Crowning the Lamb

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who loves you with his very life. Amen.

I don’t know quite know how to say this, but I feel like I have been permanently changed, altered? again I don’t know how to describe it, but I definitely view the world differently because of Disney movies. Nearly every Disney movie has in it a crowning moment, a coronation, where the hero of the film receives the crown, takes the thrown, has their moment of triumph, however you want to say it. From Sleeping Beauty, to the Lion King, to Frozen, to Encanto, its there.

Throughout it we watch these characters struggle with something, but at the end, they receive their crown, and they rule their people in fairness and whatever.

And I say that I have been changed by this because someone being crowned is a thing that happens in real life and often in certainly more important than any animated cartoon. From the coronation of Charlamange, to Cesar becoming emperor, to Kublai Khan ascending to the throne, to Queen Elizabeth, who is celebrating a long life as monarch. Coronations still happen and still are a sight to behold.

As I was preparing for the sermon today I did some research into coronations, and no I didn’t just watch Disney movies with my kids. And in these pictures from antiquity, you can see the moment the crown is placed on the head of the monarch.

A crowd is there to watch, thousands gathered in the courtyard. The dark and dreary world of the middle ages is made alive with flowers and color, you can almost hear the song of the lyre and flute blaring from the picture. You can feel the fire and smell the roast goose as the whole nation is prepared to celebrate this crowning achievement, when the king takes his throne.

Today we have the crowning moment, the coronation of no less than Jesus himself, than God himself as our text today from Revelation 5. This chapter shows us one of those moments, one of those pictures of the king ascending to his throne. And it’s still from the book of Revelation so this picture isn’t what you would find hanging in a museum, it doesn’t look at all like a Disney movie. Oh no, this is much more grand, much more profound.

I want to look at it with you this morning, to see this moment, because one day, one day, you will get to see the king sitting on his throne. You will get to see the crowned prince sitting next to him, and it’s going to be awesome. So the text we have before begins at verse 8. That’s fine but it does start us in the middle of the action. We miss the grand entrance.

Chapter 5 of revelation opens up with God, the Father sitting on his throne as Lord of Creation, of well, everything. In this grand throne room, he’s there and he has this rolled up scroll. It’s the kind of thing you seen in the movies, the message from the king, sealed by the king with his signet ring. The messenger goes throughout the kingdom proclaiming the message, the decree of the king to all the kingdom.

SO God has this message to deliver, but no one is able to open the scroll. It’s like that scene in Cinderella, when no one is able to put on the glass slipper. I told you, I've been corrupted by Disney movies. Anyway, no one is worthy. And everyone is distraught, people are literately in tears. God has this important message to proclaim, and no one is able to proclaim it. God has this royal decree and we can’t hear what it is!

Until, at the last moment, one of the elders says, “Don’t worry, he’s here!” And into the castle, into the cathedral, steps the hero. Throwing open the doors in dramatic fashion. The text doesn’t say he does that, but that’s how I picture it. And suddenly, everyone erupts in joy! Intense joy.

And who is it that enters? Well, that’s hard to describe. It’s paradoxical. It is the Lamb who was slain. When we hear those words are minds eyes go to a picture of Jesus, which to be fair, it is. But we see like, Jesus in the upper room talking to Thomas from last week. We picture Jesus there with the hand wounds you can poke your finger through, or the spear wound you can put your arm in.

But this is Revelation. Nothing is that simple. John shows us a picture of the passover lamb. For those of you in confirmation class or Bible study, John is showing us Fluffy. This is, like a sheep. Not just any sheep. A sheep who had been sacrificed. His throat slit. This is a paradox of this dead sacrifice alive again. And this picture John is paining here, this scene from his vision, is my absolute favorite, honestly it is my favorite piece of liturgical symbol, the victorious lamb. I have a picture of it here. “For the Lamb who was slain has begun his reign Alleluia”

He comes in, walks right up to the Father, takes the scroll from his hand. Receives the crown, if you will. Only Jesus is worthy to be at the right hand of God. Only Jesus is worthy to sit at the throne next to the father. Only the lamb of God who was slain.

And immediately everyone starts worshiping and rejoicing! And John tells us they sing a new song. A new song! For most of the bible, people sing a rendition of the same song, the song by the sea. The song that Moses and the Israelites sing after being rescued from Egypt, after crossing the red sea.

But this song, this song is new. It’s not found anywhere in the OT. This song is about what the lamb of God, the lamb who was slain has done. And you can just hear the whole place explode with sound as countless millions of angels, and people, and the heavenly host, sing. Sing for joy. Sing for excitement, sing for praise. Sing because of what the Lamb has done. I would love to hear the tune. These are the words, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

What a powerful hymn! And it keeps going! I love this detail at the end here, “And I heard EVERY CREATURE in haven and on earthy and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them saying, “to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” and there is a resounding AMEN!

I told you, way better than any movie.

This is the reality of Easter. This is the reality of Christ is Risen, the spirituality reality that the Revelation helps us to see. Jesus rising from the dead and taking his place on the throne next to the Father is so indescribably important.

You were ransomed because of what Jesus did. This is song of heaven. “By [Jesus’] blood [he] ransomed people for God.” And that’s a very profound thing to say. It means that before this event, before the Lamb, Jesus shed his blood, you were held captive, owned by something else. And that to me is frightening.

You were owned by death. Not just death, but sin too. Your whole self, your body and soul, the whole all of you, was owned by death and sin. Death and sin reigned because Adam and Eve brought them into the world. You were born a sinner. And if that were not enough, you contributed to the bondage. You sin. You sin in thoughts, by what you think and what you don’t think, in words, by what you say and don’t say, and in actions, by what you do and what you don’t do. All of that contributes to death. Your death. It’s what you have earned, it’s what I have earned.

It is you. But it’s not just you. It is me, but it’s not just me. The Lamb’s blood was so precious, so worthy, it ransomed people, “from every tribe and language and people and nation’

Jesus died on the cross to pay the price. He rose from the dead, victorious over death. He now bears this eternal wound, the Lamb looks like he was slain, and he has begun his reign Alleluia!

And it gets better. Because of the Lamb, God has given him an eternal kingdom for all those who trust in the Lamb. A great nation which won’t end. A nation of untold billions of people and angles and creatures, which includes you. A people who will see the victorious lamb on his throne, and worship him in his kingdom.

When we see coronations here, be it in movies or paintings, may they remind us of the greatest of them all, of YOUR king, YOUR victorious lamb who has made you his own. Amen.