THE TRIUMPHANT CHRIST
Revelation 1:4-8 MKJV
(4) John to the seven churches which are in Asia. Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is coming; and from the seven spirits which are before His throne;(5) even from Jesus Christ the faithful Witness, the First-born from the dead and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,(6) and made us kings and priests to God and His Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.(7) Behold, He comes with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, and those who pierced Him will see Him, and all the kindreds of the earth will wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.(8) I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
In 1849, financier Joshua A. Norton came to San Francisco with $40,000 and big ambitions. For five years he invested his money wisely until he was filthy rich. Then he took a gamble. He invested all of his money in the rice market. The market fell through and he lost every penny. No one saw him again for five years.
Then, in 1859, Joshua Norton walked into the office of the San Francisco BULLETIN and told them to print a proclamation that he was Emperor Norton I, emperor of the United States. As a joke, the editor printed his proclamation.
The people of San Francisco decided to humour Emperor Norton I. They treated him with great respect. Local ships and railroad lines gave him free passes. The city bought him new military uniforms when his old ones wore out. A printer created Emperor Norton currency, which he was allowed to use in any establishment in town. Restaurants put up signs advertising his patronage. He was allowed to speak at all the sessions of the state legislature. He and his two dogs even had free, reserved seats at the theatre.
Emperor Norton made many suggestions about improving the city, but most of these suggestions were brushed off as ravings of a madman. Yet after his death, many of his suggestions were acted upon--a bridge over the Golden Gate and the East Bay, wider streets, gaslights put up for safety, and filling in of the swamplands to the east of Montgomery Street. All these things came to pass.
Emperor Norton I died in 1880. His funeral was lavish, and many thousands showed up to mourn him. He is memorialized in San Francisco's Wells Fargo museum, and in local history books. (Joyce Madison, GREAT HOAXES, SWINDLES, SCANDALS, CONS, STINGS, AND SCAMS, (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), pp. 49-53.) He was a most successful fraud.
Contrast the burial accorded Emperor Norton with that given to Jesus of Nazareth. There was nothing fraudulent about Jesus. Never was a man more authentic. Nobody walked the talk better than he did. He told his disciples to forgive their enemies, and as he hung on the cross, he prayed for forgiveness for those who had put him there. He told his disciples to serve the least and the lowest, and among his last words were words of encouragement to a thief who was dying beside him. He told his disciples that on the third day he would be raised from the dead, and when the women went to the tomb, it was empty. What he preached, he practised. No one who knew him ever called him a fraud. Even Judas, the friend whose kiss sealed his doom, declared that he had betrayed innocent blood. Yet there were few admirers at Jesus' funeral. He did not die a celebrity as did Emperor Norton of San Francisco.
THAT'S ALL RIGHT. NOT MANY OF US WILL DIE AS CELEBRITIES EITHER.
Ruth Graham, Mrs. Billy Graham, tells a humorous story from one of their trips to Europe. Dr. Graham and a member of his team, Grady Wilson, had left for Moscow leaving Grady's wife, Wilma, and Ruth under the watchful eye of an old college friend living in Paris, Jeanette Evans. "Now don't go shopping," were Dr. Graham's final words.
Ruth says that she and Wilma waited for the plane to disappear out of sight and headed for the nearest junk shop. With Jeanette's expert French they managed beautifully. Wilma found several irresistible items: among them a silver inkwell adorned with cupids. Ruth found one lovely little painting she couldn't resist--the price, translated from French currency to American, came to ten dollars.
At the hotel that night in Versailles they couldn't resist unwrapping their treasures. Ruth propped her painting on the mantel over the fireplace and admired it. Wilma placed her acquisitions on the desk, likewise enjoying her lovely old French bargains.
When their husbands returned from Moscow, they drove to Versailles to pick the women up. They were to begin driving to Zurich, Switzerland, that afternoon. Wilma and Ruth were packing when Grady came in to hurry them up.
"I like this picture so much," Ruth said on an impulse, "I just think I'll take it with me." And taking her painting from the mantel, she packed it in her suitcase.
Catching on, Wilma exclaimed, "And I like this inkwell so much I think I'll just take it." Whereupon she picked up her cupid-decorated inkstand and, fitting it in her case, closed it.
Miles on their way Ruth got to thinking about what they had done and started to laugh. "What's so funny?" Grady wanted to know.
So, laughing, the women told him about their trip to the junk shop, their purchases, and what they had done at the hotel.
Silence. "What's wrong?" Ruth asked. "We spent practically nothing."
"Well," Grady said, "it's just that when Wilma's back was turned, I took the inkwell out and put it back on the desk." (Ruth Bell Graham, LEGACY OF A PACK RAT, (Nashville, Tennessee: Oliver-Nelson Books, 1989).
Grady Wilson - a good man. And it must be a thrill to be associated with Billy Graham--one of the most respected men in the world. And yet Grady Wilson will never be a celebrity. He will always be in Graham's shadow.
That's where most of us live. We have our successes. We are loved by our family and friends. And yet, when our time comes to go, the world will take little note. Like our Master, we will die somewhat in obscurity. Maybe there's a lesson here. If Jesus, the Son of God, could die in obscurity, there are some assumptions that we ought to question.
FIRST OF ALL, THAT WHICH IS POPULAR MAY NOT NECESSARILY BE TRUE.
If you were to assess the situation in Jesus' day, wouldn't you say that Caesar had all the glory and Jesus had all the pain? Caesar had power, prominence, palaces. Jesus had no place to lay his head. Caesar could pass laws that would drastically affect the lives of men and women throughout his empire. Jesus could but tell stories and hope his listeners understood. With a wave of his hand Caesar could have a person put to death. Jesus died at the hands of the state. Yes, Caesar had the glory, and Jesus had the pain. But wait. That's not the end of the story. That which is popular is not necessarily true.
There was a time when human slavery was an accepted practice among conquering peoples. Even in North America, founded on the principle that all people are created equal, we turned a blind eye to this despicable trade. Even though St. Paul established the principle in the earliest days of the Christian movement that in Christ there is neither slave nor free, we turned a blind eye and refused to see the moral consequences of the exploitation of human misery.
In fact it wasn't long ago that many Christians opposed Civil Rights for African-American citizens. I don't want to open up old wounds, but it was not all that long ago when there were segregated lunch counters and segregated bathroom facilities. It is hard to believe, but true. We were totally blind to the suffering such practices caused. Some say we still are. Because the idea of segregation was popular did not make it right. We must never assume that we can take a referendum on what is right and wrong.
In today's world, moral relativity has the glory and Christian values have the pain. We look to Washington or Ottawa to solve our problems, but at heart our crisis is one of personal and social morality. We must find some way to help people take responsibility for their lives. We must find a way to help families survive. We must find leaders who do not talk out of both sides of their mouths, but stand firm for justice and righteousness--even when such stands are unpopular. We need government officials who are not interested in taking partisan advantage but in finding real solutions. And we as citizens must become more interested in building a just society rather than in simply protecting our own interests.
READER'S DIGEST printed a humorous little item. On a can of room freshener there appeared these words: "Bring the clean, natural freshness of a country meadow indoors. Freshens the air in your home with a clean, back-to-nature scent--as refreshing as the summer grass and fragrant flowers of a country meadow." Following were these words: "WARNING: Inhaling the contents can be harmful or fatal." Those instructions remind me of some rhetoric coming out of Washington and Ottawa. That which smells sweet is not necessarily healthy. That which is popular is not necessarily true.
But there is a second thing about this truth we need to see.
YOU CAN'T BURY TRUTH FOREVER.
Truth will come out. Resurrection is a principle as sound as the law of gravity. You bury truth and it will rise again.
Winston Churchill said, "Every now and then a man will stumble upon truth, and usually he picks himself up and goes on again." It can be painfully difficult to confront truth. Usually truth lags behind. Sir Isaac Newton was thrown in jail as an old man for insisting on the theory of the law of gravity. The man who first invented the telephone (not Alexander Graham Bell) was thrown in jail for twenty years for his "heresy" that people could talk over wire. (Henry Gariepy, PORTRAITS OF PERSEVERANCE, (Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1989). In June 1633, Galileo, then seventy years of age, was forced to kneel before the Inquisitional Tribunal of Rome and renounce the Copernican theory, a concept that was to make possible the modern science of physics. Each of these apostles of truth was persecuted because their perceptions did not conform to the accepted norm. But you can't bury truth. Sooner or later truth will come out.
There was an interesting story in the newspapers some years ago. A security guard at the California State University at Los Angeles was shot and killed. A man named Edward Vasquez was charged with the crime. But Vasquez claimed he had been across the parking lot buying a burrito from a lunch-wagon. When Vasquez went to trial two years later, the evidence was sketchy. The jury had begun deliberations and was split. It was at that point that Vasquez's jacket was reexamined. For two years the defendant's jacket had sat in the property room of the police station and for two years the evidence in Vasquez's jacket pocket had gone unnoticed. When the jacket was brought out, the right-hand pocket contained a well-preserved foil-wrapped burrito! ("Burrito Prompts Quick Acquittal of Murder Charge," THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL (Aug.2, 1990), Section A, p.8.) Unfortunately, justice does not always prevail in criminal cases. But, count on it, in terms of the eternal scheme of things, truth will come out.
Resurrection is real. You cannot bury truth forever.
Caesar had the glory, and Jesus had the pain. At their deaths that was true.
But WE NEED TO KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY.
The rest of the story is found in the first chapter of Revelation. John is greeting those to whom he is writing and here is his salutation: "Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come . . . and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him . . . ."
John is saying to us that Jesus who died in obscurity now reigns in glory.
Jesus who was crushed by the power of the state now is the ruler of all the kings of the earth.
Jesus whom the world rejected now has dominion over his rejecters.
That is the good news that draws us together.
Don't despair if it seems that those whose hearts are cold and cruel have all the glory while those who truly care have all the pain.
Don't be fooled if those who take shortcuts cross the finish line first while those who play by the rules linger behind.
Don't lose heart if the values dear to your heart seem crushed amid the moral decay of our land.
There is a just God who reigns over this world.
And one day, truth will be vindicated.
Righteousness will be rewarded.
And those who walked in love will be united with the Lord of love.
"Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come . . .
Amen."
