphal Entry that we celebrate today on Palm Sunday with children coming in
and placing palm branches at the foot of a cross, this is the foreshadowing of
Revelation 7. Yes, it’s a day in which
we celebrate the work of Christ and (we could say) the final push of his
earthly ministry; this is the 4th quarter or crunch time of his time
on this earth. All those things are very
much true. However, let us not separate the
events of that entrance from the bringing in of the sacrificial lamb of
Leviticus 4 that we began this series with.
There was a price to pay for sin.
It wasn’t Jesus’ sin, but the sins of mankind. The only way for those sins to be atoned was
through the sacrifice of the unblemished and spotless lamb, and that’s exactly
what happened.
As
we go about our week and conduct ourselves in the world; whether it’s waiting
for a week off of school, enjoying a short week, or getting all of your
planning taken care of for an Easter gathering, remember what this week means
to the people of God. This is the week
that it all changed. This is the time
when we went from an awaited sacrifice and standing with God to one that is our
present reality. Yes, there is still
more to come, but this is something so wonderful and powerful that had been the
plan since before the foundation of the earth.
Praise God for his Son. Praise
God for his Lamb.
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