Tower and Town, April 2022

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Clergy Letter

Many images fill our screens at this perilous time. Disturbing and heart-breaking images of leaders, weaponry and fleeing women and children. As we wonder what to think, pray and do, may our hearts and minds be filled with another vision: of our glorious Lord Jesus.

In war, Christians often turn to the Bible book of Revelation. Some read it as detailed contemporary history. Others find in it themes that characterise the AD era. Yet others find it tricky to understand. But the late preacher John Stott wrote about the book of Revelation, that people, “with their backs to the wall need more than moral exhortation… They must see Christ… A history of the world in cipher is cold comfort in comparison with a vision of the exalted Christ.”

Above all fighting and fears, hatred and horrors, powers and pandemics, our world needs to see Jesus Christ. Revelation is, above all, a revealing of Jesus Christ: “the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” (Rev 1:5a)

As we wonder what is going to happen in the world, so did the elderly apostle John. In Revelation 5, he longs for somebody worthy to unroll the scroll of history. Then he hears…

“Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll.” Rev 5:5

Picture a lion, huge and golden! Feel his mighty mane! Hear his awesome MGM roar! Jesus is the king that God had promised to his ancestor David (2 Sam 7) and to David’s ancestor Judah (Gen 49). Jesus triumphed over storms, sickness, Satan and death.

In CS Lewis’s Narnia stories, when the children discover that Aslan is a lion, they ask nervously,

“Is he safe?”. Mr Beaver replies,

“Of course he isn’t safe – he’s a lion! But he is good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

As we face the uncertainty and horror of war in Europe, let’s be encouraged that there is a higher throne than Moscow or London or Washington. Let us humbly honour Jesus as our Lord and find security at his feet. But maybe we wonder about this lion. He may be big, but is he (like Aslan) good? So we turn with the apostle John to see the mighty mane and the roaring teeth, but what a surprise we find.

“Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the centre of the throne.” (Rev 5:6a)

We see, not a lion, but a lamb! They are both picture language for Jesus: He sounds like a lion – but he looks like a lamb! Towering over the throne of the universe, with all power everywhere forever, is… a little lamb.

Countries choose big strong animals for their symbols: Lions for England, a bear for Russia, an eagle for the USA. But the Kingdom of God is symbolised by a slaughtered – yet living - lamb. The one on the throne has scars, just as the risen Jesus showed his disciples his nail-torn scars.

Jesus the lamb has the right to roll out history, on the one hand, because he can sympathise with us. An infant refugee; A homeless man, unjustly convicted, tortured and killed, all out of love for us. I don’t know why God would allow war – but I can trust that kind of God – that he has the answers.

Jesus can sympathise and, even better, he can redeem. He can deal not only with our sadness but also with our sin. Slain lambs, in the Bible, are sacrifices – dying to pay for the guilt of others. That wrongdoing is there both on the news and also here in my heart. But wonderfully Jesus died to redeem me and all who turn and trust him as Saviour and Lord.

May we trust in Jesus, and sing with the crowd in John’s vision,

“You are worthy… because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from [Ukraine and Russia and the UK and] every tribe and language and people and nation.” (Rev 5:9)

May Christ, the lion-lamb, be our vision in this perilous time. Come Lord Jesus!

Reuben Mann