Some Sundays back in seminary, I would slip into
the back pew of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church.
Oakhurst was and is a powerful presence in its Atlanta
neighborhood. For generations now, a multiracial
congregation with deep roots—a hundred years in that
place—and a broad reach across metro Atlanta. If I’m
honest, I mostly went because there was a pastoral
intern there named Sara Hayden, and I was eager for
any excuse to see her. But once in the pews, the witness
and worship of that community captivated me.
The pastor’s name was Nibs. Nibs had been at Oakhurst
for decades, and Nibs had John the Baptist vibes. He
was a voice crying in the wilderness. Nibs baptized a lot
of babies in that church in the decades of his ministry,
and I was blessed to witness several of those baptisms.
And every time he did it, he performed a sort of holy
subversion right there in the sanctuary. After the water
and the words, he would lift the child—carefully, the
way you hold something precious—and then he would
start to walk. Slowly. Up that sanctuary’s center aisle,
toward the oak doors, at the back of the room, and then
he would turn and walk back toward the font. And as he
walked, Nibs would talk. The congregation would listen
in, but Nibs wasn’t speaking to us. He was looking right
into the eyes of that infant he had baptized, and here is
what he would say.
“Little one, this world is going to hand you a script.”
And he’d keep walking, his shoes echoing on that
aged hardwood.
“And here’s what that script is going to tell you. It’s going
to tell you who you are. It’s going to tell you what your
life is for. That script will tell you to dominate. It will tell
you to fight. It will tell you to win. Tell you to look out for
yourself and step on whoever you need to step on. The
world’s script will say your worth is what you produce,
your safety is what you defend, your identity is what you
can take.”
After a pause, he’d continue. “But today, little one, we
tell you something different, something older, something
truer. Today we mark you with a name this world did not
give you and cannot take from you. Child of God. You
belong to Jesus. And nothing in this world can separate
you from his love.”
I never once made it through that walk with dry eyes. It
wasn’t just the beauty of the baby; it was the weight of
the words. He was putting the world on notice. He was
reclaiming a stolen identity before the other voices had
a chance to start their screaming.
Friends, those voices are screaming now. It is a time
of monsters.
John of Patmos heard them. In John’s vision, the voices
of this world don’t just whisper polite suggestions
about how we ought to live to get by in the world.
They roar in Revelation. Those monsters have teeth.
Revelation is a book of monsters. There are dragons
with seven heads. Beasts of the sea with ten horns and
names that sound like curses.
To the Christians huddled in the back alleys of the
Roman Empire, these were not scary stories to tell at
night; they were the evening news every night. The
dragon was the magistrate demanding you bow to
Caesar. The beast was an economy that crushed you if
you didn’t have the right mark on your hand.
They still scream, these voices, don’t they? They speak
into the quiet places of our pragmatism, urging an
acquiescence to the cold reality of a pre-loaded script
that the world is governed by force, that the world runs
on power. And that’s just the way it works.
But in Revelation, this is the Liturgy of the Dragon. It
says power is the only real thing. Strength is the only
real way. You must bow or be broken.
I call it a liturgy because that’s what it is. It’s a kind
of catechesis—it’s a spiritual training, a formation, a
script. It happens slowly, over the years, as we are
taught to equate faithfulness with dominance, or to
hear political slogans as moral guidance, or to see
beloved neighbors as outside threats. The heart can
turn to stone so gradually in our lives that we don’t
even notice the change.
And that’s why we need to be here. That’s why we
need to worship. That’s why we need a different script
and a new vision. It’s why we gather at the font to tell a
truer story.
John names something we must hear. John sees a
multitude standing before the throne. He names them.
They are people from every nation. They are people
who speak every language. Their common thread is
that they have come through the Great Ordeal together.
The Greek word here is thlipsis. Its most common usage
is to describe what happens to grapes when you make
wine. Pressure. This is not regrettable inconvenience
or mild annoyance. Just ask the grape. What John
describes is a crushing pressure. The kind that breaks
families apart. The kind that makes people afraid to
leave their homes. The kind that turns neighborhoods
into occupied territory.
John will not let us look away from the Great Ordeal,
from the thlipsis, the pressure. He instructs us to look all
the way through it—to those who have come out on the
other side, who are standing there along with the one
who led them through it.
Earlier this week, I was on a call with pastors from all
over the country, organized by a friend of mine, a former
Lake Fellow here, Sarah Brouwer, who now serves a
church in Minneapolis. They are not debating headlines.
They are talking of neighbors. People they see in
grocery stores. Families whose kids go to school with
their kids. This is what thlipsis looks like up close. It has
a face. It has a name. The dragon wants us to forget this
truth—to see categories and not neighbors with faces
and souls.
The dragon asks us to accept a script of overwhelming
force, and we must not.
It is Jesus who shows us the way. It was Jesus who took
the script he’d been handed and turned it upside down.
Jesus who said, “You have heard it said... but I say to
you…” You have heard an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth, but I say to you turn the other cheek. You have
heard it said you should love your neighbor and hate your
enemy, but I say love your enemy and pray for those who
persecute you.
This isn’t weakness. It is refusal to let his enemies
dictate the terms of his life. The dragon says: you must
match fury with fury, or you lose. Jesus says: when you
match fury with fury, you have already lost.
I remind you, Jesus never promised it would be easy,
this being formed in a way the world can’t quite get. And
that is why we return to the water. In times of cruelty
and the Great Ordeal, the Church has always come back
to the truth spoken at our baptism. We return not for
comfort, but for clarity.
Because in baptism, we see what John saw. We declare
that the “iron laws” of the world are merely a façade, that
in this book of monsters, there is another creature. He
keeps showing up in the most surprising places and the
most unusual times. This Lamb. The kind of animal that
ends up on a dinner plate, not a throne. And yet, in John’s
vision, here he is, right at the center of the universe.
To anyone who has paid attention to how power actually
works, it’s a joke. You need a lion on that throne, a god
who will crush our enemies, match fire with fire, win
the way the world wins. But John has seen something
the Roman Empire cannot fathom. He has seen that the
Lamb was slaughtered—and yet, there he is, standing.
On the throne. At the center.
John knows that the Lamb’s gentleness is not to be
overcome. It is the victory itself. He conquers not by
becoming a dragon, but by remaining a Lamb. This holy
stubbornness—this refusal to let the world’s cruelty
change the shape of his heart. John knows that you
don’t defeat the beast by out-beasting it. You defeat it by
absorbing the worst and still standing.
John looks out and sees a multitude that no one could
count. Every nation, every tribe, every people, every
language. Standing together before the throne. He
knows that Rome built its peace by forced sameness—
you must submit or disappear. But in the Kingdom of
the Lamb, the things the world used to divide us are
revealed as God’s own source of joy. In the kingdom, our
languages are not erased; they are understood.
Now, there is a voice—maybe you’ve heard it—that says
the Lamb is no answer for the threats we face. Not now.
Now we need a lion. Mercy is a luxury we cannot afford.
It’s time to fight fire with fire.
And that voice can sound like wisdom in a time of
monsters. That voice can sound like survival when the
pressure is crushing. The thlipsis is upon us. But it is
the dragon’s voice. And it is using your fear against
you. Friends, you must not become what God demands
you resist.
John offers this warning: The scariest beast in
Revelation is not the dragon. It is the one in Chapter 13
with two horns that looks like a lamb. It appears as a
lamb but has the voice of a dragon. And that’s the real
terror. Not the one you see coming, but the one wearing
the face of what you love.
You see, the Dragon is not just “out there.” Sometimes
it is “in here,” deep in our hearts. Sometimes it speaks
through us, using our symbols and scriptures to justify
its hunger. This is why Christ must always be greater
than our Christianity.
Friends, listen for the dehumanization. That’s always the
tell. When someone calls a child of God demonic or a
parasite or vermin—while claiming to speak for Jesus—
that is the Dragon’s speech in lamb’s clothing.
Friends, we have another liturgy. We have this font. We
have a counter-catechesis. It begins with renunciation.
We renounce the iron laws of force. We renounce the
lie that our safety requires our neighbor’s suffering. We
renounce the speech of the dragon, even when it comes
from a pulpit. We renounce any faith that values winning
over witnessing.
For we have one Lord. One. Not power and Christ. Not
empire and Christ. The Lamb alone.
Listen. The world has handed you a script. It tries to
train your heart for warfare and your mind for suspicion.
It tries to convince you that only the destroyers are
saved from destruction. But you have been washed in
the water of a deeper truth. You are marked with a name
no leader can grant and no authority can revoke.
You do not belong to the dragon, to the lie, to the
screaming voices of cruelty and chaos that claim to
hold your soul. You do not belong to the fear. You do not
belong to the hatred. You do not belong to the violence
and its false promise of security.
You belong to God.
The iron laws will break. The dragons will all fall. The
Lamb will be standing still. The Lamb is our Lord. The
Lord is our shepherd. Amen.