Revelation 7:15-17 “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 spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes”

            So much of heaven consists of acquired tastes. When I was a little boy, I didn’t much care for olives, or coffee, or other things that tasted bitter. About olives my mom once said, “You have to eat seven of them in a row before you will like them.” I don’t know if I ever did that, but as an adult I like olives. I also have a cup of coffee every day, and the bitter taste is something I have grown to appreciate. These were acquired tastes.

            I don’t know that most people sit around dreaming of standing in God’s presence, seeing him face to face, and living under the same shelter with him. Just what do we get out of that? I don’t know that even now, after I have acquired the taste, I can answer that for you too well. But the Scriptures consistently hold out this vision of God, this time in his presence, as heaven’s greatest joy. Think of Job’s great confession that his Redeemer lives, “And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes–I and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”

            My heart yearns within me, too. Maybe I can understand it this way: On earth there has been one person who has come to mean more to me than anyone else. When we are apart, I don’t sleep well. When she is gone and I am home, the house doesn’t feel right. We share common interests, and I love listening to her tell me about her day. Even if we are at home quietly going about our separate business, her mere presence just makes life comfortable and right.

            As we pass our years in faith, Jesus continues to capture our heart’s affection more and more. He created us for himself, and no one has ever loved us more than he has. With time I share more of his interests, and I love listening to what he has to say in his world. Maybe standing in his presence before his throne, serving him in his temple, and living under his tent will be finally realizing that we are home, truly home, and his mere presence makes life comfortable and right.

            This part of our Shepherd’s reward is, perhaps, less difficult to understand: “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

            It’s not a complete list, as though hunger, thirst, and scorching heat will be removed from our experience, but other unpleasant or painful things will remain. Big or small, you can take your least favorite irritations, your deepest sorrows, and freely add them to the list. For several years now my ears have been ringing constantly. The high pitch never stops. If I wake up in the middle of the night, it is there. My doctor says there is little that can be done for it. I have learned to tune it out for the most part. But I know that when I am standing before the throne, all I will hear is beautiful singing, or at times a perfect, peaceful quiet. Part of the Lamb’s reward is the absence of all that hurts or annoys.

            And in its place will be nothing but life. “He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” The idea of “living water” is water that gives us life. Fiji brand bottled water claims that it is “Earth’s Finest Water.” Perhaps. But it can do no more than any water does: hydrate the body and support life.

            The Lamb who is our Shepherd will lead us to water with the power of life in it, water that actually makes us alive. And home with him, truly living will be all we know.

Revelation 7:13-14 Then one of the elders asked me, ‘These in white robes–who are they, and where do they come from?’ I answered, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said, ‘These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’”

The great tribulation–it’s a fitting metaphor for life, isn’t it? No one denies that we have some good days. We enjoy happy moments along the way. But we are never far from some struggle. School and work, family and relationships, health and finances, church and government–these all become battlefields at some time or another. We might think some people have life easier, but I know of no exceptions.

I could illustrate with examples, but you know well enough what I am talking about. George Banks’s observation in Mary Poppins might feel a little pessimistic, but it’s hard to argue it’s not realistic, and Mary Poppins herself never does:

“The children must be molded, shaped and taught
That life’s a looming battle to be faced and fought.”

A great tribulation, in other words, just like the heavenly elder tells John.

In light of the tribulation, we might expect the clothing of these people to be a little soiled. Actually, we wouldn’t be surprised if it were filthy and tattered, especially considering the root cause of our tribulation–the sin with which we and every human on the face of the earth and across the span of history must contend. Some of that is the sin outside of us, the lovelessness or persecution we have to endure. We tend to focus on that.

But the real battle is the one inside, our own inner struggle to believe and behave. We’ve been knocked down far too many times in that fight. Sometimes it has been more of a wrestling match, rolling around in the mud. We hardly get up off the ground. Our lives, our reputations, get soaked through and deeply stained.

But that’s not what John sees, is it. “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” I wear white shirts a lot. Every Sunday it’s a white shirt under my suit coat or robe. If I nick myself shaving Sunday morning, I try like mad to stop the bleeding before I get dressed, to keep my shirt clean. If I get some on my collar, then I change shirts right away, and the one with the blood-stain gets pretreated and soaked in water immediately. Those things aren’t easy to get out.

The blood of the Lamb stains our robes white. It cleanses our lives and reputations before God. We didn’t start that way. We didn’t get that way on our own. Our robes have to be washed from what they were. But when we pass through Jesus’ blood, everything washes away. He is, after all, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He isn’t one part of a bigger process, the pre-soak cycle, the rinse cycle, or the spin cycle that gets our robes ready to dry and wear. The blood that poured from his wounds on the cross, carrying his life away with it, undiluted and unassisted, makes us clean and pure and presents us spotless to God. That’s where the Lamb’s shepherding begins: He lays down his life for his sheep. He rescues them by washing them clean with his own blood.

That’s why the people John sees in this part of his vision have been rescued in another way. “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation.” That’s a much happier way of describing what we commonly refer to as “death.” These are they who have died. Because Jesus washed them clean, death was not a great punishment. It was a rescue. It was an escape. The struggle with sin, the fire of persecution, the labor and toil that rob our joy and make life hard–that was behind them now. They have come out.

And so will we, because the Lamb rescues his people from sin and death.

Hebrew 12:2-3 “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

            Jesus is the author of our faith. My faith isn’t a do-it-yourself project. It was a gift: truths, beliefs, new understandings and dear convictions written in Jesus’ hand on my heart when his word and sacrament called me to faith. Keeping my faith isn’t a do-it-yourself project, either. Jesus is the perfecter, the finisher, like a gardener who never stops tending and improving his garden; like an artist or craftsman who constantly maintains and upgrades his work. Perhaps it makes sense to give him our attention.

            This is what we will see: “…who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” In the Believers Hall of Fame, no one overcame more than Jesus did. Others died to remain faithful to God. But none of them died so innocently as Jesus did. None of them, so far as I know died so miserably as Jesus did. Most of their deaths came rather quickly compared to his day of beatings, insults, and then the slow, torturous death on the cross.

            But Jesus is more than the supreme example of faithfulness to the end. Along with everything else, no one ever died with greater purpose. He endured the cross “for the joy set before him.” That joy was more than his own escape to heaven. It was the joy of souls redeemed and forgiven by the price he paid in their place. It was the joy of a world reconciled to God, peace and love reestablished between heaven and earth. It was the joy of having you as part of his family, knowing you would now belong to him, and that nothing in all eternity could ever separate you again.

His love and sacrifice are more than an example to follow. They are the reason we know that, no matter how bad things get in our world, God still loves us and our stories will end in the greatest “happily ever after” there ever was. That is why we want to “consider him who endured such opposition from evil men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Hebrews 12:1 “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

What are the faith-killers you carry around with you? You know that athletes compete with as little clothing as possible for their sport, and they want it as light as possible. I remember picking up a pair of racing shoes for track and field for the first time. I mean shoes for competition, not for training. I was amazed at how thin and light they were. You can run a mile in a pair of army boots, too. Soldiers do it. But do you think you would win in the Olympics that way?

At the Winter Olympics, teams where special aerodynamic uniforms for various sledding events. A 3-D laser scan is taken of the athletes’ bodies to ensure a perfect fit. Special polyurethane fibers are used in the suit to eliminate as much wind-resistance as possible.

Two thousand years ago, athletes performed virtually naked. Our word “gym” comes from the Greek word for naked. Street clothes for both men and women consisted of robes that stretched to the feet, not unlike the one many ministers wear at worship. Can you imagine trying to run a race that way? So the robes had to come off if the athletes wanted to be able to move and not trip and fall over their own clothing.

What are we carrying around with us that is going to trip up our faith? Jesus refers to several obstacles in his parable of the Sower and the Seed. Remember the seed that fell among the thorns? “The seed that fell among the thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches, and pleasures, and they do not mature,” he says. Money and possessions are tools we all need to conduct our lives. Sometimes God may bless us with large amounts. It becomes a problem for faith when we obsess about them, worry about them, and fall in love with them.

In my neighborhood, a car was recently stolen from a driveway and later used in an armed robbery. Some of my neighbors are in a panic. “Raise the homeowners dues and make it a gated community,” some are saying. “Hire armed guards to patrol our streets at night.”

Don’t get me wrong. I think crime is bad, and we should take reasonable measures to prevent it. But sooner or later, we are going to part ways with our things. They may wear out and we throw them away. Someone may take them from us. In either case, the Lord still promises to provide. Too much concern about them, or love for them, gets in the way of our faith.

It’s hard to finish the race in bulky clothing and carrying heavy dumb bells in each hand. Take it off and set them down. It’s hard to keep our faith with our hands so full of stuff that we can’t think about anything else. Better to let it go, set it aside, “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” Some obstacles we can’t control. These we can. Avoid them, and then run the race God sets before you.

Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Do you know who this “great cloud of witnesses” is? Many of them are named in the previous chapter of Hebrews. They are the great heroes of faith. Abel, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Samson, and David are just some of the famous figures from the Bible on the list. Like us, they had to live their lives by faith in God and his promises. They faced threats and dangers for which they could see no solutions. They couldn’t see how the future was going to work out for them, how things could possibly come out all right in the end.

If anything, their challenges were even greater. My brother-in-law jokes about what he calls “first-world problems.” The Wi-Fi stops working at our house and we can’t send an email. We order something on Amazon and they send us the wrong color. We go out to eat and they are out of our favorite item on the menu. How will we ever survive?

It’s not as if we live in the third-world where today’s challenge might be, “Where can I find safe drinking water?” “How can I avoid being killed by the uncontrolled soldiers of my corrupt government?” I haven’t wasted one second worrying about those things my entire life.

The lives of the heroes of faith sounded more like the third-world challenges, even worse. After going on about individual details from their lives, the writer of Hebrews sums it up this way: They “were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated…They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.”

The point is not to make us feel better because our problems have not been so bad. Your life may have stories that were every bit as hard to survive as theirs. The point is that the Lord took them all the way through life with their faith intact. It can be done.

And now we are surrounded by this “great cloud of witnesses.” Together with the Bible heroes of faith, you may be able to throw in a few that you have known yourself–Christian family members, parents or grandparents, who bravely fought disease, struggled with poverty, were victims of violence or abuse. A friend of mine tells of sitting in church with his grandmother, who sometimes had blackened eyes because of his violent and unbelieving grandfather. But there she was on Sunday morning, with a heart full of faith, singing Christian hymns at the top of her lungs.

These heroes may not be able to see the details of our lives from heaven. But they are still part of the One Holy Christian Church, and they are pulling for us as brothers and sisters in faith. Their example supports us and inspires us. These are the role models we have always longed for, the positive influences we have always needed. We can do it with God’s help. They did. Now they are behind you. So keep running. Don’t give up in this race.

John 13:34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Is “love one another” really such a new command? “Love your neighbor as yourself” wasn’t a new idea Jesus first spoke during his earthly ministry. Moses had been teaching it since Israel camped at Mount Sinai 1400 years earlier. In his first letter, John, who wrote this gospel, calls this an old command, “which you have had from the beginning.”

The word used for “new” does not have to emphasize that something is new in time, though it can mean that, too. It can refer to the quality of “new,” something that is superior. We might think of how Paul elevates love above all, even faith and hope, in 1 Corinthians 13: “The greatest of these is love.”

But if there is something new-in-time about Jesus’ command this night, it is this: “as I have loved you, so you must love one another.” We have this outstanding life of love and sacrifice to look at. Is that intimidating? We see Jesus love people we would find irritating or obnoxious, like the self-absorbed rich man who came to Jesus and asked him what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. “Jesus looked at him and loved him,” Mark’s gospel tells us.

We see Jesus love people we might find disgusting and repulsive, the prostitutes, the five-times-married Samaritan woman who was shacking up with her boyfriend. We see Jesus embracing people with dangerous, communicable diseases like the leper he reaches out to touch before he heals him. We compare how we treat people, and perhaps our faces flush with shame.

Listen closer: “as I have loved you.” “I have loved you.” This isn’t a confrontation. It’s certainly not a contest. It’s his claim, on you. We, you and I, are the self-absorbed, the repulsive, the dangerous-to-be-near people he has loved, and still does. He loved the others for us, and he suffered to save us, because he loves and embraces us.

So we love one another. We are his. “My children” he called these men a moment before. It wasn’t a criticism, an accusation of immaturity. It was a term of endearment: “My dear children, my precious ones.” Children imitate their parents, don’t they? So much of play is doing what mom and dad do.

Except it isn’t play when we love as Jesus loved us. We are living as his children, who know what it is to be loved. Love like that, and others will know we are his.

John 13:33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.”

A part of me doesn’t like the implications of Jesus’ kind of glory. We are his followers, and I don’t like the place it leads. The first time Jesus tried to explain it to Peter, he didn’t like it, either. You remember how Jesus called Peter Satan after Peter opposed Jesus’ announcement that he would die. Then he announced that anyone who wants to follow him must deny himself and take up his own cross and lose his own life for Jesus: not just apostles, or clergy, but anyone, everyone.

I like the praise-and-fame kind of glory. I would like adoring fans telling me how wonderful I am. I could be very content enjoying the respect and support of my congregation, my family, and my neighbors because they think I am nice, or talented. I like this kind of glory, because I like myself–a lot.

There is nothing wrong with being nice or having talent. But we aren’t much use to God or anyone else when being “nice” keeps us from telling someone what needs to be said–that living that way is sin; that no, you are not a good person, you need a Savior, too. We are selfishly squandering our talents when we turn them only to creating a comfortable life for ourselves. The world may glorify a life of self-indulgent luxury. God sees just wasted resources, and a lost soul.

Jesus’ suffering may help me see some of the places my own life will lead. But it also leads him to one place neither you nor I can ever go. That is the place of divine justice. That is the substitutionary sacrifice for sin, that belongs to his suffering alone. “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.”

Peter and John tried to follow Jesus that night, you may remember. After his arrest scattered the disciples, Peter and John doubled back and followed him to the home of the high priest. There Peter’s empty self-confidence turned to cowardice, and he denied knowing Jesus, disavowed any relationship with him three times.

John made it all the way to the cross. There he stood, looking up at Jesus while he bled and died. But even John didn’t go where Jesus went. His hands and feet were not pierced by nails. He didn’t suffer the terrifying loneliness, the dark despair of God’s abandonment, as the single sacrifice to settle accounts between God and man. That trip Jesus made all alone.

At times, perhaps, we have foolishly believed we could make this trip with Jesus, or at least one like it. We will pay for our sins ourselves. We will make ourselves miserable. We will deny ourselves some pleasure. We will make some heroic sacrifice, and then won’t God be pleased, and impressed with our devotion. How pathetic that we would compare our measly discomforts with the hellish agony Christ endured!

It’s not that we fail to go where Jesus went the day he died. It’s that we can’t. “You cannot come.” But thank God we don’t need to. He left nothing for us to do, no sin unforgiven, no soul unredeemed.

The old Lenten hymn asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” By faith it implies that we were, that we are, there as we hear the story and ponder the meaning of the cross.

But in another sense, we weren’t there, and we will never go, because Jesus went in our place. We may have crosses of our own. Jesus warned that they would come. But they are not like his. Our crosses may serve us. Only his can save us.

John 13:31-32 “When he (Judas) was gone, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.’”

When I played football in highschool, we called the guys who handled the ball–the quarterback, the running backs, and the receivers–the “glory boys.” They were the “skill players” whose talents got their names in the paper. They got all the attention and praise.

Sometimes we may think of glory as little more than fame and praise. We throw huge parades for our returning sports heroes after they win the championship. In the past we glorified generals and their troops returning from victory, or astronauts from new exploits in space, in a similar way. But there is another side to glory.

Thirty years ago, a film by the name of Glory depicted the heroic courage of the 54^th Massachusetts Regiment, an all-black regiment, in the Civil War and their white leader, Colonel Robert Shaw. More than a third of the regiment, including Shaw, gave their lives in an unsuccessful assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina. Their dead bodies received no military honors from their battlefield opponents. They were stripped, looted, and thrown into a mass grave. But their bravery won them the respect of the Union army. They earned a more sober, a more subdued kind of glory.

Jesus knew that the events of the next twenty-four hours would be no happy celebration of his fame and popularity. Who associates glory with having your back shredded by whips, your body fastened to wooden beams by spikes driven through your hands and feet, and then left hanging there to die? His cross and death were dark, grisly, humiliating. The Father’s abandonment took him all the way to hell. You don’t get any lower than that.

Still, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him.” Yes, Jesus came through his crucifixion to a victorious resurrection, ascension to heaven, and place of power on heaven’s throne. But his glory didn’t wait for that.

In the Bible, the glory of God is not merely praise and fame. It is more than a blinding light that surrounds him and emanates from his presence. It is the revelation of the kind of God he is. And nothing so distinguishes our God as the love that was willing to suffer so much to save us.

Paul once described it this way, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6-8). That’s what Jesus was about to do. That’s how much he loves us. And that is why the Son of Man was now being glorified, and God was glorified in him.

John 21:9-14 “When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish you have just caught.’ Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.”

Does Jesus’ behavior here strike you at all? Who is this standing on the beach? This is the mighty Lord of heaven and earth who has accomplished his mission to save the world. This is the Conqueror of sin and death returned from battle. This is the glorious King victorious over hell and all its demon forces. Would you be surprised if he had shown up in a blaze of heavenly light, more like he appeared to Saul in our lesson from Acts, and demand these seven men get on their knees and worship him, more like the residents of heaven in Revelation? Wouldn’t it be appropriate considering who he is, and what he just accomplished?

But this is still Jesus. Today he has been cooking for them, making them a simple breakfast over a campfire. He invites them to sit down. He himself serves them the bread and the fish. The King and Conqueror is still a servant to his servants, even in the intimate details of life, like this breakfast on the beach.

A day will come when we will see him shining in all his glory. We will fall on our knees and we will worship the Lamb because he was slain, and with his blood he purchased for God people from every tribe and language and people and nation.

But today he is still our Jesus. He is serving you and keeping a thousand little details in your life working every day. Do you know that not a single atom in your body can hold together without his direct attention?

Before we eat our meals, many of us have learned to pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blessed.” Has it ever occurred to you that he answers that prayer, both parts, every time? He is not too busy running the universe to be a guest at your table, present in the faith and conversations of as many as are present. He is not too busy to bless your macaroni and cheese, or hamburger helper, or grilled chicken, or whatever else you might be sitting down to eat. This food has sustained you all this time, hasn’t it?

He still serves in the intimate details of your life, even many we hardly notice.