Transcript

One of the things I'd like to do in the beginning of our time this evening is to call your attention to some material from Vatican II Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy.

It touches on the nature of Eucharistic worship which will relate directly to what we're dealing with tonight in Revelation Chapters four and five.

I'm going to be reading now from, uh, chapter eight, or part eight in this const- uh, constitution.

In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle.

With all the warriors of the heavenly army, we sing a hymn of glory to the Lord.

Venerating the memory of the saints, we hope for some part and fellowship with them.

We eagerly await the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, until He, our life, shall appear, and we too will appear with Him in glory.

That just captures the essence of Revelation chapters four and five, and I just had to begin with that because it is such a, a profound summary, and it's found in one of the most authoritative documents of the church.

Let's turn in our Bibles now to Revelation chapter four.

We're gonna do a little bit of review.

We're studying the Book of Revelation, sometimes known as the Apocalypse.

As I mentioned, the Apocalypse is an example of the literary form known as apocalyptic.

Jewish apocalyptic was a curious type of literature back at the time of Christ.

It expressed a theology of creation, a theology of history.

It really is the first theology of history, scholars suggest, that really arose in any civilization.

One thing that happens in Jewish experience and thought that is reflected in apocalyptic literature is this.

Prior to the captivity, prior to 587 BC when the Babylonians came and conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, the hope of Israel rested pretty much upon a messiah like King David.

So you had King Messiah, and he pretty much exhausted the hope of Israel, but in the midst of that suffering experience in exile, the hope of Israel began to transform itself so that you see a shift away from the Davidic Messiah more towards what you see, what we saw last time when we looked at Daniel 7, the heavenly Son of Man.

The heavenly Son of Man is going to be something more than the Davidic Messiah.

He's going to do something more than establish a political military kingdom on Earth.

He's going to usher in a new age.

In fact, he's going to usher in the Messianic Age, otherwise known as the Age to Come.

Now, this shift, in a sense, is not studied very often, and it's kind of tragic, especially today because when Catholics face the society around us, there's one thing in particular that we're not ready for, and that's the New Age movement.

The New Age movement is capitalizing on the neglect of Catholics of eschatology and apocalyptic.

You look at New Age movement material and you'll see creation spirituality.

You'll see a stress on the liturgy of the cosmos, and all kinds of things that have a limited validity, but when they're taken out of their context, then all of a sudden it leads you into, into heresy.

But it's often said that heresies represent the unpaid bills of the church.

It isn't as though Mother Church doesn't have the resources, it's simply that we're too lazy or slothful to tap those resources.

So be aware of the fact that in the Apocalypse, specifically, but also more generally, in the area of Catholic eschatology, we have a proper emphasis placed upon how to view creation in a Christ-centered way, how to understand history, how to view material, physical reality as conveying heavenly, uh, heavenly life and this sort of thing.

The, uh, the New Age movement has secularized it.

It's now a counterfeit version of whatever truth it was taken, wh- whatever truth was taken out of the Catholic faith.

Now you'll see New Age spirituality is very individualistic, sometimes political, very materialistic.

It ignores the sacramental, the liturgical, the spiritual elements altogether.

But nevertheless, the reason I'm saying this is that I was in two conversations in the past week where I was sharing with people, uh, the view of Revelation that I have come to see as really the most coherent, and both times the person said, Well, it sounds like New Age to me.

And I said, Well, why?

Well, because she keeps thinking about this new covenant, this new world, this new Heaven, this new Earth, this New Age.

That would play right in the hands of the New Agers.

And I said to one guy, I said, It's, it's a shame when we let heretics set our agenda, isn't it?

Because the fact is, they have this heresy because we've been neglecting certain things that they're now exaggerating or over-emphasizing.

I said, So it would be a shame, I think, if you reject the position out of hand just because it has elements that sound like New Age.

If anything, I would expect a good balanced presentation to have some New Age elements to kind of give us the, uh, the, the tools, the resources to counteract that sort of thing.

What we have though in the Book of Revelation is a vision of the Kingdom of Heaven established by the Son of David.

He is the Davidic Messiah, but He conquers through overcoming with His blood, and so it's a very Christ-centered view of the kingdom, but it's a very cross-centered view of Christ.

From the very beginning, uh, where we read in, in chapter one all about how He has been slain and how He has overcome, now we're gonna look at Revelation 5 tonight.

We're gonna see Christ, the lion, the, uh, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, looking as a lamb, uh, looking as though He's been slain.

From the beginning of Revelation to where we are right now- the kingdom of heaven that John envisions is Christ-centered, and Christ is cross-centered.

It's his sacrifice that really makes such a difference.

So, the kingdom of heaven is this invisible world of power and glory that is manifested to John in the Spirit on the Lord's day.

It's first manifested in Jesus Christ.

To accept Him is to accept God and the kingdom of God.

To reject Christ is to reject the kingdom of God.

But that isn't all John thinks because, you see also, that to reject the church is to reject the kingdom.

If you have the king, you have the kingdom, unless you reject his mystical body.

That gets you also in a lot of trouble.

We see a lot of this thought being developed early on in a passage I wanna take a look at.

Let's take a look at Luke 10.

It doesn't relate directly to Revelation, but it has some important elements that I think tie in.

In Luke 10, beginning in verse 1, we see an anticipation of what Christ has in mind for the church.

After this, the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them on ahead of Him, two by two, into every town and place where He Himself was about to come.

So, wherever Christ is going to come, He prepares that place by sending these apostles.

And He said to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.

Go your way.

Behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.

And it goes on describing some of the things that they're to do.

We have some apocalyptic imagery just dropping here and there, this idea of harvest.

We have animal symbolism with the lambs and the wolves.

And then in verse, uh, verse 9.

Let's see, um .

Verse 8: Wh- whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you, heal the sick in it, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' The kingdom of God is near.

So, realize that apocalyptic literature isn't the only place you go to see and to learn about the nearness of God's kingdom.

That is the ministry of Jesus.

It was the ministry of the apostles.

It is the ministry of the church.

So, in order to appropriate, in order to receive the kingdom, we have to accept the king, but we also have to accept His kingdom as it's made manifest in the church through these apostles.

We also see some other imagery here in Luke 10 that kind of, uh, it, it echoes, it reflects, it parallels what we find in the Book of Revelation.

Look down at, um, uh, verse 10.

But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you.' Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.

Uh, another version is, Shake the dust from your sandals.

What is that?

That's a gesture of cursing.

You're not saying, Damn you.

You're saying, You've damned yourselves because you've rejected the king and the kingdom.

Notice that the people in these villages aren't rejecting Christ.

When Christ is going to go to a town, He prepares that town by sending His messengers, these apostles, these disciples.

When they're rejected, He's rejected.

All right?

So, we realize that You know, in reading the Book of Revelation, we have this sense of, wow, what momentous, cosmic, catastrophic events happen all around John.

I betcha if we were there, we'd surely wear the white hats and reject those who had the black hats.

You know, the lines would be evenly, easily drawn.

And yet, the fact is, for us, in our own experience, this type of drama is lived out in humdrum, ordinary things that really are attached to great risks.

We are messengers sent out by Christ.

We represent the king.

We are the kingdom.

And so, when we go out, we have to prepare ourselves the best we can so that people will recognize the kingdom.

On the other hand, we have to realize that when people reject the church, they reject the one who founded it.

And we live in a time, therefore, where the Book of Revelation applies in a very profound way, just as these cities experienced the coming of the kingdom and then its passing away.

Look at verse 13.

Woe to you, Chorazin.

Woe to you, Bethsaida.

For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

But it shall be more tolerable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.

And you, Capernaum, where you'll be exalted to heaven, you shall be brought down to Hades.

So again, simply by preaching the Gospel, we put individuals, we put cities in the riskiest situation because they are making eternal decisions when they decide what to do with Christ and also what to do with the messengers that Christ sends.

Verse 16.

He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me, uh, rejects Him who sent me.

And then the 70 return in verse 17 with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.

How does Jesus understand the ministry of the church in history on Earth through the meager likes of you and me?

Look at the next verse, verse 18.

These guys come back and they're all excited about how they're able to subjugate demons.

Jesus could see far more than they could.

He said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Wow.

That is the apocalyptic drama that's involved invisibly, behind the scenes, whenever we open up the Bible and share our faith.

Whenever Bishop Worrell spoke in Pittsburgh last week about the dangers of pornography, or whenever Bishop Sheldon speaks in the diocese of Steubenville, proclaiming the good news, denouncing sin, this is what Jesus sees as Satan falling like lightning from heaven.

And He said to them, uh, verse 19, Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.

Nothing shall hurt you.

Nevertheless, don't rejoice in this .

that the spirits are subject to you but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

So again we get back to this theme in the, in the apocalypse that the only thing that really matters is whether or not you overcome.

You overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, and all of the, the temptations that surround us.

And once again, in verse 21 of Luke 10, we have more of the same kind of imagery from Revelation.

In that same hour, he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, 'I thank thee, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes.

Yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will.' What is it that he's revealing to the humble and the childlike?

He's revealing divine authority.

He's revealing a heavenly kingdom.

He's revealing the king of kings.

He's revealing to us the authority we have over the devils.

He's revealing to us the Book of Life and the fact that our names are written therein.

But he's also revealing to us that through our ordinary daily efforts to evangelize other people, what Jesus sees behind it and through it all is Satan falling like lightning from heaven.

That is what John is trying to get across on a much more massive scale.

I'm afraid, though, that when we study the Book of Revelation, our tendency is to say, Well, yeah, that's apocalyptic, you know?

That is what you see when you're up in heaven because that's what's going on in up heaven.

John's whole point is this, is to show us that no, what I saw that day in the Spirit up in heaven is what's going on all around you because the kingdom of heaven is in your midst, all right?

This is the message of the apocalypse.

This gives its, thi- this gives the book its immediate im- uh, its, its immediate importance for one thing, but also its immediate liturgical setting.

Because more than everything else in ordinary life, there is one place where this reality John witnesses is truly manifest and that's in our liturgical worship.

That's the key, I think, to understanding Revelation chapters four and five.

Let's go ahead now and take a look at Revelation 4 and 5.

In chapter one, we had the throne vision of the Son of Man.

In chapters two and three, we had the seven letters addressed by Jesus to the seven churches or to the seven angels of the seven churches in Asia Minor.

Now, we've come to the end of the seven letters.

We come to the next major section.

In chapter four, we begin, verse one, After this I looked, and there, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven, and the voice I had heard speaking to me, like a trumpet, said, 'Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.' What is this voice saying, Come up here?

Uh, in, in, let's see, uh, in Philip Carrington's commentary on Revelation he says, This is the first movement of the Anaphora, of the Christian Eucharist in which men join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

This is for John, the Sursum Corda, the lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

The voice of Christ is saying, Come up.

Lift up your hearts.

Enter into a vision of what takes place in the cosmic liturgy.

Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this.

At once I was, once again, in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.

Now, before I do anything else with Revelation 4, let me just ask a question.

What does it mean to be in the Spirit?

That phrase is bandied about by many people and used in many ways.

Sometimes it means, it refers to a kind of subjective emotional feeling, like I'm in the Spirit, I feel really intense.

Other times somebody might say, Well, he was praying in the Spirit, which means for charismatics what?

He's praying in tongues.

Again, a subjective experience.

All which is true, but what is the primary meaning of being in the Spirit?

What is the primary meaning of being in the Spirit?

It's more than just subjective feelings.

It's the objective reality of encountering God with the angels and the saints and seeing His grandeur, His majesty, His greatness, His sovereignty.

At once I was in the Spirit and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it, and the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, a rainbow resembling an emerald encircled the throne.

Uh, uh, a few things worth mentioning just from the commentaries.

Uh, the jasper, the carnelian, these precious stones are associated with what the high priest wore on his breastplate.

They're also mentioned with regard to, uh, what precious stones there were in the Garden of Eden.

And the, uh, one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, a rainbow resembling an emerald encircled the throne.

We don't have the time again tonight to do what we did last week and that is to go back to Ezekiel 1.

There you'll recall Ezekiel had a vision.

He had all the cherubim and then the chariots and the wheels within the wheels, and then he saw a throne and a human figure enthroned there.

And over that throne was what?

A rainbow.

Scholars who study Revelation 4 tell us that in Revelation 4 we have the liturgy of the cosmos, the liturgy of creation.

Whereas in Revelation 5 we have the liturgy of redemption.

The focus in Revelation 4 is on the world as God made it and the world as God renewed it after the flood, signified by what?

The sign of the covenant with Noah, the rainbow.

So here is the creation, the old creation renewed and covenanted with Christ enthroned as it were and a rainbow about His throne.

And so in the rest of Revelation chapter four what we'll see consists of this, the various levels and the various creatures, the various entities of the universe and how they all participate in the liturgical worship of our God.Surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones, and seated on them were 24 elders.

They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.

Now, who are they?

One scholar, Ned Stonehouse, argues that they're angels.

I think that view is very unlikely.

It doesn't It isn't followed by most scholars.

These 24 elders, who do you think they are?

Well, most scholars appeal back to 1 Chronicles.

Turn to 1 Chronicles 24.

In 1 Chronicles 24 and 25, we have a description of how the Jerusalem temple was set up for worship and how the various tribes all sub uh, all contributed elder figures for the worship, and the Levites in particular.

In 1 Chronicles 24, we read beginning in verse six I'm not gonna read all these names, The scribe Shemaah son of Nethanel, a Levite, recorded their names in the presence of the king and of the officials.

Zadok the priest, Ahimelech son of Abiathar, and the heads of families of the priests and the Levites- one family being taken from Eleazar and then from Ithamar.

And then look at the lots and how they're they fall to different men who are to officiate and minister in the sanctuary.

Uh, it refers back to verse five.

They divided them, uh, partially by drawing lots, for there were officials of the sanctuary and officials of God among the descendants of both Eleazar and Ithamar.

Notice how many there were.

Drop down to verse 18.

And the twenty-fourth to Maaziah.

This was their appointed order of ministering when they entered the temple of the Lord, according to the regulations prescribed for them by their forefather Aaron, as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded him.

So, the ancient Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem was set up for worship, and the worship goes back to the visions of Sinai, the visions had by Moses and shared with Aaron.

And these visions gave to Israel the pattern for the ministers, and there were 24.

And then once again in 1 Chronicles 25, besides the 24 elders who ministered there in the temple, we also have the 24, uh, singers, uh, in 1 Chronicles 25.

Uh, one thing that the ancient Israelites did not do when it came to worship was to skimp.

They spent a lot of money, they spent a lot of time, they spent a lot of energy getting the best musicians, getting the best singers, getting the best music in order to worship the Lord in beauty and in holiness.

I think it's sad sometimes when you look at how Catholics worship.

There's one book I've been reading, Why Catholics Can't Sing.

It's only about 200 pages long.

It could have been 2,000 pages- for so many reasons and so much so much evidence, but one of the, one of the hardest experiences in my life was converting seven years ago, and then attending several different parishes over the next few years and discovering that I'd be taking my family and transplanting them in some parishes where people didn't sing, or where if they sang, people didn't really attend or work on music.

That wasn't the way That wasn't the way ancient Israel viewed it.

They worked hard at worshiping God with music, with instruments, with singers, with all of that.

And why?

Because that's what they experienced in the heavenly worship.

We don't withhold anything from the Lord.

We give Him our best.

That's true on Earth in the Old Testament city of Jerusalem.

It's also true, as John discovers, in Heaven as well.

Go back to Revelation 4 then.

Surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones and seated 24 elders.

These are presbuteroi, where we get the word presbyter.

That's the root from the for, uh, for the English term priest.

So these are 24 elders, 24 presbyters, 24 priests, and they're sitting on thrones, but we also read they were dressed in white, the white linen, which was the garment of the priests.

This is unique.

In the Old Testament, you had elders and priests ministering in a temple, but they didn't have thrones.

They all wore white linen garments, the, uh, the ketone, but they didn't have thrones.

What's unique about this is that now, in the new covenant, you have priest kings or royal priesthood.

Remember that from Go back to Revelation chapter one, and you can see from the very beginning in verse, uh, verse six.

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 as God and Father, to Him be glory and power forever and ever.

Amen.

So, we are a royal priesthood.

We are a kingdom of priests.

Ancient Israel had been offered many times God offered ancient Israel many times this prerogative, this privilege of being a royal priesthood.

What Israel w- You know, Israel would initially say, Sure, we want that, but then invariably, they'd go back on that, and they'd say, Well, we want half of it, but we want the other half.

Guess which half ancient Israel chose more often than not back in the Old Testament?

Priesthood or kingship?

It was kingship, because kingship means temporal power, economic wealth, military might.

Whereas priesthood means what?

Service, sacrifice, prayer, worship, and all the other things that secular-minded people don't have much time for.

Here, we discover that there are royal priests enthroned in heaven.

Here, we also discover where the real authority comes from.

It comes from royal priesthood.

They're dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.

It's interesting that there's evidence that, that goes all the way back, uh, to the third and the fourth century suggesting that, uh, men like Saint John and, uh, other bishops from the apostles actually wore gold crowns when they would officiate in liturgy as bishops to symbolize the fact that they are earthly likenesses of these heavenly elders, these heavenly presbyters .

verse five.

From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder.

Before the throne, seven lamps, once again.

These seven lampstands which are the churches were blazing.

These are the seven spirits of God.

We've seen that as a symbol of the Holy Spirit and the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit.

We also see it as the angelic ministry somehow united to the Holy Spirit as well.

Also before the throne, there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.

Now, what's going on here?

What is, what is this, this sea of glass clear as crystal?

Well, this gets us back to something that we were talking about last week, the temple.

Because what we're discovering here is that John is enveloped.

He's taken up into the temple.

But not the, not the earthly Jerusalem temple, but which temple?

The heavenly temple in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Now, I mentioned this book last time and I just read a, a sentence from it.

Raphael Patai's Man and Temple.

I wanna just draw some things out of it again, just for a couple minutes or so.

Uh, from chapter four, Symbolism and Function of the Temple.

This man is a great Jewish scholar who goes back to study what the ancient rabbis interpret, how they interpreted the symbolism of the temple.

Uh, let's see.

The temple of Jerusalem goes on to elaborate the microscopic interpretation of its minutest details.

One scholar, Gray, in fact contended that Solomon's Temple may have been built in accordance with cosmic speculation.

The sages stated that the court surrounds the temple just as the sea surrounds the world.

The Temple of Herod was built of white and blue marble, and alabaster.

One row set inwards, the other protruding.

When Herod wanted to coat the walls with gold, the sages dissuaded him, saying, 'Let it be.' Uh, 'It is more beautiful so, for it looks like the waves of the sea.' And then these rabbis go on to describe that the g- the great brass laver, which is what we're talking about now, this, this, this brass sea, represented the waters of the sea.

The candlestick of pure gold signified the lights in the firmament.

The winged cherubim, the fowl that flies in the firmament of heaven, and the animal offerings that were presented by the priests, the living creatures.

One rabbi in the second century said this.

The tabernacle, and then later the temple, was made to correspond to the creation of the world.

The house of the Holy of Holies was made to correspond to the highest heaven.

The outer holy house, or the holy place, was made to correspond to the earth, and the courtyard was made to correspond to the sea.

Then he describes various elements of architecture and furniture in there.

The table, the showbread, was made to correspond to the earth.

The two showbreads were arranged to correspond to the fruit of the earth in two rows, six in a row, to correspond to the months of summer and winter.

The laver was made to correspond to the sea, which we've already said, and the candlestick was made to correspond to the lights of heaven.

More well-known is Josephus, the great Jewish historian back in the first century.

In his book, The Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus says again, The three parts of the temple, the courtyard, the holy place, and the Holy of Holies correspond to the three parts of the world, namely, the sea, the land, and the ha- uh, the highest heavens.

Likewise, the 12 loaves on the table of showbread, the 12 months of the year.

The seven lamps upon the candlestick, the course of the planets of which that is the number.

The veils that divided the various parts of the temple, composed of four things.

The And that signified the four elements.

Linen signified the earth out of which flax grows.

The purple signified the sea.

Uh, the blue color was the, uh, the air, the sky, and the scarlet was fire.

The famous four elements of the earth.

And likewise, the 12 stones on the breastplate of the high priest corresponded to the 12 months or the 12 signs of the Zodiac.

Now, that's speculation, but it's very likely, it's very likely the case that, uh, this was the way in which John would have interpreted his own vision.

In this commentary by Father Eugenio Corsini, The Apocalypse: The Perennial Revelation of Jesus Christ, published by Michael Glazier, he describes this chapter, chapter four.

He says, Most commentators have noticed that this vision in chapter four is an allegory of creation.

Uh, the whole scene can be seen as a cosmology read with theological eyes, a way of viewing the whole world as a massive temple.

But there's something else here that might seem troublesome, but I wanna kinda throw it out ch- throw it o- throw it out at you and just see what you think.

On page 127, Corsini says this.

Commentators nowadays look to the 24 elders as taken from astronomic speculations.

A double zodiac, the 24 stars of Babylonian speculations, the 24 heavens of the Pythagorean system.

The four living beings, which the cher- which are the cherubim, we'll look at in a minute, refer more specifically to the earth.

The four elements, the four winds, the four zones of the earth.

This appears correct, but Corsini says, we will not delve into such obscurities.

Let's take a look at those four cherubim a second.

There is a theology of creation which we might find boring, because we're not used to really contemplating the world to see the mystery of Christ there.

But, uh, I think there's something here that really challenges.

We just finished verse six.

Let's take a look now, uh, 6B and, and following.

In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures and they were covered with eyes in front and in back.

The first living creature was like a lion.

The second was like a- an ox.

The third had a face like a man.

The fourth was like a flying eagle.

Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around.

These are like the cherubim that you hear about in Ezekiel chapter one, and also like the seraphim that you read about where in Isaiah chapter six.

Let's see, uh.

Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around.

Even under his wings, day and night, they never stop saying.

Notice that the angels, these cherubim, are saying, whereas later on in Revelation 4, but especially in Revelation 5, the redeemed are singing.More often than not what you'll find is that the angels talk, whereas the redeemed have something to sing about.

The beautiful contrast noticed by several commentators here.

Whenever the living creatures give, uh, no, let's go back.

They never stop saying, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.' Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders then fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever.

They lay their crowns before the throne and say, 'You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power,' for why?

'For you created all things.' Notice that this is a liturgy, then, of creation.

We're celebrating not salvation yet.

That awaits the next chapter.

We're focusing on the glory of creation.

'For you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.' Now, I want to run a few things by you.

First a- as I, before I do, I, I, I want to mention to you, if there's one thing that is lacking in Christian interpretations of Revelation, it's an adequate understanding of the temple, the Old Testament Jerusalem temple.

Because we don't understand it.

We're at a loss to explain a lot of the images and symbols.

These things would've been, you know, close at hand for John.

We know that John was able to get in to see Jesus during his trial because he knew the high priest.

He was close friends with the priest and his family.

So for John, apparently all this temple architecture, all the temple furniture, all the temple liturgy, the ritual, these things must have been very well known to him.

So when he describes these visions using all kinds of temple symbolism, we have to go back and reinvent what for John were wheels.

We've got to go back and understand these things.

Uh, two books written by great Catholic authors here, uh, one is by, uh, Father Hubert Lignee, Lignee, L-I-G-N-E-E.

It's entitled The Living Temple.

The Living Temple was published by, uh, Palm Publishers in Montreal back in 1966.

Then it was distributed in the States by Helicon Press.

Our library's got a copy.

The Living Temple.

This is a fascinating study of how God is constantly establishing a temple to dwell in the midst of His people, and He uses the temple to explain to His children the whole universe and how it's their home.

The other book is by Jean Cardinal Danielou entitled The Presence of God.

This also is out of print, but our library has a copy of this.

The Presence of God.

It's a translation from the French.

The original French title was The Sign of the Temple.

This was also published by Helicon Press, uh, back in 1960.

Uh, more recently, an Anglican theologian, Margaret Barker, just last year wrote a, uh, wrote a book called The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem.

This was published by SPCK in 1991.

Anyway, the thing I want to throw out at you real quickly corresponds to the cherubim.

What is the significance of the cherubim?

This, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a quote from David Chilton's book, The Days of Vengeance, this commentary on Revelation that I read from last time.

Remember, we were discussing Revelation 3:20, I stand at the door and knock, and he's the one as a Protestant who related it to the Eucharist.

He's looking now at the, uh, the four, the, uh, the four beasts, the, the four cherubim.

There is another aspect of the symbolism connected with the four living creatures that should be mentioned, their correspondence to the signs of the zodiac.

Uh-oh.

This really sounds new age now, doesn't it?

The reason for this may be that, let's see, uh, Their correspond- the biblical writers were familiar with the same system of constellations as that which we know today, except that the name of the eagle seems to have been usually substituted for that of scorpion, the Scorpio.

The reason for this may be that the ancient association between the scorpion and the serpent led biblical writers to substitute the eagle in its place.

Uh, some ar- some scholars argue that all the way back in Abraham's day, instead of a Scorpio, you had figured an eagle in the Chaldean system.

Anyway, The faces of the cherubim in both Ezekiel and Revelation are the middle signs in the four quarters of the zodiac.

The Lion is Leo.

The Bull is Taurus.

The Man is Aquarius, the waterer.

And the Eagle, as we have seen, is Scorpio, so called.

Saint John lists them here in counterclockwise order backward around the zodiac.

Now, he says this.

There is nothing occult about any of this.

Indeed, the Bible strongly condemns all forms of occultism.

That is the desire for esoteric or autonomous wisdom apart from God, including astrological occultism.

But this does not mean that the constellations themselves are evil any more than pagan sun worship prohibits us from seeing the sun as a symbol of Christ, which it is in Psalm 19, Malachi 4, Luke 1, many other parts of the Bible.

On the contrary, Chilton says, the constellations were created by God and manifest His glory.

Psalm 19:1-6.

They are not simply random groups of stars.

Nothing in God's universe is random in the ultimate sense.

Rather, they've been specifically placed there by God.

So the arrangement of the 12 tribes of Israel around the tem- tabernacle in Numbers 2 correspond to the order of the zodiac and the 12 signs of the zodiac.

That's why archeologists have actually uncovered synagogues going back to the first and second century of the common era.

And you'll have signs going back to Moses and signs of Solomon's temple, but inlaid in the floor is a mosaic of the zodiac.

And the 12 signs of the zodiac correspond to the 12 tribes of Israel, and the hope that Israel is the beginning of a new world, a whole new world order symbolized by the constellation.

And like the cherubim, four of the tribes of Israel represented the middle signs of each quarter.

Judah was the lion.

Reuben was symbolized by the man.

Ephraim was the bull.

And Dan, the tribe of Dan was the eagle.So, the reason for the correspondences between Israel on the one hand and the stars is explained by Gordon Wenham.

Wenham says, Scripture frequently refers to the celestial bodies as God's heavenly host.

Another, the word for host in Hebrew, Zabaoth, literally means the armies of God, the heavenly armies, while the armies of Israel are called God's earthly host or His earthly armies.

So the earthly tabernacle was a replica of God's heavenly dwelling.

Both were attended by the armies of the Lord, the angels and the people of Israel.

Likewise, in Genesis 37:9, Jacob and his sons- are compared to the sun, moon, and 12 stars.

And then of course, the most famous example of astronomical symbolism is that the birth of the Messiah Himself was announced to the Magi by the stars.

So once again, the devil and his, and his folk have hijacked relative truths.

And the way heresy works is by absolutizing a relative truth, that is by making the Zodiac an end in itself, making the Zodiac not a sign of creation that points us to Christ, but making it the ultimate source of our wisdom so that we end up rejecting Christ or neglecting the revelation that God gives to us in Christ and His church.

But throughout the whole world, God has put signs that all point us back to Him.

And I think it's tragic that we aren't familiar with those signs.

I think it, it, it leads us to a neglect of creation and a neglect of elements that are meant to be in the liturgy as well.

Uh, Chilton also mentions this.

He says, uh, he's speaking now about how the, um, the elders wore white linen and golden crowns, and they had beautiful thrones.

He says on page, uh, 153.

And remember, he's a Protestant now who comes from the Reformation tradition.

This brings us to another point that we should mention before we move on.

Uh, we've already noted, back when we were back in his comment on Revelation 3:20, Several p- problems caused by the rationalistic tendencies of those groups that grew out of the Reformation.

Unfortunately, it became common in those same groups to dispense with the elders' robe of office.

Though the concern was for spirituality, the actual effects were to Platonize doctrine and worship.

What does that mean?

To ignore the physical, the bodily, the material.

The physical is meant to be a sacrament of the spiritual.

But he's saying since the Reformation, there's been a Platonizing.

Many Protestants, many non-Catholics say, Hey, we don't need to kneel or we don't need to stand because we're bowing in our hearts.

Well, that's Platonizing.

If we bow in our hearts, we ought to bow with our bodies as well.

He goes on to say, The actual effects were to Platonize doctrine and worship and to democratize government and ministry, further steps on the long, dusty road toward Reformed barrenness.

That's Chilton, not me.

There's another Reformed scholar that he quotes, Richard Pacwir, who reminds us, Color is a teacher through sight, and it creates moods.

We misunderstand human nature and the place of perception in our inner life when we downgrade this factor in the worship of the church.

God has created us physically and spiritually.

And so when we worship, there's a proper place for not only robes and thrones and crowns, but for white and for scarlet and for purple.

And yet, I have to tell you, I am still playing catch-up ball when it comes to understanding the theology of liturgical symbolism.

And I don't know many priests who really study all that goes into the Catholic traditions of worship.

But one thing I would want to do tonight is use Revelation 4 to whet your appetite and to kind of go out there and, and, and humbly cause trouble with the priests and ask them to teach you- all these things.

Because even if they don't know themselves, you might stir up an interest within them and then have them search it out and share it with their congregations, their parishes as well.

Let's go on now.

Let's turn to, uh, Revelation chapter 5.

You know, before we do, one other thought that I, I skipped over because I mentioned it last week, but it bears, it bears repeating.

You have here the greatest creatures in the whole universe, the most powerful entities in these cherubim, and they are so humbled by the majesty of God.

We have to remind ourselves that we worship by faith.

We don't see what we worship.

If we did, we'd be humbled even more than the cherubim.

What are these cherubim, by the way?

The, the, the one that looks like a lion, the ox, the, uh, the one that looks like a man, the one that looks like an eagle.

These are to be understood as, you know, do angels look like animals?

That's the question I'm really thinking of.

Do angels look like animals?

If we could see cherubim I thought angels were pure spirits.

Why do they look like animals?

When you go back and study the early church fathers, they wrestle with this issue because they define angels as pure spirits, yet they had to deal with texts that explain angels in animal terms and physical images.

Most likely, the explanation, the most likely explanation that the fathers gave was that these angels represent the power behind physical creation.

And the reason why they're depicted as animals, because the lion signifies what?

Power and authority.

The ox signifies strength.

The man signifies intelligence or wisdom.

And the e- eagle sig- signifies speed.

The view of the universe back in antiquity and back in the early church was not this, this idea that God kind of winds up the universe like a clockmaker winds up his, his clock.

He just kind of puts these natural laws, uh, into He just, He puts these natural laws in creation, then He kind of steps back and just becomes somewhat uninvolved and these natural laws just take effect in some impersonal, impersonal way.

The, the cosmology, the view of the, of the world is that angels are behind the clouds, behind the weather.

They're behind all the motion and all the power and all the strength and all the speed that we experience in the animal realm.You talk about something that is foreign to the 20th century mindset.

We have a scientific worldview that is much closer to Baal worship in ancient Israel than to the people of God.

Baal worship just focused on worshiping the forces of nature, as impersonal forces.

And again, I, I remember when I first began reading the early church fathers about three years before becoming a Catholic, back around 1982, out of '83.

I was right out of seminary.

I was teaching my congregation, Presbyterian Church, all about worship, and they wanted to know about angels.

And so I had a section of a sermon devoted to explaining the angels.

Then it became an entire sermon.

Then it became two or three sermons because we were utterly fascinated by angels.

I found just a few days ago a note card from my sermon preparation, because for me it was like a whole new world opening up to see how important these angels were.

And this was something that Protestants and Catholics agreed on.

You know, sometimes people think, Well, the Catholics are the ones who have the devotion to the angels, whereas Protestants don't have much room for this.

That isn't true.

I found that, uh, even in Calvin and Luther, you had this view that the angels basically controlled the motion of the whole world, and that, you know, everything that happened around us in some way touches on the spiritual dimension of the universe.

Uh, I'm gonna skip over this long quote from Calvin, but, uh, it's amazing to see.

Uh, let me just, just excerpt one part of it.

He says, um, All creatures are animated by angelic motion.

When Calvin speaks this way as a Protestant, he's reflecting a medieval and patristic view that goes all the way back to ancient Israel.

Uh, he says, uh, in commenting upon Revelation 4, Calvin says, By these heads, all living creatures were represented to us.

These animals comprehend within themselves all parts of the universe by that figure of speech by which a part represents the whole.

Meanwhile, since angels are living creatures, we must observe in what sense God attributes to angels themselves the head of a lion, eagle, man, for this seems but little accord with their nature.

And he goes on to explain it in terms of power and wisdom and speed and motion and so on.

But, uh, anyway, my, my point, uh, in this is to stress the fact that we take part in the liturgy of creation, and we're surrounded by a multitude, a vast, innumerable host of angels who aren't just there singing, Holy, holy, holy, all the time.

I mean, that's, that's the reductionist vision we have.

These angels serve God, singing, Holy, holy, holy, but by executing just countless tasks all around us.

Next time you fly on an airplane, you thank God for the angels that hold those wings up.

Now, that might sound childish, but there really is an elemental truth there that is often lost to our faith because science strips it bare and takes it down to this kind of barren naturalism, a form of rationalism.

This is not just romanticism.

There's something that really, uh, we can see with the eyes of faith.

And now I, I, I'm hearing my voice echo off the walls.

I'm thinking, Gosh, these guys must think I'm a, I'm a fanatic.

No, but you think I'm bad.

I am mild compared to the early fathers.

And when St. Thomas describes things, he's the same way.

Uh, we, we, we're so selective in our reading of the fathers sometimes.

In Revelation 5, Then I saw on the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides.

The word for scroll is biblion.

So it's a book, but it's most likely a scroll.

With writing on both sides.

Does anybody else, does anybody recall what else had writing on both sides?

Yeah, somebody wis- whispered it.

Yeah.

The 10 Commandments?

The 10 Commandments.

Yeah, Exodus 32:15 tells us that when God engraved-

Uh-huh

the Commandments on the stone tablets, there was writing on both sides.

Probably more than a coincidence.

There's probably some relationship between this scroll or biblion and the 10 Commandments, because there's something about the old covenant which is unfulfilled by the time you come to Christ.

Then I saw on the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals.

It's hard to, to know for sure what this is.

Uh, one scholar argues that this was the way in which legal testaments were, uh, were conveyed back in the first century, that you always knew that you had a testament because it would have seven seals on it.

Now, he's very, uh, very forceful in asserting this, but there isn't that much, there isn't that much evidence to back it up.

But it would be interesting, in fact, if this was a testament or a covenant that was sealed and only Christ could open it.

We're not really sure exactly what it is, except that it's a scroll with writing on both sides, sealed with seven seals.

And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?

Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?

This seems to be the connection between Revelation chapter 4 and chapter 5.

The old creation is governed by God according to an a- administration, or what the early fathers called an oikonomia, an economy.

What is another way of describing how the old creation that God first formed in Genesis 1, how is that governed?

How is that administered?

The answer is this, the old covenant.

The old covenant corresponds to the old creation, corresponds to the old heavens and the old earth, and the way in which man was created in there before sin.

But ob- obviously, there's something that is incomplete about the old creation, the old covenant, mainly because of sin.

So creation groans and travail, Romans 8 tells us, because it isn't able to attain its goal.

It isn't able to achieve its ultimate purpose.

Why?

Because of man, because of sin, because of our own rebellion against God.

We were put as the crown of creation to rule over it, to be, as i- as it were, the ruler of rulers, the king of kings.

So when we rebelled, all of the whole old creation was somehow out of whack.

It wasn't working as it wa, was, was meant to work.

So here we see that in the old order, in the creation that God first formed, there is something that is not able to be fulfilled or consummated.

That's what I think this scroll signifies, the old covenant.

Like the, uh, the Ten Commandments signified the old covenant which administered the old creation.

And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?' But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it.

I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside.

In other words, John must have a sense that the content of the scroll are absolutely essential.

What this scroll will reveal is necessary for the world to achieve its end.

Verse five.

Then one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep, for lo, the lion of the Tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed.

He's able to open the scroll and its seven seals.' Now, we all know who he's talking about.

Sorry about that.

We all know that it's Jesus.

But where do we get this idea of the lion of the Tribe of Judah?

Let's turn back to Genesis chapter 49.

Genesis 49 is where we have- a blessing being given by Israel, that is Jacob, to his 12 sons.

And as he blesses them, he gives a kind of prophetic oracle.

Mm-hmm.

In other words, he, he does more than just say, Go out there an- and be good and be powerful, and all that.

He gives to them a kind of oracle that predicts what they will become, each of the 12 sons of Israel, as they become 12 tribes.

Genesis 49 verse eight.

He's already blessed the first three sons, Reuben, Simeon, and Levi.

Although if you look at their blessings, they're not really blessings.

For instance, Reuben, in verse three.

You're my firstborn, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, preeminent in pride, preeminent in power.

Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence.

So Jacob withholds the authority that belongs to the firstborn from Reuben because he's too proud, too arrogant, too violent.

Likewise, verse five.

Simeon and Levi, sons two and three, are brothers.

Weapons of violence are their swords.

Oh my soul, come not into their council.

Oh my spirit, be not joined to their company.

So he withholds the blessing of the firstborn son from sons two and three.

So now, who is to get the, the blessing of the firstborn son?

In verse eight.

Judah, your brothers shall praise you.

Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies.

Your father's son, sons shall bow down before you.

Judah is a lion's whelp.

From the prey, my son, you've gone up.

He stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lioness.

Who dares rouse him up?

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until he comes to whom it belongs.

Until who comes?

The rabbis always saw that as Messiah King.

Messiah King would come from the tribe of Judah, and until he came the ruler's staff would always be between the feet of some Judahite king.

And to him, King Messiah, shall be the obedience of the peoples, binding his foal to the vine and his ass's colt to the choice vine.

He washes his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes.

His eyes shall be red with wine and his teeth white with milk.

And oh how the early church fathers used to allegorize this in terms of the passion of Christ, that he accomplished his kingdom by offering up himself as a whol- as a whole burnt offering.

So when we hear in Revelation chapter five, verse five, Lo, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed, we go back to the Old Testament, we discover there in Genesis 49 the blessing, the royal authority being given to Jacob's son Judah so that the tribe of Judah would always produce the kings of Israel.

And then, of course, that would be in the, the line of, of Jesse and the, the root of David.

He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.

So John hears this magnificent truth that finally somebody's been found worthy, and the somebody is the king of kings.

He's the lion of the tribe of Judah.

He's King Messiah.

But what is so striking is the irony.

Because when he turns to view this lion, what is it he beholds?

Then I saw a lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne.

Or, Then I saw a, a lamb standing as it's been as it had been slain in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.

Uh, Carrington and some other scholars suggest this idea of standing, this lamb standing as though it's been slain, that's one possible rendering of the Greek, is another way of saying that this lamb is the lamb of the continual burnt offering, the Tamid, the daily sacrifice of the morning.

Uh, that standing was another way of expressing contini- uh, continuity.

So as, uh, so that the lamb standing is the lamb as a continual offering.

Uh, that's possible, but I think more likely what you have here is a reference not to the daily offering of the lamb each morning, but to what?

The Passover.

The Passover lamb.

This is, you know, the meaning of the lamb, I think, in John's gospel.

It allows for other associations as well, because if you go back in antiquity you'll discover that the rabbis viewed, uh, as one the sacrifice of the Passover lamb on the one hand, and the Passover I'm sorry, the, uh, the daily sacrifices on the other.So, then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain standing in the center of the throne encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.

So here is the king.

Here is the lion of the tribe of Judah, and what it is is a lamb, and the lamb looks as though he's been slain.

What is the significance of this?

It's our salvation.

It's our redemption.

It's the fact that Christ is like the 24 elders; he's priest and king, but unlike the 24 elders, he's king, priest, and victim.

And his victim status is ongoing.

It's continual.

It's perpetual.

He always presents himself before his Father in heaven and in the presence of all the angels and the elect in heaven as not just king, not just priest, but also victim, as the sacrificial victim offered for our salvation.

He is worthy to be king, he is worthy to be priest, but the reason why is because he's fulfilled the covenant of creation.

He has undergone the sacrifice necessary to transform the old order into the new order.

He had seven horns and seven eyes.

The horns, of course, are s-, uh, a sign of power.

The seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the Earth.

He came, he took the scroll from the right hand of Him who sat on the throne, and when He had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb.

Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

There's so much here we could spend time on.

The one thing I want to focus your attention on is the mass, because this is really what Sacrosanctum Concilium was telling us, that in the Eucharistic sacrifice we participate in this heavenly liturgy.

The first half of the liturgy, the liturgy of the word, in effect, corresponds to the praise and the thanksgiving of creation.

But there's a turning point in the mass, just as there's a turning point here in Revelation 5 where we're not just talking about God the Creator anymore; we're now worshiping God the Redeemer, God the Savior.

In the Eucharist we have the sacrifice, and many non-Catholics balk at this idea.

How can you have a sacrifice when Christ was sacrificed on Calvary once for all, right?

I used to always throw that criticism out.

Uh, on March 1st I'm gonna be on a radio show out in San Francisco debating a Jesuit priest, a former Jesuit priest.

Uh, Father Bush is now a fundamentalist anti-Catholic, kind of tirade or on the country side.

You know, he's produced this, this, this video, Catholicism in Crisis, Pray for Me.

But one of the things that I'm supposed to talk about is the mass as a sacrifice.

How can it be a sacrifice when Hebrews says over and over again that Christ offered Himself up once for all?

The answer is found in Hebrews, but it's also found here in Revelation, chapter 5.

Turn with me to Hebrews 8 real quickly.

In Hebrews 8 we have an idea that is often lost sight of that holds a key, I think.

In Revelat- in Hebrews, chapter 8, verse 1, we read, Now the point in what we are saying is this.

We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord.

So we have a high priest.

It's obviously the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is seated at the right hand of the throne, so He Himself is also enthroned, but He's also ministering there in the sanctuary, the true tent, which is the heavenly tabernacle.

So, He is ruling as king but He's ministering as priest.

Verse 3.

For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices.

All right, so here the Lord is king enthroned and priest in ministry.

The ministry of a priest is what?

Verse 3.

To offer gifts and sacrifices.

Hence, it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.

Now, if He were on Earth He would not be a priest at all since He's not from the tribe of Levi.

Besides, if He were an earthly priest, what would the sacrifice, the gift, the offering be that He would offer up?

It'd be animal sacrifice.

But He's not from the tribe of Levi and He's not celebrating His priestly ministry on Earth.

He's from the tribe of Judah.

He's a priest king and He's celebrating, He's ministering in heaven.

So what is His sacrifice?

What is the point of Hebrews 8, verses 1, 2, and 3?

Christ is king enthroned but He's also a priest ministering for us.

If He's a priest, then what must He be doing?

Verse 3.

He must be offering gifts and sacrifices.

What is His sacrifice?

It isn't animal sacrifice as in Revelation 4.

You have the animals signifying the animals that were sacrificed.

His sacrifice is Himself.

And He presents Himself in Revelation 5 as a lamb who still looks slain.

Doesn't mean He's suffering, doesn't mean He's bleeding, doesn't mean He's still dying, but He's still offering Himself up as priest and victim.

He's still offering Himself up as priest king, but also the paschal lamb.

This fits perfectly with what Paul says in First Corinthians 5, verse 5.

Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, therefore we've got to keep the feast.

And it also fits perfectly well with what we see here in Revelation 5.

Some other things I think that are important here and are worth commenting on.

See, He came and took the scroll from the right hand of Him who sat on the throne, apparently from His own Heavenly Father.

When He had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb.

Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the saints.

It was only when I studied this passage that I realized how rich our worship ought to be.We ought to become used to using incense.

We ought to be used to, to seeing presbyters in linen.

We outta be used to seeing men bowing, prostrations and so on and so forth.

My first experience of liturgy was not in a Roman Catholic Latin rite liturgy.

I went down to Saint Cyril Methodius Seminary in Pittsburgh to meet a deacon.

Deacon Mike, and he took me into vespers.

He was all apologies, he says, I'm so sorry you didn't come down, and so we could celebrate the Eucharist.

All it is, is, is vespers, you know?

And as we walked into this Byzantine rite Catholic sanctuary I'm like, Whoa.

This iconostasis up front, behind it was this, was the Holy of Holies, and the whole place just beautifully reeked of incense.

And as we came in, they all would bow and then kiss the icon.

And I sat in the back because I still wasn't sure, I'd have to convert, I still hoped that I wouldn't have to become Catholic, but I wanted to find out what this was like, and I wasn't ready for mass yet.

It just seemed too sacrilegious to attend a sacrifice when I wasn't even sure if a sacrifice wasn't blasphemous, you know?

So, I was glad to be at vespers, but for the next 50 minutes or so their prayers and their songs were all constantly interspersed with prostrations and incense.

And they would go back into the Holy of Holies, they would open up the iconostasis, and I was, I, I was weak-kneed, I, I sat there the whole time and I was just shaking.

I was trembling.

I, I couldn't believe the experience.

And, and on the way out, you know, uh, Deacon Mike just tapped my shoulder and said, Let's go down, let's just go down to the cafeteria.

And I'm just quiet, I'm not saying a thing, and as I'm going down the hall he and his friends are looking at me, and I'm, I'm not sure how I looked.

I was probably pale and somewhat in shock.

And, and he said, What do you think?

And I didn't know what to say, and so I just, I just heard myself say these words, Now I finally know why I've got a body.

And I didn't say anything else for like five minutes.

I just kept hearing those words reverberate in my mind, Now I know why I've got a body.

Now I know why I've got a body.

For prostrations, for bowing, for standing, for raising our arms, for getting dressed up, for, for expressing worship and praise and thanksgiving to God.

And the whole thing is not an ego trip at all, it's a humiliation in some ways.

And you can see it, the cherubim, these living creatures, the 24 elders, they all fall down before the lamb.

They're not saying, Hey, look, we are the most awesome powers in the universe.

We can't fall on our faces.

That would be beneath our dignity.

Hey, look, if the cherubim and the elders in heaven do it, who are we not to bow?

Much less, or, uh, not, you know, not to prostrate much less bow.

Uh, I have a bugaboo, and it's just a personal quirk and so I'm not gonna make an issue out of this.

But I tell ya, I have a real tr- problem, as a convert I suppose, but it's a real problem nonetheless, attending Catholic Eucharistic liturgies where we don't bow.

I know we don't have to, but I don't want to be minimalistic.

It's the one thing that we do in our lives to express homage before God.

Where else in American culture do we express any kind of veneration in a physical way?

We really believe that's almighty God, that's the line of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, that is the lamb standing there looking as though it's been slain before the father for our salvation.

I'm not asking for prostrations, falling on our faces, but why is it that we structure sanctuaries I've been to at least five or six Catholic sanctuaries where there are no more kneelers.

Where there are comfortable little chairs.

For Western rationalist worship in the mind, nice and comfortable.

In an easy seat.

You know, I, I have to tell you, I, I struggle with my conscience even at the university when we're up at the tent, because when I see the Eucharistic Lord and I see people who love him, and when you open up the eyes of faith and you behold myriads of angels all around, what are we doing standing there?

Well, people say, Standing is also an expression of respect in American culture.

The heck it is.

I mean, sure, when somebody important s- comes in the room, we stand up.

For the president, maybe.

You know, for a judge in a courtroom.

We're talking about almighty God.

We're talking about not just democratic American, you know, watered-down veneration.

I'm not dogmatizing, I'm not saying, If you don't, shame on you, or, If you do, you're right, you know, with the angels, or something.

I'm just saying we all need, I think, a kind of heart searching to figure out what should our worship become?

How much time, energy and money should we be spending on music?

On singing?

On materials?

How much time and attention are we, should we be spending on how we express ourselves physically?

You know, I, I confess, don't look at me, I'm not the one.

You know, I'm timid, I'm shy, I'm unsure of myself, but I'm part of a Catholic Church that has all this stuff as part of our heritage.

And so even if I'm shy, don't you be.

Even if, you know, I'm too timid to, to raise my hands or to bow or kneel, prostrate myself or whatever, that's what we have bodies for.

That's why God made us with bodies.

We're not angels.

We don't just worship God with pure intelligence.

We're not just animals who worship God by functioning according to instinct.

We've got bodies and rational souls, so we combine these as we see these elders doing so, worshiping.

They fall down before the lamb.

Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

Something more.

When you see, uh, for instance this morning out at Saint Pete's, uh, Monson- Monsignor Luciana, uh, at least twice went through the whole routine of censing the alter, and then the people of the Lord.

I reminded myself, because I was doing a Bible study tonight, that when he did that I wanted to focus my attention on prayers.

On joining my prayers with the angels and the saints in heaven.

That's what incense is for.

It isn't just to kind of make us feel warm and spiritually sensual, you know?

Well, we can be sensual and spiritual, oh, isn't this nice, being Catholic, you know?

No.

The whole idea is that the senses enable our soul to be elevated.So, it isn't just to be caught up in the aesthetics of it all.

It's to see the sacramentality of it.

So these golden bowls are full of incense, and these are the prayers of the saints.

And look at verse nine.

They sang a new song.

What is a new song?

A new song is sung whenever a new deliverance is wrought by the Lord.

A new song was sung by Moses at the Red Sea after the parting of the Red Sea in the Exodus.

A new song is sung by David whenever the Lord delivers him from his foes.

But this is the newest of the new songs, because this is the new song of the new covenant.

This will always be new, millions of years after it was sung for the first time.

You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain.

And with Your blood, You purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign.

Where?

Up in heaven, right?

No.

Wrong.

They will reign on the Earth.

I'm convinced this one phrase is the most revolutionary truth of the whole book for Roman Catholic Christians in the 20th century.

Because And this was a surprise for me after converting.

I expected Roman Catholic Christians to be militant.

After all, that's what we're called.

The Church Militant?

Mm-hmm.

I ca-, I, I think I joined the Church Somnolent.

The Church of Sleep.

You know?

It's incredible how often Catholics just resign themselves to whatever wickedness is all around.

And, like, fundamentalists who say, Well, you know, the rapture's coming, it's gonna get wicked.

It has to get wicked before Christ comes again, so, you know, why polish brass on a sinking ship?

That's what one fundamentalist preacher said on the radio.

Or, Why rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic?

You know, it's going down.

There's nothing we can do.

We're all poor wayfaring strangers passing through.

And yet I find Catholics kind of joining in the chorus and acting the same defeatist way.

It's like, We don't get involved in politics because you have to compromise there, you know?

We don't get involved in any worldly activities.

Whereas in the earlier part of the century, all the way up through the '50s and the '60s, Catholics were the ones who were willing to roll up their sleeves and get really dirty in the muck and the mire-

Mm-hmm

of secular life.

Sanctifying secular life, you know, hopefully through a lot of prayer and effort.

But now there really is a kind of pietism, a retreatism.

Where, where Orthodox Catholics wanna kind of conglomerate and kind of segregate themselves and congratulate themselves for remaining Orthodox through the '70s and the '80s, you know?

Mm-hmm.

And for being spirit-filled in some case or whatever.

But there really is this idea that we've got to be cloistered, we've got to be enclosed in our- upon ourselves.

And there And the militancy of the Catholic Church in the US is really lacking.

I mean, in some ways it's coming back.

But if you go back and look what's happened since the '60s and the '70s and the '80s, you would think that the only place that Catholic Christians can reign is not on Earth, but in Heaven.

But who are the royal priests?

Are they only the elders on the 24 thrones in Heaven?

No.

We miss the whole point of the song.

You were slain, and with your blood, you purchased men for God from every tribe, language, people, and nation.

And you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the Earth.

Now, eventually when the new heavens and the new earth are formed, we will reign in a much more perfect way.

But the fact is, while we live on Earth, we should be reigning.

Saint Paul tells Timothy, If you suffer, you will reign.

What Revelation 5 tells us is that as we suffer, we reign.

That the mode of suffering is by embracing the cross.

The way we go about reigning, I should say, I said that wrong.

The way we go about conquering, overcoming, reigning, is by imitating the lamb.

The lion of the tribe of Judah, we look to see the king, and what do we behold?

A sacrificial lamb.

That's the way we reign.

That doesn't mean we- we make ourselves out to be, you know, uh, dart boards, lightning rods, pin cushions.

You know, like, Hurt us, world.

Oh, just hurt us.

We're nothing but, you know, mangy masochists.

No.

It means that whatever we undertake, we throw ourselves into it, we accept the task, we count the cost, we pay the price, and discover that in that process, we reign.

I see somebody here who's been working a lot with Protestants, uh, recently in the last year or two.

In terms of, um I have a good friend of mine who, who runs the, uh, I He's not a good friend anymore, but he was a, he was a good friend when I was a Protestant, uh, who runs the Rutherford Institute, which is sort of like a Christian form of the, uh, the ACLU in some ways.

It tries a lot of cases for Christians.

And he was there this summer, and from what I And- and in conversations with him, he was kind of the odd duck, because he was Catholic.

So often you'll find evangelical Protestants out there, you know, in law schools, out there in all kinds of, uh, secular pursuits, trying to extend the kingdom of God in Washington, D-DC or in other parts of states cap- state capitals.

This passage should inspire us to do the same thing.

So often we take the Marian movement of priests or we take Padre Pio and the three days of darkness or we take some other Marian apparition and the, the coming chastisement, and what do we do?

We- we- we- we get serious about our faith because we get holy can- blessed candles and we prepare to, you know, cover our windows during the three days of darkness.

We prepare for defeat.

We prepare for retreat.

I don't understand this.

But the fact is, you know, if, if creation set the stage for redemption and now we are part of those redeemed by the blood of the lamb, God spent thousands of years, thousands and thousands of years, preparing the world for the coming of Christ.

Now that Christ has come less than 2,000 years ago, do you think God the Father is anxious to bring redemption to a, to a close?

If you spend, say, four or five months building a house, how long do you want to live in it?

Two months? hardly for decades, right?

I mean, how long did God prepare for the coming of Christ in the Old Testament?

And even Bishop Ussher's chronology has it 4004 BC, so God spent a minimum of 4000 years preparing for Christ, and probably a lot more than that.

And now, it's less than 2000 years, and we are anxious for Him to rapture us up to the clouds, or to usher in the age of peace and then just to bring it all to an end.

I suspect, or at least I suggest, that the Catholic Church might be around on Earth for tens of thousands of years.

Might not be.

If we're raptured up to the clouds in a few minutes, I'm gonna be happy.

But if we're not, I'm not gonna be surprised.

God has prepared a house, and He's been building it for thousands of years.

And now, less than 2000 years into this, we imagine that it's almost over.

Maybe it is, but I suspect it's not.

We've got a lot of work to do, because we've got grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren who are gonna count on us to tap into all the royal priestly authority that Christ has given us to overcome evil, and to establish righteousness.

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands and 10,000 times 10,000.

They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders, and in a loud voice, now the angels at last join in with the song of the redeemed.

They sang, 'Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.' What is it we should be giving to Christ?

Well, He's merited power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory and praise.

We love to give Him honor, glory and praise, but we have to give Him power, and wealth, wisdom and strength.

The world is filled with power.

The nations are full of wealth.

It all belongs to Jesus.

We've got to convince the world that the only way to establish peace and justice is through the kingship of Jesus Christ.

That is the definition of our vocation as laypeople, to go out and extend the crown rights of our king.

And that's what is being sung here, that He's worthy to receive all of that.

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, forever and ever.' The four living creatures said, 'Amen.' The elders fell down and worshipped.

All of this is written in the very fabric of our liturgy.

Whenever we hear the priest say, Lift up your hearts, we lift them up to the Lord.

What we must do at that moment of our worship, we must close our eyes, or maybe you can keep 'em open and do this, but we have to imagine the reality that surrounds us, invisibly present, but really present.

Because at that moment, we are now ushered into the very presence of God on the throne, and the Lamb, and the, the four living creatures, the 24 elders, the myriads upon myriads of angels.

And they're all around us.

We can't see 'em, but they're there.

And we have the dignity and the privilege to share in their worship.

We're gonna see from Revelation 6 onward that it's this liturgical worship, the prayers, the chants and the songs, that release the seals, blow the trumpets, and cause the world to come to Christ.

Ultimately, it's in our worship and our prayer and our song that we hold the key to history.

I'm not saying don't get politically active; I just finished saying that a minute ago.

But ultimately, everything flows from the altar.

Everything stems from the Eucharist.

Everything is rooted and grounded in Christ and His sacrifice on the cross, and as it's renewed in the Holy Eucharist.

That's where we draw the supernatural strength to perform all of our natural work.

The throne of Christ and His altar, they're like one and the same thing.

Just like you see in the Holy of Holies, you have the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat.

So, Christ on His altar and on His throne, that is the center of the universe.

And I dare say, this is gonna be controversial, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Every single thing that happens, every little minute detail that occurs, occurs because Christ has ordained it from the throne.

There are no accidents.

God is sovereign.

He's ordained whatsoever comes to pass, Ephesians 1.

And so we have to look at the whole world in our worship, reorient ourselves back to reality, remember Christ is on the throne, Christ's throne is the center of the universe, and from Christ's throne comes all of the decrees that form reality.

Nothing happens except what He's decreed.

There are no accidents, not even our worst sins.

Our worst sins are all, all part of a plan whereby He will be glorified and He will share that glory with us.

That's heavy duty.

But if we don't remind ourselves of that continually, we will surely end up feeling defeated before the world and before our own struggle with sin.

Let's go to the Lord now and ask Him for some help.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Amen.

Almighty God, or Heavenly Father, you have made us part of the mystical body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the bride of the Lamb, the heavenly Jerusalem.

You have shown us in these chapters what it is that we do, and how we ascend to a worship service on the Lord's day, and how we are standing with the saints and angels in festal array, worshipping the Lamb on His throne, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David.

We thank you, oh Father, for many things.

But the one thing we thank you for more than everything else put together is that the Lamb is worthy .

for He has conquered and overcome.

We thank you, Lord, for His sacrifice.

We have no hope apart from that sacrifice.

We have more than hope because of that sacrifice.

We have absolute assurance that all the world and everything that happens in history and every detail in my life and in all of our lives flow out of that throne and flow forth from the sacred heart of our Priest King.

We lift up our hearts now.

We lift them up to the Lord of Lords.

We ask for His Holy Spirit to fill us, to change us, to remind us continually of these essential truths so that one day we will all stand there in glory, beholding the face of our Savior and turning around to see each other, remembering this night and the challenge that You give us to overcome and to join ourselves to Christ.

Hear us as we pray.

Our Father-

Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

A couple things.

First, next week I, uh, we're gonna be going through chapters six, seven, and possibly eight and nine, depending on how much ground we can cover.

Uh, so read ahead into that.

And we're gonna be dealing more next week Excuse me.

We're gonna be dealing more next week with the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

I really didn't touch upon this preterist interpretation much at all tonight.

We've d- we've dealt with it in the first two weeks.

You know, you can get those tapes or you can go back to your notes.

But we're gonna focus on that much more next week and possibly for the next two weeks, all right?

One other thing I wanted to mention.

I know that, um, that the four living creatures are also compared to what else besides the cherubim and all that?

I wanted to just acknowledge, and, you know, the evangelists.

Uh, in the, uh, the Navarre Bible Commentary on Revelation, it says, Christian tradition going back as, as far as St. Irenaeus has interpreted these four creatures as standing for the four evangelists because they carry Jesus Christ to the world.

The one with the face of a man is who?

Matt-

Saint Matthew, who starts his book with the human genealogy of Christ.

The lion stands for-

Saint Mark.

Saint Mark.

His gospel begins with the voice crying in the wilderness, which is where the lion's roar can be heard.

The ox is a reference to the sacrifices in the temple of Jerusalem, which is where who begins his account of Christ's life?

Saint Luke.

Saint Luke.

And the eagle represents Saint John, who soars to the heights to contemplate the divinity of the Word.

So there is a real, albeit secondary, application of the four living creatures to the evangelists as well.

Uh, now, any questions or comments that you have?

Yes,

I have a comment under, um, the lecture on liturgy, you know, not only has relevance for our own participation in the liturgy, but also your lecture is perfect justification for the contemplative life.

A lot of Catholics don't understand why somebody would lock themselves away, um, to praise the Lord.

And the Lord is worthy and that's Himself, despite the fact the world needs to be evangelized and social justice and the whole nine yards.

Right.

And just that the Lord is really to be praised.

Yeah.

Oh, amen.

And I understand that.

Yeah, I'm not sure if you heard that in the back, but this is not just a justification for liturgical worship as the Catholic Church does it, but also for the contemplative life.

Uh, we have a student who lives with us, Celeste, who's told us about, well, her five years of the Daughters of Saint Paul and how she lived the, the, the liturgical calendar.

So every season took on sacred significance.

And, and as we learn more and more about Catholic customs, we discover more and more of how creation and redemption really overlap each other exhaustively.

So that as we go through the various seasons and the various feast days, and now we're coming up to Ash Wednesday and we're entering into Lent, uh, the Creator is the same as re- as our Redeemer, and so the whole world.

And yet the fact is, the secular lifestyle doesn't give us much opportunity to really enter into that.

But the contemplative lifestyle, uh, the religious life in particular, is just ideally suited to enter more fully, more single-mindedly into that kind of ecclesial lifestyle.

People have access to monastery, where especially where the religious are cloistered, and they don't have outside jobs.

Usually you can find your best literacies there, because they give their prime time and their prime talents to making your literacy excellent.

Well said.

Yeah, good point.

It's Thank you.

Thanks.

Dan, way in the back.

You'll have to speak up.

Yeah.

When, when it speaks of the throne, does Saint John, is he referring to beholding the Trinity or beholding Christ alone, um, on the throne?

Or is he referring to seeing the entire God head?

Um-

It's hard to say for sure, because he's using physical images to describe spiritual realities.

Uh, I don't think that he's describing the Trinity per se enthroned.

He is describing the heavenly throne room using the, the, the imagery from Daniel 7, where you have the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man.

Generally, that's described, that's, that's interpreted as God the Father and God the Son.

The interesting thing, though, is that we notice in Revelation 1 and then again in Revelation 4 that the one upon the throne, the Son of Man, also takes on the characteristics that you find in Daniel, Daniel 7 being applied to the Ancient of Days.

So it isn't a nicely uh, it isn't a nicely differentiated thing.

Well, here we have the Father, here we have the Son, and here we have the Spirit.

It is a Trinitarian vision, but it is not, it, it is not a nice tidy theological, uh, formula that he sees.

Okay?

Any other questions or comments?