Revelation 5: 6-14

The anonymous sixth-century mosaicists of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, gloriously visualized this passage in the cross-ribbed vault of the church’s chancel, just above the altar. Tens of thousands of tesserae (tiny pieces of colored glass, and clear glass sandwiching gold leaf) come together to image Christ high and lifted up as the sacrificial Lamb of God. Can you imagine worshipping in this space? It must have been so transporting for those early Christians of Ravenna: to enter and move toward their promised end in Christ. To be enfolded in this glimmering vision of paradise that they enacted below in the liturgy.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy, who is the youngest of four siblings, discovers a pathway into the magical land of Narnia. When Lucy returns from her visit to Narnia, she shares her discovery with her older brother and sister. They dismiss her report as a mere tall tale. When she shows them the wardrobe, all they find is a wardrobe filled with old coats. There is no pathway, no portal, just the wooden back wall of the wardrobe. You see. They weren’t ready to set their imaginations free.

Neal Plantinga once preached a sermon with the curious title “The Wrath of the Lamb.” We don’t usually expect lambs to roar any more than we could anticipate being frightened by a puppy or getting beat up by a baby who had just been baptized in a church service. Lambs, puppies, and babies inspire us to coo, to make exclamations of “Awww, how cute, how adorable, how cuddly!” Yet John gives us a Lamb that has been to hell and back, and if those scars are not enough to take us aback, there is also a fire burning now in that Lamb’s eyes–a fire that lets you know that an all-powerful Lion is in there, too...