The Second Sunday before Lent, 23 February 2025, Austwick, Clapham
He woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm.
Don’t we just long for calm? Calm in our hearts and minds; calm in our family life; calm in our community; calm in this storm-tossed world.
If you come here today longing for calm, then be comforted. You have come to the right place; you have come to the right person – for Christ is, now and always, rebuking the winds that batter the world; Christ is, here and in all places, calming the storms that unsettle our souls.
The way of calm is Christ’s way. We know this from the gospel story we’ve heard today and know so well; it may surprise you to hear me say this, but we also know from the book of Revelation that Christ’s way is the way that ends in calm.
Revelation, an apocalyptic work which reveals truth about Christ in highly symbolic and imaginative language. Written to be read aloud to congregations in one sitting, The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John is a drama in the form of a letter to the seven churches of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) around 95A.D. These were embattled communities of believers at that time, suffering persecution. John wanted to encourage these churches to continue in their faith through suffering, to be assured of the final victory of God and of the return of Jesus, the Lamb of God, whose death and resurrection and ascension has brought about the victory in the battle between the fallen and sinful powers that rule the world, and the angels and spiritual powers that reign in heaven. [1]
Now, from what you know of it, Revelation may seem more like The War of the Worlds than The Little Book of Calm – and yes, it does describe a cosmic conflict with Christ at the centre. But the key thing to know about Revelation is that The peace of the Lamb ends the wars of the world.
God redeems the world not through violence and worldly power; the message of Revelation is that the kingdom of God is always already present in history, and it is not through violence, but through the cross and in the resurrection, that the world has been redeemed.
If we are anxious about the way the world is headed, we can trust, and be calm. Christians do not need to try to control history’s outcome. For Christ is ‘alpha and omega’, the beginning and the end of the world; time stood still on the cross and was redeemed on the third day, and the power of evil and of death itself are overcome in the resurrection. This was the secret that the writer of the Christian Apocalypse revealed to his readers. [2]
With so much apocalyptic speech in our public realm stirring up agitation today, it’s vital we grasp that ‘The Christian apocalypse does not indicate the end of the world in a mighty conflagration called Armageddon, nor the resettling of the land of Israel as Zionists would have it. On the contrary’:
Simply stated, “apocalypse” is shorthand for Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, in particular for Paul, all apocalyptic reflection and hope comes to this, that God has acted critically, decisively, and finally for Israel, all the peoples of the earth, and the entire cosmos, in the life, death, resurrection, and coming again of Jesus; God’s purposes for all are critically, decisively, and finally disclosed and effected in the history of Jesus Christ. [3]
When we hear presidents or prelates saying that we must bring about God’s kingdom by acting a certain way, then history warns us to be wary. For their intention is often to violently remove another people from their land, so that they can take it over. And history teaches us that empires built on this shaky moral ground ultimately fail. The Third Reich, Nazi Germany’s so-called Thousand-Year Reign, ended after only twelve years. Whatever Trump and Vance and Putin are cooking up just now may bring pain and suffering to millions; but their empires too will ultimately fall. Whilst the kingdom of God will remain, rooted and grounded in the company of the suffering millions.
Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.’ [4]
That the kingdom of God is among us means that Christ is inviting us to daily share in the joyful liberation of the resurrected life, here and now; he wants us to look out for signs of him active in the world today, he longs for us to receive the blessing of his healing, reconciling love in our lives. The kingdom of God bears suffering, even the suffering of Calvary, and rises on the wings of resurrection life bringing hope, and calm, to those within it.
When you find God at work, as he so often is, through people of goodwill quietly caring in our neighbourhoods, restoring spirits, healing lives, then you are witnessing the stilling of the winds that batter the world; when you’re inspired to do a generous act or say a kind word, then there you are, working with God to help calm storms and settle troubled souls.
The word ‘Apocalyptic’ literally means ‘a revealing’. A bringing to light. How much we need the light to show us the path through life today.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,” says the Gospel writer John the disciple, son of Zebedee of Galilee. And another John, John the Baptist, beside the River Jordan, revealed Jesus as “the light of all mankind … so that through him all might believe.”
A third John wrote the book of Revelation on Patmos, an island in the Aegean Sea. Some choose to read his work to justify their power politics in the name of religion. But John’s intention is quite different: Revelation is written to celebrate the great insight that The peace of the Lamb ends the wars of the world.
This is the revelation to thrill our souls: that all the storms of empires will pass away, brought ultimately to a state of calm by the Lamb of God who holds the world in love.
This is a message to lift our spirits: that all the storms in our hearts will cease, if we rest in the kingdom of God’s peace, daily comforted by his words of peace and reconciliation towards us; daily renewed by the exercise of walking in his healing ways. [5]
At the end of the world, this is what he says: “Peace, be still”.
In the midst of our lives, this is what he tells us: “Peace, be still”.
Notes
A précis of John’s Revelation Trumps Empire’s Apocalypse, preached in Somerset in 2017
[1] Wikipedia: Apocalyptic Literature; The Book of Revelation and Apocalypses in John Bowker, The Complete Bible Handbook: An Illustrated Companion, p.468-71.
[2] Michael Northcott, An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire, p.140.
[3] Michael Northcott, An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire, p.127-8, quoting Douglas Harink, Paul Among the Postliberals: Pauline Theology Beyond Christendom and Modernity, p.68.
[4] Luke 17.20-21.
[5] Michael Northcott, An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire, p.121.
