Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

Revelation 7:9-10– After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.  They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (NRSV)

I have the sense that mainline Protestants don’t spend a lot of time thinking about animal sacrifices.  We read references to the practice in our scriptures and put the detail-obscuring screens of “Ancient” and “Symbolic” over top it, so that we don’t have to think about it much.  When we hear Jesus referred to as “the capital-L Lamb” we just assume it’s an archaic term of worship and praise.  To think about it more deeply seems too gory.

But I wonder if we miss something by brushing past the graphic nature of animal sacrifice that lies just under the surface of calling Jesus “the Lamb”?  If we don’t give this title the attention it demands, could we miss seeing Jesus where he’s showing up in our own times?  The line between “sacrificial lamb” and “scape goat” is a thin one, and there’s a lesson to be learned there.

There are two things that strike me in this brief passage from Revelation.  One is the “Lamb” language and the clear insistence that salvation comes through the Lamb.  The other is the global nature of the crowd that has gathered.  If we came in understanding that a sacrificial lamb is basically the same thing as a scape goat, we are now being reminded that scape goats are a universal phenomenon; every culture has moments when those in power want to pin blame on the vulnerable.

This passage is describing what is essentially a song of confession: the world admitting that our salvation comes through recognition of the sacredness of those whom we allowed to become scape goats.  That is the Easter message, that wholeness comes when God binds up the broken and invites those who did the breaking to join in that process of healing.  So if we’re seeking salvation today, we need to look around and see who the scape goats are in the present moment.  Who is being treated as expendable?  Who is being blamed for the problems of society by those who wield power?  These vulnerable lambs are the ones Christ is inviting us to walk alongside in the way of the cross.