Revelation comforts suffering Christians by revealing the Risen Jesus reigning in heaven as the true king over the whole world. No matter what we face today Jesus is in control. He is guiding all things until heaven comes to earth. It’s not a secret for us to decode because it is a revelation of Jesus, testifying about his victory now and forevermore.
And here’s the big idea for our passage today in Revelation 5: True worship in the church reflects the pattern of heavenly worship. And what is that pattern? Proclaiming Jesus alone as Savior and King and raising our hearts around the heavenly throne room to praise our Risen Lord.
Now, here’s a church architecture lesson. The area where I’m standing is called the chancel. Many of us—especially from evangelical and Baptist backgrounds—just call this whole room a sanctuary. That’s because we only know two words: sanctuary and fellowship hall. But in Anglican architecture, the “sanctuary” refers to the area around the Lord’s Table, where the Eucharist is celebrated.
The chancel, this area where I’m preaching, is designed to visually represent heaven. There is an overflow of imagery here to help draw your hearts and imagination upward. Even the white robes the clergy wear on Sundays, it’s not about formality but to represent the church triumphant gathered in the heavenly throne room to worship Jesus.1
In this space, where we proclaim God’s Word and celebrate at the Lord’s Table, it is where heaven and earth meet.
Revelation 5 gives us a glimpse of what is truly happening when we gather for worship to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus each Sunday. This passage helps us recover the imagination of faith and see what our eyes cannot—the boundary between heaven and earth removed as our hearts are raised up in the heavenly places. To recognize that when we praise Jesus we are joining the heavenly voices. That when we gather together we are in the presence of our Risen Lord, the Lion of Judah and the Lamb who was slain.2
But how do we get there? How do we, with all our sin and rebellion, get access to that holy throne room?
Has there ever been a place that was off-limits to you? A place where you weren’t allowed? Maybe there’s a place where you’ve never felt good enough or cool enough to be? For me, at least when I was a kid, it was the grown-ups table. I loved Thanksgiving at my grandparents’ house. But the big table in the dining room was for “grown-ups only.” My mom and dad, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, only they were allowed to sit at this table. I was so far away… in the living room… sitting with my sisters and cousins at folding tables. I always wondered, What’s going on at the grown-ups table? What are they talking about over there? I couldn’t wait to see what it was like to move all the way up to the grown-ups table but even though I could see it, that table felt like it was an infinity away.
In our lesson from Revelation chapter 5, Jesus gives John a vision of heaven, he gets to see what it’s like, but it makes John feel like heaven is an infinite distance from where he’s supposed to be. There's no way he belongs there or will ever be good enough. Now… heaven is not in a galaxy far, far away (May the 4th be with you) — we’re not far from God because of geography but because of our sin. We make mistakes, and not one of us is perfect. Even if we could see heaven like John did, we’re not strong enough or worthy enough to enter it by ourselves.
And look at our reading today in Revelation 5 verse 4. When John sees that no one is good enough to open the promises of God’s salvation, it makes him weep. John feels the consequences of human sin, the weight of the rebellion we see in the very first pages of the Bible in Genesis 3. Adam, the first human, forfeited our inheritance to rule with God, and no human—not Abraham, Moses, or David—has ever been worthy enough to inherit God’s promises on their own merit. We can’t save ourselves.
But then John sees Jesus. In Revelation 5, we learn that Jesus is the bridge between us and God, between earth and heaven. You may wonder why, of all people, John gets to see this vision of heaven. Why? Because he knows and loves Jesus. And Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” If you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen God. So when there was no way for us to get back to God, Jesus became the way, spanning the infinite gap that separates us from our Creator. Like a bridge, Jesus connects us to God and makes it possible for us to raise our hearts in the heavenly places with him.3
How does Jesus make a way?
Read along with me in verse 5, look what it says: “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered.” Jesus is the Lion who delivers the victory. But here’s the great paradox of the gospel message, reflected in Revelation’s own special way: Jesus is the Lion who conquered death by becoming a sacrificial lamb, not by exerting power but by giving himself up in love.
When John turns to look at the Lion, he says instead in verse 6, “I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” The Lion of Judah became the Passover Lamb. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and he rose from the dead on the third day. And because Jesus is alive, he set us free from death and opened the way for us to be with God in heaven. Jesus is both the Lion and the Lamb.
In verse 7, Jesus is able to open the scroll. Now wait a minute… what is a scroll? Well, it is Scripture. Consider how in Luke chapter 4, Jesus opened the scroll to read from the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament, and then he says “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Here in Revelation 5, Jesus alone is worthy to open the scroll of salvation itself, to show us that all of God’s promises in the Bible, they lead us to Jesus.
The point is the same in both Luke 4 and Revelation 5: The whole Bible, beginning to end, points us to Jesus. He is the center and fulfillment.
Revelation is the last book of the Bible. But in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the first humans Adam and Eve are called to rule the earth as kings and priests of God. They fail and lose that inheritance for us. Then later, in Genesis 49, we hear about the promised Lion of Judah who is going to recover that inheritance and be a King and Savior for God’s people. And in the second book of the Bible, Exodus, the blood of the Passover lamb saves God’s people from death and darkness in Egypt. So when Jesus died on the cross as our Passover lamb, his death gives us new life.
Each Sunday, we read Bible passages from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament letters, and we end with the Gospels. The Bible shows us our great need for God, and Jesus is the only answer. That’s why the Gospel reading is the high point of our Lessons. It’s why each time we stand and celebrate when we read the Gospels. Because our worship reflects heaven when Jesus unrolls the scroll in our midst. Through Jesus we see the fullness of God’s saving plan in history and understand the whole Bible is centered around him.
I love the Jesus Storybook Bible, and one of my favorite memories is reading it to Auggie when he was a newborn. On the cover it says, “every story whispers his name.” Jesus the Last Adam, who recovers the kingdom for us to share in God’s rule. Jesus the Lion of Judah and our Passover Lamb. It’s all about Jesus!
True worship reflects the heavenly pattern when it proclaims Jesus alone as our salvation. The King who conquered by laying down his life.
Jesus rules by giving of himself. And while Jesus alone is worthy to be our King, he shares with us his crown of glory. The inheritance from creation in Genesis chapter 1, to rule with God as kings and priest? Look what Revelation 5 verse 10 tells us: Jesus ransomed the people of God and “made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” Jesus doesn’t just rescue us from sin; he restores our calling to reign with him in glory.
You are not invisible and you’re not ordinary. You are special—Jesus gives you a crown to rule with him. Because Jesus is the Lion of Judah, nothing in your life is too big for him to handle. Jesus wins all the time, for all time, and at the end of time. He rose from the dead and he rules as king from heaven. Nothing can separate us from Christ.
And because Jesus is the Lamb who became like us and died for us, nothing in your life is too small for Jesus. Because he is the king who shares his crown with you, everything in your life matters to Jesus. His invitation to you to participate in his kingdom reveals the purpose, meaning, and destiny of your life.
Pastor Eugene Peterson said that Revelation describes a “heaven-penetrated, hell-threatened environment” for the church.4 We can see that the world around is broken, we can see a hell-threatened environment, but often we come to church with mediocre worship and lukewarm hearts because the enemy wants to keep our focus away from the Risen Christ. But with the vision of Jesus we have in Revelation, we can see with a different set of eyes. Our faith is filled with the glorious splendor of the kingdom in the midst of our daily lives.
So what happens when we worship? Because Jesus is the bridge, heaven comes near to us. When we worship—when we sing, when we pray, when we listen to God’s Word, when we come to the Lord’s Table for Communion—our hearts are lifted up to heaven, where Jesus is.
Jesus loves you and he is with you. Worship is not about your performance because Jesus alone is worthy. Instead, Jesus invites you to give him your heart in worship and receive the gift of his presence.
So, in a moment, when the priest says, “Lift up your hearts,” you can say, “We lift them to the Lord,” and really mean it. Worship that not only reflects heaven but enters the throne room of God.
Because Jesus is worthy. And he made a way. . . Just for you.
See Patricia Klein, Worship Without Words, for more on church architecture and symbolism.
I’ve been reading Eugene Peterson recently, which is how I accidentally stumbled into studying Revelation. His works The Contemplative Pastor and Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination were especially formative in preparing for this sermon.
Edith McEwan Humphrey, And I Turned to See the Voice, 185. Humphrey inspired the bridge imagery and illustration when she wrote: “Moreover, underlying the teaching about the Lion-Lamb is the unspoken proposition that the gulf between the throne room and earth, astonishingly, may be bridged.”
Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, 71.
Share this post