EASTER HAS TAKEN CARE OF EVERYTHING
There are many names given to God in Scripture. And it’s always been interesting to me what names different people give to God in the different books of the Bible. For instance: the psalm writer Asaph prefers to use the regular name “God” in the 12 psalms that he penned, but the psalms written by the Sons of Korah almost always use the name “LORD.” (“God” usually emphasizes the power and might of the Creator while “LORD” usually leans towards his love and mercy). Isaiah calls him “the Holy One of Israel” far more than any other author while Ezekiel uses the name “Sovereign LORD” over 200 times in his book. And then there are those unique names of the Lord like “the Pride of Jacob,” “the Fear of Isaac,” or “the Most High God” - only used by Daniel in the Old Testament and only by two different demon-possessed people in New Testament times. God has been given dozens of different names. And specific names of God are used by specific people depending on the situation that the speaker is in at the time.
Jesus himself is given many different names throughout Scripture: “The Son of God” and “the Son of Man,” “the Prophet,” “the High Priest,” the “good Teacher,” “Master.” And each name depends on who is speaking, what they believe, and what characteristic of Jesus they want to emphasize. And so when you get to the first chapter of the book of Revelation, it should strike you not only what Jesus is called but also how many different names are used for Jesus in just a few verses. From verse 4 through 18 eleven different names are given to this second person of the Trinity: Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, the ruler over the kings of the earth, the Alpha and Omega, the Almighty, the Lord God, the one like a son of man, the First and the Last, the Living One, the one who is and who was and who is to come. Some of these names are written by the author John and others are spoken by Jesus’ himself. In any case, the amount of names here and the kinds of names that are used in this small section of Scripture make one thing very clear: Easter has taken care of everything. He is “the firstborn from the dead;” he is “the Living One;” he is “the ruler over the kings of the earth.” And the only way he can be given these names and all the rest of them mentioned here in this chapter is because of what he did on Easter Sunday morning. Easter is proof that Jesus has never let us down; and he never will. Easter has taken care of everything.
And we need that comfort, especially when reading through the rest of the book of Revelation! Because think of the kinds of things that are included in the remaining chapters of this book! Some of the visions about the events before Christ comes again and some of the visions about Judgment Day itself are a little bit frightening. There are some strange pictures in the remaining chapters and they’re somewhat disturbing. Because it is obvious from this last book of the Bible that there will be powerful enemies of Christianity and alarming attacks against the gospel all the way up to the very day Jesus comes back again in all his glory. In the book of Revelation Jesus doesn’t promise a pleasant place in which to live; he promises an ungodly world, an earth filled with the effects of sin, a place that is dominated by a largely anti-Christian culture. It certainly wasn’t something the apostle John would be looking forward to, nor is it something that we want to see happen. And so before getting into some of the details of these end times, Revelation chapter one piles on the names of our Savior, it overloads us with the titles and characteristics of our Lord to remind us exactly who he is and what he has done. These names of Christ show us that he has existed from before the beginning; therefore, he is in control of all things. These names of Christ show us that he died on the cross and he rose from the dead; therefore, he has paid the ransom price for our sins and defeated death. These eleven names of Christ written down in Revelation chapter one show us that he exists now and for all eternity; therefore, our future is safe in his hands. The names of Christ in this part of the Bible tell us exactly what he has done on Easter Sunday, what he is able to do for us now, and what he promises to do for us in the future. There is nothing for us to worry about because Christ has it all under control.
And so why do we always struggle to trust that this it true? We obviously know that this is true; we believe that this is true, but when life takes a hard left turn and we don’t know what is going to happen and we don’t know what to do, then we start to have some serious doubts that everything is going to be taken care of, don’t we? We like it when things are orderly, we like it when things are somewhat predictable, we like it when we are able to handle the various situations that come up in our lives, but that’s not always the case in this world! There are plenty of things that occur in your life that force you to stop whatever you’ve been doing: a death in the family, a terrible accident. There are other things that completely turn your life upside down from that point on: a pregnancy, a devastating catastrophe. And there are, of course, things that happen in this life that make your previous plans now impossible: your retirement saving depleted over these last 2 years, your family life in disarray, your marriage questionable at best, your body unable to do what you always thought it would be able to do... There are plenty of situations that make us question whether everything is really going to be all right.
We are fickle Christians, aren’t we? As long as life is going along smoothly and everything is happening the way we have planned, it’s easy to trust that the Lord will never let us down. But the minute things start happening that we didn’t plan for, the moment life starts to get a little bit bumpy and out of control, that trust we had in our God just yesterday starts to erode a little bit. We can’t see the end of it and so we worry about what it might be. We can’t see how any good will come out of it and so we despair that it will all be bad. We have no idea how this problem happened and we have no idea how to fix it and so we assume that it will always remain broken.
Is the Lord that untrustworthy? Is he that unreliable? Has he ever let us down before? What in our past or even in the history of this world would ever make us think that the Lord is unable to take care of everything in our lives? Why would we ever imagine that the bad situation we are in or the unfortunate problem we have to deal with is too much for our God to handle? It’s our sinful nature, to put it simply. That self-deceptive and festering sin that lives inside us tries to make us forget about what the Lord has done for us in the past and steers all of our attention to the uncertainty of the future. Sometimes we just need a little reminder. We need that encouragement from time to time that Easter has taken care of everything already. Christ’s resurrection has solidified our future. The apostle John even needed that encouragement.
When John received the vision which has become the book of Revelation, he writes that “I was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” John was placed on this small island in the middle of the Aegean Sea as a punishment. The government apparently didn’t want him to testify to the death and resurrection of Jesus and so they exiled him to a place that was about 13 sq. miles in size and surrounded by water. The less people John could talk to the better, as far as they were concerned. This island wasn’t where John wanted to be. Especially since this last book of the Bible was written around 95 A.D. and John would have been a very old man by this time. In fact, he was the last of the original disciples left. And if the historical accounts of the early Christian church outside of Scripture are accurate, every one of John’s fellow disciples had been martyred in some terribly brutal ways. John knew about his brother James being killed by the sword of King Herod. He knew about his good friend Peter being crucified upside down. He know about the apostle Paul - although not one of the Twelve, a great missionary for the Christian church - beheaded under the Roman Emperor Nero. And John was probably wondering what was going to happen to him. Would he die on that island or would he be martyred as well? Would he ever make it back to his home only to be arrested again? What would happen to the Christian church in that part of the world after John, the last apostle, died off? There were probably a number of pressing questions about the future that John was worrying about and he needed to be comforted. He needed to be encouraged. And so when Jesus himself appeared to him and gave him this wonderful vision about the times of the end, he comforted and encouraged John with something that John himself had once witnessed: the resurrection of Easter Sunday.
“Do not be afraid,” Jesus said to John. “I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” About 60 years before Jesus said these words to him, John saw his living Savior with his own two eyes on Easter evening in an upstairs room. He knew that Jesus was alive. He had talked with him; he had eaten with him; he had watched his Savior ascend into heaven 40 days after he rose from the grave. John even refers to Jesus earlier in this chapter as “the firstborn from the dead.” If there was anyone at that time who believed that Jesus was truly alive, it was the disciple who had stood at the foot of the cross during Jesus’ crucifixion and the one who then stood in the entrance of the cave on the morning of his resurrection. John didn’t need to be taught about what happened on Easter Sunday; he was the one who was teaching others. But John did need to be reminded of it. John needed to be reminded that what he saw 60 years ago was still in effect.
And so the Lord came to him and said, “John, it’s me, Jesus! Do not be afraid. I am the Living One! I was dead, as you well know. But now I am alive forever and ever just as you saw yourself half a lifetime ago. I haven’t left you even though I ascended into heaven. And I will never let you down - even though you are on an island of exile, even though you are in the midst of persecution, even though you are getting close to death. Because I hold the keys of death and Hades.” And John needed to hear that. He needed to be reminded about the miracles that he personally saw Jesus accomplish. He needed to be assured that Easter took care of everything. Jesus died. Jesus rose. Jesus lives. And so would he. And everything else would be worked out to that end. He didn’t need to worry about the persecution. He didn’t need to worry about that little island of Patmos. He didn’t need to worry about his age. He was going to go to heaven. He would live with Christ forever. And Jesus’ resurrection proved it. Had the First and the Last, the Living One, the one who is and who was and who is to come ever let him down before? John must have been comforted by these words from his Savior and encouraged by the names that Jesus used for himself. And even though the rest of the vision of Revelation contained some frightening images and John most likely died in exile on that island, this last disciple undoubtedly died in peace. Not knowing exactly what it was going to be like for him in the last few years of his life, but trusting that Jesus had already taken care of everything way back inside that vacant tomb on Easter Sunday morning.
You may find yourself on the island of Patmos from time to time. Troubled, worried, scared, lonely, closed in, sick, helpless, dying. But when you find yourself on that island, know that you have the very same assurance that John did and it’s based on the very same event. You have what we celebrated just last week. You have the empty tomb. You have the risen Savior. You have Jesus himself telling you personally, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” Your Lord and Savior, your Alpha and Omega has proved to you what he will do by what he has already done. He has taken care of your sins. He has taken care of your guilt. He has taken care of your punishment. He has taken care of your every day life. He has taken care of your life in eternity. Your living Lord has taken care of everything. Live this life with that comfort in mind. And continue to revel in the aftermath of his resurrection until the day you rise to meet the Living One face to face.
Amen.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” - 1 Peter 1:3
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