Over the past two weeks, many folks have enjoyed watching the Olympics. We have enjoyed watching archery, swimming, equestrian, track and field, and many others. It has been amazing to see all the athletes from all around the world compete by sharing their passion for the sport they excel in. Each person and team seemed to have a routine of what they would do prior to an event or as a response to how they did in the event. After the women?s 4×100 meter relay race, the women all gathered together, huddled up in a group hug, and prayed together. The announcer shared these ladies have prayed together after every event. I could only imagine what they were prayer. What I saw was 4 women, who believed in God, had people all around them cheering and waving the flag of the United States because they had won the race, that in the midst of their winning, they took out time to praise and worship their God in front of millions of people. This is one way to demonstrate what it means to worship the God who created all. And I was given this example of heavenly worship at an event that is televised, international, and secular?where most of the time people say there isn?t anything worth worshiping. The women?s track and field team proved people wrong. As we continue this study in Revelation, we are going to see how John is sharing his vision on worship, what could come if the church doesn?t worship and believe in God, and the dream of what a new heaven and earth could look like with all of God?s creation is held together in worship and praise of the Creator. As we venture into Chapter 4, where we witness a heavenly worship, I invite you to pray with me.

I have mentioned that there are many different ways to read through the book of Revelation. We have many different understandings of what is being communicated in the book. Remember, when John was writing it to the men and women of the churches of Asia, and he expected them to understand the book without being biblical scholars, historians, or theological experts. John was challenging the faith communities to whether or not they would respond to their call to the kind of faithfulness John advocated for, even to the point of dying for the faith. I believe this is still the challenge today from the book of Revelation. It is a call to worship and discipleship. As time passed and centuries unfolded, many folks have tried to understand how to make sense of this book in one of these four ways: non-historical, church-historical, end-historical, and contemporary historical. Here is a brief summary of the different types of interpretation that typically have taken place.

Non-Historical- This is the interpretation where it is assumed that the author John is directing his message to no particular time period or culture or community and that the visions reflect no particular historical situation. Although it would be great to think this this letter has no specific time, history, community that it is being written too and it could communicate that Revelation speaks to people in every time and place in terms of universal symbols, it ignores or minimizes the historical references that are made and reduces the crisis that those who heard the message first were experiencing. It just reduces the message to being very general and denies essence of the letter as a real letter. So we will not be looking at it from that perspective.
Church-Historical- This is when prophecy is understood as prediction of the long-range future. From the time when John wrote to the churches and throughout all of church history to the end of the world, John predicted the future. In saying this, it means that in every historical period interpreters saw John as predicting the course of history down to his or her own time. People saw themselves as living in the last period predicted by Revelation. The value in this perspective is to say that people can see Revelation as relevant to their own time period and affirmed that all of history was under the sovereignty of God. But the major problems are that the book would have meant nothing to the first readers, it takes prophecy and makes them into predictions, and each interpretation would have cancelled the other one out.
End-Historical- This is also called the ?futurist,? ?dispensationalist,? and ?pre-millennialist? interpretation-these are the interpretations that you will most likely find on the internet when you go to research the meaning behind Revelation. This consider the prophecy to be predictions as well, but in a different way than the first two. First, the seven churches of Asia, don?t represent 7 churches, but 7 different periods of church history, Ephesus representing the apostolic church and Laodicea representing the dead church in the last days. Second, that the reminder of the book, chapters 4-22, predicts only the events that happen in the last few years of world history. Many who live in this interpretation believe they are living in the time just before the final countdown. This has become a well-known view among TV evangelists, authors, and movie producers (The Left Behind Series). This is a dangerous interpretation because it advocates the necessity of a nuclear war as part of God?s plan and prediction.
Contemporary-Historical- In this interpretation, contemporary applies to the people who John was writing too, John was writing to his contemporaries, people he was in relationship with. It is attempting to understand the meaning with the original historical context, to its original readers, before trying to figure out how to applies and has a meaning for us. It remembers that the letter was written to a particular situation in the first century. This view assumes that John had a message to the churches he was writing that had to do with their own situation, that they understood the message, and those of us interpreting it now cannot accept any interpretation of the book that the first readers would not have understood. This is the interpretation that I am using, knowing that the book was written to specific communities, with a specific message, and it can have a meaning for us today. I believe this to be the most accurate way to look at the bible in general.

In looking at this book from this perspective, and remembering that Revelation is to read as a whole and an act of worship, we need to remember that the entire bible was written to a particular people for a particular reason and that God?s word is able to transcend time and applies to us today. Each week in our time on Revelation will offer us different reminders about God. Todays? reminder is about the importance to worship and praising the God who is the creator of all things. This book offers us a new way of seeing the church. As we look at chapter 4 more closely, we are receiving a vision that Christians are neither good, bad, or indifferent, but are uniquely assumed to be faithful and obedient. It is a vision of what true worship could be if people put worship at the center of their lives. This vision moves from the earthly context of what is happening in the 7 churches, the 7 lampstands, to a heavenly vision of the future. We can attribute this to the future because we know the future is real and already exists in God?s hand. The stage is being set for the rest of the book of Revelation and center?s us in the importance of who the Creator is and the importance to praise the Creator. So let?s dive into chapter 4 of Revelation.

After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, ?Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.? 2At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! 3And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald.

Revelation’s vision of the heavenly throne room now introduces people to God, who is the Creator. John says that heaven is right here, close beside us, intersecting with our everyday reality. It isn?t in the sky far away, it is more like opening a door into a room or on the street. The scene pictures a rightly ordered universe in which God is at the center. It is a behind the scenes experience for John where he is going to try to understand what is taking place. The voice heard is the voice of the exalted Christ. And when the words ?one seated on the throne? are said, is it John?s way of saying ?God.? John intentionally doesn?t describe the person on the throne-leaving this blank picture to be filled in by the figure of the Lamb-another way of affirming that God is the one who defines himself by Christ. The details of the stones would be a reminder of temple to be built in the Old Testament and the rainbow would be a reminder of the flood and the promise of the new beginning for all humanity.

4Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads.

The elders are the heavenly representatives of the community of faith. The 24 represents the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles. This is the embodied perfection of the people of God and they are sharing in the rule of God over the world. These 24 have a triumphant authority and are called to ?reign? through faithfulness even to the point of death and are representatives of the royal priesthood. ?As they cast down their crowns before the throne, they recognize that God and not the elders is Lord of all. The golden crowns on their heads and the white garments signify the importance of ?being faithful unto death.?

5Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God;

These images are reminders appearance and power of God at Mount Sinai and the prophetic visions of the Old Testament prophets. The 7 spirits are angels of God who minister to his presence and are sent out to all the world-they are the eyes of God in the world.

6and in front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal.

The sea of glass would cause many different layers of meaning for the people. From the beginning of the scriptures in the Creation Story, to the flood, to the Red Sea, to the chaos monsters of the sea (in Isaiah and later in Revelation)-John reminds the people that the threats of the sea will be no longer-it will be smooth as glass and under control in the new creation.

Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind:

With all of these creatures being full of eyes, unsleeping, keeping watch for God over all of creation. As John would have written these words about the heavenly throne, images of kings in the Old Testament would have crossed the minds of those in the churches. But the other throne that would have been at the people?s mind was the throne of Caesar. This is sharing the implication of the power struggle between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world. We are being invited into this vision to see the powers are mere copies and imitations of the one Power who really and truly rules in heaven and on earth. John is challenging the people to put their worship in the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of the world.

7the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human face, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. 8And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, ?Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.?

Around the throne are four living creatures, who represent the created order. The lion, the ox, the human, and the eagle represent all the animals of the earth-the wild and domestic-and represents how the created life is to life in harmony together. And if we take note, that the one with the human face does not take the central place of God, but with all creation joins in praise of God. For together, the four living creatures sing together ?Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.? The praise of God comes as a reminder that God is the everlasting one. It is also shared that in some early Christian traditions, these animals represent the four gospel writers, so that Matthew (the human face), Mark (the lion), Luke (the ox), and John (the eagle) are thought of as the living creatures who surround, and worship, the Jesus of whom they speak.

9And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing,

Although the 24 elders sit on thrones and wear crowns, they are in no sense competitors to the sovereign rule of the one God. All bow down to praise God their creator by saying these words:

11?You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.?

With the reminder that worship is the most central human activity.

This is the take away for the churches then and our church today. Worship is the most central human activity and is one of the most genuine ways we praise God. John has shared with us how important it is to be in worship and praise of all God has created. I am not going to tell you how you are to worship God throughout the day and week. What I am going to tell you is that we all need to do it better.

As we think about how we worship our God who is the creator of all things, it should cause us to reflect on the reality of how we worship. In our private prayers and worship, and in our worship services and liturgies, do we truly offer a sufficient weight to praising God as the creator of all things? Can we picture what worship would look like if we truly believed in worshiping God with heavenly mindset? Does our thinking about God enhance how we praise God? Throughout the book of Revelation, there is delicate balance between how we live, worship, and act out our faith. Remember, the vision shares how all creation worships God; we, as the humanity of the vision, are called to worship him with mind as well as heart, recognizing that God is worthy of all praise as the creator of all things. It is my prayer just as the Olympian athletes worship and praised God in the middle of their celebration, that as we walk through this book in the bible, we will hold to the fact that worship of God is central to our lives and our being Christian. Spend time reflecting on how you are worshiping God and who is central in your life each and every day. Amen.