Two Parties

Our first lesson for All Saints Day is taken from the Book of John’s Revelation. It is a description of a great celebration and party that is taking place in heaven. It is a lovely lesson for this Sunday for it is a description of the worship of the saints before the throne of God. It is the true worship that all our worship points to and is fulfilled in. John describes it:

“Behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels, the elders, and the four living creatures fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to God forever and ever! Amen.’” —Revelation 7:9-12

Adoration of the Mystic Lamb or The Ghent Altarpiece (detail) 
by Hubert Van Eyck and Jan Van Eyck, c. 1432.
Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent. Public Domain.

 

As I read this passage, my mind immediately went to another celebration that is very similar and yet very different. It was the celebration in the Book of Exodus that describes the scene when Moses came down from the mountain carrying the Ten Commandments:

“So Aaron said to them, ‘Take off your rings of gold that are in your ears and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hands and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, ‘These are the gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ When Aaron saw this he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.’ And they rose up the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.’” —Exodus 32:2-6

The similarities in both these celebrations are obvious. Both are centered in worship. Both involve feasts. Both proclaim hymns of thanksgiving for God’s mighty act of saving them. It is at this point that things begin to become vastly different. In Revelation, it is clear that salvation…“belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” In Exodus, the people proclaim that the golden calf made from their earrings “are the gods who brought them up out of the land of Egypt!” The salvation song of Revelation is absolutely true. The salvation song of Exodus is a complete lie attributing power to a god that is powerless and nothing more than an image made with human hands. The sad truth is that it was the living God and the blood of the Lamb that saved Israel from Pharaoh. The bull made from the gold of Egypt was nothing more than an image of the Canaanite god Baal. Not only was this worship a lie it was a slap in the face of the living God who had truly saved them. The celebration in Revelation was based in the truth of the mighty acts of God in salvation that led to eternal life. The celebration of Exodus was based on a lie about a powerless god and ended only in death.

The lesson is clear. It is good and right at all times and in all places to celebrate the greatest salvation that was ever offered to mankind. The salvation of the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, demands an eternal worship of praise and thanksgiving. The lesson is also clear that humanity needs to never attribute the salvation of God to a false god of our own making.

And yet it is so tempting to worship false gods. If we create a god with our own hands, then it is possible to control that god. One can clearly see this tendency even in the church when leaders make statements like, “Man wrote the Scriptures, man can change them.” This is a very weak doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture through the work of the Spirit. The hand of man might have held the pen, but it is not Scripture if the Holy Spirit did not direct the heart and mind of the author.

This election season, it is all too common a mistake to attribute salvation to a particular political party or candidate. Political parties and candidates might help our nation prosper, but they will never save us. The salvation Jesus worked upon the cross was universal for those who put their trust in it. It is also eternal. It can’t be controlled or manipulated by man. All of us, every tribe and nation has access to that salvation through faith and the mighty work of a gracious, loving, living God. Let us never attribute our salvation to a bunch of bull. May we turn our hearts to the Father and Jesus and sing the eternal hymn of praise, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb! Amen!”

†Bp. Mark