Sermon – The Multitude

(I preached this sermon at Christ Lutheran Church, Harrisburg, PA on Sunday, August 17, 2025. It is based on Revelation 7:9-17)

I am a runner – a distance runner, as many of you know.  I often say that running is what keeps me sane.  When I go for a run, regardless of the distance, I don’t listen to calm, soothing music. No soft instrumentals.  I need songs that drive me forward, songs with energy and emotion, songs with a beat that can carry me when my legs are tired and I feel like I can’t go any further.  

So I run to bands like The Offspring, Green Day, Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine, and Rise Against.  They aren’t bands that we are going to hear in church, that’s for sure.  But they’re bands that have something to say — often offering sharp critiques of modern life, calling out injustice, pushing against the grain.

Just yesterday, while I was out running, a song from Rise Against caught my attention. The song is called The Numbers. And the lyrics go like this:

“They have the power
But we have the numbers now
It’s all just a constant illusion
Of control.
They break us like horses
How long will we drag their plow?
What will continue to be
Is what we allow.”

Those lines stuck with me. Because they could have been written in the first century as much as today. They could have been the lyrics running through John’s head as he wrote the book of Revelation.

Revelation is often misunderstood as I have been saying over the last several weeks. Some churches treat it like a crystal ball, predicting the future. Others avoid it altogether, because it can be kind of weird. But Revelation is, at its heart, a protest letter to church under Roman occupation.

It is John’s creative, poetic, even musical way of saying:  Empire does not have the final word. God does.

Rome claimed totality: one empire, one Caesar, one rule. Rome claimed peace: but it was peace through fear. Rome claimed eternity: but John knew better. Empires are illusions of control. They rise, and they fall. They crush, and they eventually collapse under the weight of their own cruelty.

So John gives us this vision in chapter 7: “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

Rome claimed to gather the world under its rule. But here is the true gathering — not by force, but by faith. Not by Caesar, but by the Lamb.

That’s the real power. That’s the real numbers. Not the might of empire, but the multitude of God’s people standing faithful.

Every empire has its creed. It may not write it down, but you can hear it in its policies, its propaganda, its slogans. It goes something like this:

*We believe in the empire, almighty and everlasting,
maker of conquest and war,
source of fear and order.

We believe in the rule of the strong over the weak,
the wealth of the few at the expense of the many.
That might makes right.
It is by fear that peace is kept.
It is by survival that glory is won.*

That’s the creed of empire. Might makes right. The ends justify the means. The strong survive.

But Revelation gives us a very different creed. The multitude sings it before the throne:

*We believe in Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain,
the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead,
who loves us and freed us by his blood,
who gathers the multitude from every nation.

We believe that salvation belongs to our God
and to the Lamb forever.
The empire falls, but God’s reign endures.*

One creed builds on fear, cruelty, and violence. The other builds on grace, sacrifice, and hope.

And Revelation doesn’t just give us creeds. It gives us images. Beasts. Monsters. Things that look powerful and terrifying, but that John insists will not endure.

John doesn’t sugar coat it either.  Bad things are going to happen.  People will get hurt.  But in spite of it all, there is hope.

If John were writing to us today, I believe he would name the beasts we know.

• He would describe a beast with iron jaws that tears families apart — the beast of ICE raids and immigration policies that make our neighbors flee in fear.
• He would describe a beast with a bloated belly that devours the poor — cutting off Medicaid and SNAP, making health care and food unreachable for those who need them most.
• He would describe a beast with boots of bronze marching our streets — the nationalization of police, the deployment of military force under the pretext of safety, targeting the unhoused, spreading terror instead of peace.
• He would describe a beast with a forked tongue — leaders reposting messages that strip women of the right to vote, dismiss their leadership, deny their call from God.
• He would describe a beast with claws that slash at God’s children — executive orders that wound LGBTQ+ people, threatening their healthcare, their dignity, their very lives.
• He would describe a beast with scales as dark as night — undermining education, twisting truth, silencing teachers, robbing children of hope.
• He would describe a beast that breathes sickness — government appointed leaders undermining public health, endangering vaccinations, spreading confusion instead of care.
• And yes — he would describe a beast of greed, with hands like shackles and a whip in its tail — a beast that exploits workers, demands more bricks with no straw, refuses livable wages, treats people as disposable, and claims ownership of the labor of their hands.

These are the beasts of our time. But John’s message is this: they will not endure. They will fall. Every empire falls.

And in the meantime, what are God’s people to do? John does not sugarcoat it: following the Lamb is costly. Faithfulness brings opposition and resistance.  I wonder if the church forgets its’ own past and how radical the message of the Gospel really is.

But John says: you are not forgotten. You are not alone.  This echoes Jesus’ actions and words from throughout the Gospels – I see you.  I hear you.  You are not alone. There is hope.  Let’s go. 

“These are the ones who have come out of the great ordeal,” John writes, “they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more. The sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

That is the pastoral heart of Revelation: naming the beasts, but then lifting up a vision of hope that is stronger still.

So let me offer that vision of hope for us, here in Allison Hill, in Harrisburg, in the midst of our own ordeal.

I see a day when immigrant families no longer flee in fear, but are gathered home and safe, counted among the multitude, clothed in white, standing before the throne of God.

I see a day when the hungry are fed and the sick are cared for, when no one worries about losing healthcare or food assistance, because the Lamb has led them to springs of living water.

I see a day when our streets are places of safety, not of fear. When the boots of soldiers are replaced with the songs of children playing freely.

I see a day when women lead as God calls them to lead, and no beastly tongue can silence them, because their voices rise with the multitude before the throne.

I see a day when LGBTQ+ siblings are no longer wounded by policies, but are healed, whole, and celebrated as part of God’s beloved community.

I see a day when classrooms are places of truth and freedom, where teachers are honored and students discover their God-given gifts without fear.

I see a day when public health is protected, when science serves life, when sickness no longer steals futures, because the Lamb is our shepherd.

And I see a day when workers no longer drag the empire’s plow, no longer make bricks without straw, no longer see their labor stolen. I see a multitude of laborers gathered at the throne, where their dignity is restored, where they rest from their toil, where they share in the abundance of God’s kingdom.

Friends — this is John’s vision, and it is ours: Every empire falls. But God’s reign does not.

The multitude still sings.
The Lamb still reigns.
The Spirit still gives courage.

And we — we are called not to despair, not to give up, not to put our hope in empire’s illusions, but to be faithful. To join the multitude. To sing the Lamb’s song.

So when the powers of the world say, “We have the power,” the church responds: “We have the numbers. We have the multitude. We have the Lamb. We have the song that outlasts every empire.”

Blessing and glory and honor be to God,
forever and ever. Amen.