Lenten Sermon: Revelation 12.7-12

Boot-stomping, @#$-kicking Jesus

Nearly a year ago this month, I found myself trapped on the corner of Washington and King streets in Old Town.

I was headed into Banana Republic.

As folks in the 8:30 service frequently point out, I ‘don’t own many ties.’

I have fewer dark ones. And that Friday I needed one, a black or a grey one. Because the night before, Jack, the little boy from our confirmation class, had been pronounced dead as I held his hand in the ER.

I was in a hurry, still feeling numb. But standing there on the corner, blocking my path, were 4 or 5 men and women. Evangelists.

A couple of them of were holding foam-board signs high above their heads. The signs were brightly illustrated with graphic images of a lake of fire, a 7-headed dragon and a terrible-looking lion with scars on its paws.

At the bottom of one of the signs was an illustration of people, men and women…and children…looking terrified, looking like they were weeping.

A couple of them were passing out pamphlets.

I tried to slip by unnoticed. One of them tried to hand me a tract, so I just held up my hands and said ‘I’m a Buddhist.’

But the young man blocking my path wasn’t fooled. He pointed at my open collar and said: ‘But you’re wearing a cross around your neck.’

‘Oh, that.’ I feigned surprise.

The young man looked to be in his twenties. He didn’t look very different from the models in the store window next to us.

He handed me a slick, trifold tract, gave me a syrupy Joel Osteen smile and said: ‘Did you know Jesus Christ is coming back to Earth?’

Then he started talking, with a smile, about the end of the world.

I flipped through his brochure. It was filled with images and scripture citations from the Book of Revelation.

‘Martin Luther said Revelation was a dangerous book in the hands of idiots’ I mumbled. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.