Sunday Sermon: He Holds the Keys
|
Text: Revelation 1:18
Post-Easter Series: “The Dawn of a New Day”
Some years ago, in a part of Atlanta that has long since been torn down as a part of the community’s efforts at urban renewal, there used to be a plate-glass window that had painted on it these words: “Keys Made, Palms Read, Souls Raised from the Dead.” I guess you would call that “Voodoo One-Stop Shopping.” “Keys Made, Palms Read, Souls Raised from the Dead.”
The combination of those “services” represents three great needs that every one of us possesses: (1) the ability to secure and have access to what we deem most precious in life; (2) the desire to know what the future holds so that we can best prepare for it; and, most importantly, (3) the assurance that for us death will not have the last word.
I say the assurance of death not having the last word is the most important need because of how impotent we always feel when we come in contact with it. We may do our best to make light of our helplessness before death as a way of lessening our anxieties when we must face it in some way, but the truth of the matter is that any time we have to walk through the “valley of the shadow of death,” either our own death or someone else’s death, we are always reminded of how as we do so, we feel so vulnerable and exposed.
In my early years as a pastor, most of which were years I spent in small rural communities, my closest colleague in those places was the funeral director, for understandable reasons. One thing I learned quickly about those funeral directors is that each had a great sense of humor, which early on surprised me. I always associated funeral directors with being serious and somber, but I came to see how their sense of humor was something of a survival technique, given how they trafficked in death on a daily basis. And they all had great stories. One of them told me about an old farmer that he saw in town one day who told him that when he died, he wanted the funeral director to bury him in his old pickup truck. And when the funeral director asked him why, the farmer answered, “Because I’ve never seen a hole that pickup couldn’t get me out of.” Of course, the farmer was kidding. He knew as well as the funeral director knew and I knew and you know that the grave is one hole no pickup on this earth has the power to get someone out of. For that level of help we need a greater power, even a power that comes to us from on high – a power that holds the keys to death, a power that comes to us from an impossible to predict future, a power that was itself raised from the dead and as a result will always have the last word over it.
That power is disclosed in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, where the Spirit of God comes upon John, the disciple of Jesus, who late in his life had been exiled to the isle of Patmos by the Roman government for his preaching the good news of Jesus. The first chapter of Revelation tells us that it was on the Lord’s Day, a Sunday, when the Spirit came upon John and granted him a vision of God’s future, a future marked by the appearance of the Risen Jesus, who will one day return to this earth, bringing with him the keys of Death and Hades and the power to raise the dead to life everlasting.
At the sight of the Exalted Christ, the text tells us that John fell at his feet as if he were dead. But then Jesus placed his right hand on John, the hand of authority, and told John not to be afraid, that he was the First and the Last, the Living One, who though dead, was now alive, and who as a result is in possession of the very keys of Death and Hades, the abode of the dead, so that death no longer has the last word.
The image of the Exalted and Glorified Christ holding the keys to Death and Hades is a most compelling one; don’t you think? I will be the first to admit that in the book of Revelation we encounter many images that we find hard to make sense of, but this one is as clear as the crystal sea that flows before the throne of God. Almost all of us here this morning have at least one key on our person, a key that gives us power and access to something that has been secured – a home, a car, an office, a storage room. Other people may be locked from those places but not you. You have the key. You have a way to open up what is kept from others and you have the power to grant them access with you, if you so desire.
Now, you can surely better appreciate and celebrate the glorious revelation John received and was instructed to pass on to persecuted believers who were feeling locked out and held back from all manner of possibilities because of their faith in Jesus. In fact, you may be feeling the same powerlessness in your own life today. But the good news of the Gospel is that our Savior and Lord, the Risen Jesus, is the Living One. He was crucified, but he was raised to life. And now he holds the keys to Death and Hades, the most powerful forces in this world, greater than any kings or princes or armies or governments. And if the Risen Jesus has authority over that, then what else in this world does he not hold authority over?
You may be here this morning and feeling anxious and uncertain and out of control with respect to so many things going on in your life. And you’re afraid because of it, even though you do your best to convince yourself and others that you’re not. Someone has said that so many of the fears we grapple with – the fear of rejection and the fear of failure and the fear of irrelevance and the fear of loss – they and all other fears are essentially manifestations of the one ultimate fear, which is our fear of death. You know, that may be true. All of our fears may in fact stem from our fear that every moment we are getting closer to our death and over us it will have the last word.
So, how do we overcome that fear and learn in between how to live with all the others that haunt us? We do so by faith. We do so by trusting our todays and tomorrows to the Living One, who was raised to life and now holds the keys to Death and Hades. Jesus has the power to release us from every fear and uncertainty and as we sense his hand upon us, we know that the best is yet to come.
The promise reminds me of another story I once heard from a funeral director friend, a story that I had heard before, in a revival or a funeral, I can’t remember. You’ve probably heard it to. It’s a story of a request a funeral director once received from a woman who asked to be buried with a fork. Not a pickup truck, a fork. When the funeral director asked her why she wanted to be buried with a fork, she told him, “In all my years of attending church socials and functions where food was involved, my favorite part was when whoever was clearing away the dishes from the main course would lean over and say to me, ‘You can keep your fork.’ It was my favorite part of the meal because I knew something better was coming – something worth making room for. Not Jell-O or pudding, something with substance. So, I just want people to see me there in the casket with a fork in my hand, and I want them to be wondering, ‘What’s with the fork?’ And I want you to tell the preacher to tell them, ‘Something better is coming for you, too. So, keep your fork also.’”
Think about that the next time you sit down at a meal and pick up your fork. Something better is coming, something made possible by the Risen Jesus, the First and the Last, the Living One, who holds the keys to Death and Hades. He will have the last word, and as we place our trust in him, what a word of renewal and restoration and resurrection victory it will be.