The Third Sunday After Easter
Psalm 30; Acts 9:1-20; Revelation 5:1-14; John 21:1-19
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I.
I would like to examine with you this morning the question put to the Church by the “strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice” in Revelation 5:2, who, upon seeing the scroll God holds in His right hand asks, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”
We know from the Old Testament, from Ezekiel 3, that the scroll symbolizes the word of God, spoken to Israel, and with it comes the authorization to speak for God.
Ezekiel tells us, “And he said to me, ‘Son of man, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.’”
We also know from the angel’s question that he already knows the answer.
In other words, the question is, as we say, “rhetorical.” Though, in this case, the better word would be “liturgical. The angel’s question is liturgical, because that is what John is describing in this chapter of his revelation: a service of worship taking place in heaven.
I am confident in saying the angel already knows the answer because of the word proclaiming that comes earlier in the second verse.
The angel is not asking a question in ignorance. Rather, he is proclaiming good news that he already knows, of which he is the appointed messenger.
Another word for good news is gospel. The angel’s question is a proclamation of the gospel.
Very well then, if it is good news that the angel speaks, then why does John cry? In verses three and four John tells us:
“And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I wept much that no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.”
I tell you that this is the problem that every preacher must address in every sermon. Why is no one found worthy and what are we to do about it?
II.
The first thing to do is to stop crying about it.
Tears of remorse do not make anyone worthy of God. That’s true in your own lives. No amount of crying can undo a bad deed done. But what John describes is much worse.
The entire creation has gathered before the throne of God. John tells us that there are four living creatures that symbolize all created life. There are twenty-four elders that symbolize the Church of the Old and New Testaments. There are myriads of thousands of angels. All are silent. Not one is worthy.
We experience that moment every Sunday as we gather for worship. After the announcements, after the peace, I stand in the center and wait until you are quiet. You wait for me to speak.
This morning, I began worship with these words from Colossians 3:1, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.”
What comes immediately after? The Call to Confession. “Let us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty God.” Why? Because who is worthy to seek the things above? No one.
You will notice that the Call to Confession comes before the Call to Worship. That is because what we do here week after week is patterned on this very text.
“Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” the angel asks. No one, and so John weeps.
So, we weep as well: “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against thee in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”
It would be a shame if our worship ended there, and it doesn’t. Fortunately, it did not for John either. In verse 5 John tells us, “Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’”
Here is the liturgical answer given to the angel’s liturgical question. Who is worthy? Answer: “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David.” Why? Because he “has conquered.”
Conquered what? He has conquered death. After the elder tells John not to weep, the next thing John sees is “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” The Lamb is standing, meaning He is alive, but as one slain, meaning His throat had been cut. He had been slaughtered. He should not be able to stand.
Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament asked, “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”
Now, we have the answer. The Lamb who was slain. He is made worthy to stand by His death.
Because of this the heavenly liturgy can proceed, the worship may continue.
Here at First Church, on any given Sunday after we confess our sins, that is, after we weep, I read the Assurance of Pardon. “The Almighty and merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sins, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of his Holy Spirit.”
Then we sing a new song. It is not a new song for its novelty. After all, it is familiar to us from weekly use. It is new because we could not sing it before. No one could, not even the angels. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Amen.”
In heaven John tells us that the entire assembly sings, “Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth.”
III.
This is one reason I insist on keeping to the old ways in worship.
This isn’t antiquarianism on my part. It is because God makes these things new week by week.
Later in Revelation, John writes, “he who sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’” Indeed, how could the Ancient of Days become a novelty? God is not a novelty, but He is ever new and ever able to make us anew.
Each of the characters in the heavenly liturgy described by John in Revelation 5 has a role to play.
The strong angel accuses the entire creation of coming up short. No one is found worthy to take the scroll from the hand of God.
John weeps for the loss of the human race due to sin.
The elder of the Church assures John all is not lost.
The Lamb who was slain steps forward to take the scroll from God’s hand.
After that, the twenty-four elders of the Church, the four living creatures, and the angels are called to worship.
Neither the angels nor the living creatures—except one—are worthy because God did not create them for this purpose.
John describes the four living creatures in 4:7, “the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle.”
This quartet is representative of all that lives and moves and breathes. This is animate creation, not inanimate, and includes one “with the face of man.” One who looks like us. One who should have been worthy but was not.
Can you guess who that might be?
He is Adam, the father of mankind. This is why John weeps. He knows all too well that he has inherited the original sin of this father, and of all his fathers before him.
The shame of all human history, his family history, and his personal history bears down on him.
He weeps, but his tears cannot make him worthy. They cannot atone. We don’t need novelty in our worship, we need a new song in our hearts.
IV.
There was one living creature who should have stepped forward to take the scroll, but who did not.
John tells us that there is a “third living creature with the face of a man.” The third living creature is a representation of Adam, and since each of the living creatures represents some aspect of animate creation, the third living creature is a stand-in for us, for mankind.
Why won’t the man step forward? Why can’t he do it? I suggest to you that it’s because he’s been in this place before. He’s come to this part of the liturgy before.
He stood in the garden, before the tree with its forbidden fruit, forbidden not because it wasn’t a delight to the eye, forbidden not because it wasn’t good to eat, but because the word of God forbade him and his wife from eating it.
You see, God doesn’t necessarily owe us an explanation for what’s in His word. The strong angel asks, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” not who is able to critique it, to subject it to critical analysis, to give his expert opinion on it.
It was the consensus of the experts that led to the fall of man.
Adam and Eve were nothing if not experts. Adam had already demonstrated his expertise in naming all the animals.
Eve was a born scientist. She wanted empirical proof. Two hypotheses had been put to her.
The first, the words of her husband who had faithfully proclaimed the word of God to her, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
The second, the hypothesis of the serpent, who said to the woman, “You will not die.”
So, she conducted her experiment. Her husband joined her, and together they came to their expert conclusion.
I am sure they’re both still at it today, in some laboratory at Yale, forever cutting and dissecting, but never uncovering the meaning of a thing.
“Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”
Not “the third living creature with the face of a man.” He has forgotten who he is. Perhaps he cannot even hear the strong angel’s question, or, if he does, perhaps it makes no sense to him. Of what use to him is the old book, with its old message, from the old Church?
So, John weeps at his race’s ignorance, for his people’s ruin. But the elder says to him, “Weep not, for one has come who is worthy, he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” The Lamb steps forward and goes and takes “the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.”
Then the twenty for elders fall down before the lamb and sing the ever-new song, “Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth.”
The song is picked up by the angels, who sing the next verse, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” It should be clear now who we are here to worship. We are here to worship Jesus, the Lamb of God.
Next, “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea” joins the chorus and sings the third verse: “To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!” Not only are we to worship the Lamb of God, but He who sits on the throne. The Church worships Father and Son together.
Finally, the four living creatures give their assent. “Amen!” they say, and the elders of the Church fall down in worship.
V.
Man is asked to ratify this divine liturgy and own the implications of it.
This is the meaning of the “Amen!” in verse 14. This is why we sing “Amen” at the end of the Gloria Patri and the Doxology.
The Church used to end every hymn with an Amen, until hymnal compilers and musicologists decided to remove them. Always cutting and dissecting! Never understanding!
So, I am going to ask the organist to play the Amen cadence at the end of the last hymn today.
There are, of course, more important implications to our Amen, to our ratification of the heavenly worship.
Three of them are listed for us in verse 10, “Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth.”
The first implication is that by His blood, the Lamb ransomed you and me for God.
Normally, if you ransom someone from kidnappers, it is so you can restore him to his family and to his former life.
But that is not the case here. We are not ransomed from death, which is the consequence of sin, so that we can return to sin.
The second implication is that those who are ransomed come from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” This means two things.
First, that “every tribe and tongue and people and nation” stands guilty of sin before God.
Second, that this guilt has been thoroughly removed from those who are ransomed from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” In other words, God shows no partiality in whom He ransoms.
This runs contrary to the reigning Marxism and anti-colonialism of our own day.
According to this kind of race-based communism, one tribe, one tongue, one people, and one nation is guilty and must forever atone for its sins, while every other tribe, tongue, people, and nation is innocent.
But that is not what the Church’s Amen means.
The third implication is that we are kings and priests. I preached on that extensively last week, so I won’t repeat myself, but I will bring you up to date on two examples from my sermon last week.
I said last week that as kings and priests we are to consecrate the political process. We are to use the scepter God has given us to bind evil in our land.
I am happy to report that God’s kingdom of priests bound some evil last week.
Last Tuesday evening, in Terryville, the Zoning Board unanimously denied the appeal of an adult-themed club that was operating next door to the Riverside Baptist Church. About 100 kings and priests showed up to the zoning meeting, and many testified.
Then, last Thursday, about another 100 kings and priests sat quietly in the gallery of the Connecticut State Assembly as lawmakers debated HB 7213. These kings and priests all wore blue t-shirts provided by the Family Institute of Connecticut.
The Family Institute’s Peter Wolfgang wrote this in an email on Friday, “Despite their underhanded tactics, Connecticut's decades-old regulations that require doctors to save the lives of newborns who survive abortions, require abortion providers to report abortion data to the state, and protect medical workers from being forced to perform abortions, were all saved last night.”
He added, “Your presence can make such a difference.”
That said, the Church’s Amen is much more than participating in the political process. It is a fulfillment of the prophecy found in the Book of Revelation:
“...thy blood didst ransom men for God …and they shall reign on earth.”
It has been a long time since the Church thought and spoke this way. By God’s grace she seems to be finding her voice again.
Preached on May 4, 2025 at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
How does the unworthiness of all creation in Revelation 5 challenge your understanding of your own need for redemption? What does it mean to you that only the Lamb is worthy?
The sermon connects the heavenly liturgy to our weekly worship, particularly through confession and the Assurance of Pardon. How can this pattern deepen your experience of worship and reliance on God’s grace?’
As kings and priests, we are called to engage the world, as seen in the examples of community action in Terryville and Connecticut. What practical steps can you take to say “Amen” to God’s redemptive work in your own community?
Download the sermon handout here.
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