Cry Out

The Rev. Joseph Winston

November 18, 2008

Sermon

Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.1
As long as there have been children, there has been play. Sticks are trans-
formed into mighty steeds that carry their riders instantly from one end of the
world to the other. Rags are changed into fabulous robes that would shame royalty
if they showed up at the same ball. Hills become huge castles complete with moats
and drawbridges.
And if you have been around children long enough, you realize that every one
of these different games is full of sounds. Mounts whinny as their riders call out
commands. “Faster, faster, they are about to catch us!” In the ballroom, dancers
greet their partners not only with a curtsy and a bow but also with a polite conver-
sation. “My lord, I am quite pleased to meet you.” The monstrous castle requires
1
Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians
1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3

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shouted out orders so that everyone will know what is happening. “Our enemies
they are almost at the moat! Raise the drawbridge now!”
It is a fact. We never outgrow this fascination with expressing ourselves through
the use of sound.
Think about all the people who make a career out of studying the way we
speak. Many years ago, someone who was fascinated with sounds that humans
make noticed an interesting fact. Some words produce the same noise as the
sounds they are describing. These onomatopoeias (onomatopoiòa), which in Greek
literally means “word making,” are found in many different languages. For exam-
ple, when balloons explode in most dialects they “pop.” Wind up clocks in almost
every tongue go, “tick tock.” And just about everyone says that cats “meow.” An-
other group of people who are very concerned about sounds are poets. They care-
fully craft their words so those rhythms of the poetry along with the rhyme of the
lines add to the experience of listening to the work being read out loud. Finally,
we all have heard the stories about those preachers who try very hard to make their
sermons sound good.
During the reading of the lesson, it was clear that the author realized the same
basic truth that we have already experienced. Humans are vocal creatures.
We heard our love for speaking in the opening verses of today’s lesson. The
author, who we will refer to as John of Patmos or John for short, becomes aware
of what seems to be a single voice emanating from a large crowd. This group
assembled in heaven yells out, “Hallelujah (llhlouðˆ)!”

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 But why would this body cry out, “hallelujah?”2 Why would these people say,
“Praise the L ORD?” Why is the crowd speaking this word primarily found in the
song and the prayer book of Israel?
Today’s lesson provides us with several clues that will help us answer these
questions. Several times in the dialog, there was something that sounded like it
could be a line from a hymn, “Salvation and glory and power to our God” (Reve-
lation 19:1) or “Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory” (Revelation 19:7).
We listened to the account of the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures
falling on their faces and offering God their praise (Revelation 19:4).3 We learned
of the command given from the throne that everyone of God’s terrified slaves are
to offer Him praise (Revelation 19:5).4
We hear hallelujah being spoken and sung in heaven because this is a worship
service of the L ORD God.5
The rest of this lesson reinforces the idea that John is describing a liturgy that
occurs in heaven itself. Three more times we hear the congregation say hallelujah
(Revelation 19:3, 4, 6). We also learn in the lesson that the assembly offering God
2
This word transliterated directly from Hebrew into Greek is sung at just about every worship
service except for those services during the period of Lent when we stop using the word that means,
“Praise the L ORD.” This familiarity with hallelujah belies reality that every use of hallelujah in the
New Testament is found in today’s lesson. Outside these four uses of hallelujah, all the other
occurrences are found in the Psalms (Psalm 102:18; 104:35; 105:45; 106:1; 106:48; 111:1; 112:1;
113:1; 113:9; 115:17; 115:18; 116:19; 117:2; 135:1; 135:3; 135:21; 146:1 ; 146:10; 147:1; 147:20;
148:1; 148:14; 149:1; 149:9; 150:1; 150:6.)
3
καὶ ἔπεσαν οἱ πρεσβύτεροι οἱ εἴκοσι τέσσαρες καὶ τὰ τέσσαρα ζῷα καὶ προσεκύνησαν τῷ
θεῷ τῷ καθημένῳ ἐπὶ τῷ θρόνῳ λέγοντες ἀμήν ἁλληλουϊά
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καὶ φωνὴ ἀπὸ τοῦ θρόνου ἐξῆλθεν λέγουσα αἰνεῖτε τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν πάντες οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ
καὶ οἱ φοβούμενοι αὐτόν οἱ ὁ μικροὶ καὶ οἱ μεγάλοι
5
M. Eugene Boring; James Luther Mays and Paul J. Achtemeier, editors, Revelation, (John
Knox Press, 1989), Interpretation, p. 192.

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their praise for His mighty deeds.
But intertwined between the exclamations of hallelujah and praise found in
the liturgy being sung in heaven is something that is very different from most of
our worship services and it also is deeply troubling to the way that we live.
In this lesson, John of Patmos tells us that God has judged the whore of Baby-
lon and found her guilty of wasting the earth’s resources with her adultery and
incest (Resource 19:2b). 6 She also has been found guilty on the count of killing
Christians (Resource 19:2c). The penalty for these horrendous crimes is death.
That is exactly what has happened to the whore. God in addition to being the
judge who pronounced the sentence over the whore has put her to death (Revela-
tion 19:3).
There is strong disagreement on identifying what nation the whore of Babylon
represents.7 Some people say that she is the Roman Empire during the days of
her glory. Other individuals see her as the Roman Catholic Church when she was
the most powerful force in the entire world. A third option considered by some is
that the woman named in this chapter represents the Jews who rejected Jesus. The
fourth and fifth alternatives have to do with people who live at the end of time.
Maybe she is the new Roman or Babylonian Empire when the world ends.
There is a common theme that runs through each of these different ideas on
which nation it might be. Listen once again and see if you can find this one
thread in the five different possible countries: pagan Rome, papal Rome, apos-
6
ἥτις διέφθειρε τὴν γῆν ἐν τῇ πορνείᾳ αὐτῆς
7
David J. MacLeod, ‘Heaven’s Hallelujah Chorus: An Introduction To The Seven ”Last
Things” (Rev. 19:1-10)’, Bibliotheca Sacra, January-March (1999):156, p. 73.

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tate Jerusalem, or either eschatological Rome or Babylon. The unifying theme
that can be seen in all these proposed concepts is simply this. They all clearly say
that the citizens of Babylon are neither you nor I. None of us were alive during the
Roman Empire nor were any of us born during the time when the Roman Catholic
Church was one of the world’s superpowers. This means that we cannot be the
whore. Unless you firmly believe that we are currently living at the end of the
world, we are not members of the end time communities found in either Rome
or Babylon. Finally, to the best of my knowledge, no one here is a Jew who has
renounced Jesus.
This way of thinking proposed by many of the interpreters of Revelation
makes us completely innocent of the atrocities described in Revelation in gen-
eral and this lesson in specific. By performing this type of Biblical exegeses, we
say that are not responsible for whore’s actions here on earth. The next step in
our twisted logic is this. Because we are not part of Babylon, we then are not
contributing to the rebellion against the Lamb (Revelation 17:14). This incorrect
interpretation lets us off the hook. It appears that we are not accountable for the
acts of the whore described in today’s lesson nor are we responsible for anything
else she does.
But we know better.
One of the best ways to understand how we are one with the whore is to listen
to what we have to say.
Children at play can serve as our first example. As adults, we realize that
occasionally sticks break, rags tear, and other children are left out of the game.

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These different actions, whether accidental or deliberate, often cause the game to
come to an abrupt halt as tempers rise and accusations fly.
When a child is confronted with their detrimental behavior, they generally cry
out, “It wasn’t me.” Press a bit harder and they soon will start naming names, “He
did it.” Soon you will see that their story cannot be true. They are responsible for
what has happened.
We adults never quite outgrow this same behavior. That is why we go to such
lengths to make sure that our current generation is not associated with the whore.
We want to prove that we cannot be her. However, our own words betray us, we
are one with her.
Listen to what we do for our actions are louder than words.
God’s message that the whore “corrupted the earth with her fornication” could
be taken at face value (Revelation 19:2b). We only have to look at our environment
to see that we have not followed God’s command given to us in Genesis to take
care of creation.
But this phrase found in today’s lesson means something more. Wasting the
earth’s resources also means that we take too much while others have too little.
As we become the fattest nation in the history of the world, the United Nations
Children’s Fund, otherwise known as UNICEF, reports that one in four children
in the world is underweight. If that number is not frightening enough, the UN’s
World Food Programme tells us that a child dies every five seconds because of
hunger. That is two hundred and children die a day or more than 100 thousand die
per year because they do not have enough to eat. This same problem of hunger is

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here among us also. Consider that the Heifer Project, a US based group that gives
farm animals along with instructions on their care, reports that the majority of their
work does not happen in the developing nations of the world but rather is located
here in the United States because of the amount of poverty in America’s heartland.
Another resource that we squander is water. We often take it for granted and waste
water rather than using it wisely. UNICEF estimates that one sixth of the world,
about one billion people, lack access to water that they can drink without getting
sick.
More importantly, we have the blood of Christians on our hands. Frequently,
we Christians here in the United States have ignored the plight of our fellow Chris-
tians in places like India where they are being forced to either to convert to Hin-
duism, to leave the area, or to have their belongings destroyed. The NY Times
recently reported that in the region of India that had seen the greatest amount of
violence, the death toll was more than thirty Christians, the number of churches
that had been destroyed was greater than one-hundred and thirty, and three thou-
sand Christians’ homes had been burned.8
We are the whore.
Upon learning that we are first class citizens of that accursed city Babylon, our
natural reaction to this horrible news is to cry out, “It can’t be.” But we are. We
have joined with the whore. We are her lover.
We all know what happens next. Revelation clearly tells us. Gad has judged
8
Somini Sengupta, Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee, (http://www.nytimes.
com/2008/10/13/world/asia/13india.html, October 12, 2008).

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us. We have been found guilty. Our punishment is death.
Today’s lesson from Revelation has another message for you. You, you who
are one with the whore, are “invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Reve-
lation 19:9a).
You do not get to come to the meal because of your looks. You do not have
a guaranteed place at the table because you know someone. You do not have a
choice seat because of anything that you have done. You do not have food and
drink set before you because of something you did not do.
The Groom Himself has summoned you to the marriage supper. Jesus has
requested the pleasure of your company. He has commanded that you come and
eat with Him.
You have this invitation from Christ because of what He has done. He came
and saved you from the whore. That is why you get to eat and drink with Him.
And what a meal it is. We have finest bread and wine in all of creation. We
dine at the never-ending feast with the Lamb and on His body and blood.
This presence of our risen Lord and Savior is a cause of great celebration. He
has come to feed me and because of what He has already done, you will live with
Him forever!
It is true that we like to speak out on what is important to us. Children yell
and scream while they play. Adults work with words in order to understand them
better. We also realize that actions speak louder than words. That is why it is so
important that the life that we lead is in harmony with the Word of our Lord and
Savior.

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 Today, we recall an individual that by the grace of God, did an exemplary job
of keeping her life in line with the Word of God. St. Hilda was born in 614. At
the age of thirteen, she was baptized. For twenty years, she lived an upright life as
a member of the king of Northumbria’s court.9 At the age of thirty-five, she was
made the abbess of a convent at Harlepool. Later she was the abbess at Whitby, a
monastery for both men and women. A bibliography written by Saint Bede in 731
reported that she was full of energy, a skilled administrator, and a gifted teacher.
Her work at the monastery was so well known that kings, princes, and heads of
state sought out her advise.
St. Hilda is not at the Lord’s Table because of what she has done. She is dining
with the Lord because Jesus invited her. You also have a place at the Table. It is
there because that is what Jesus wants for you. As the angel said, “These are true
words of God” (Revelation 19:9c).
Go and tell everyone about the Groom who invites you to the wedding feast
that never ends.
“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.”10

References

Boring, M. Eugene; Mays, James Luther and Achtemeier, Paul J., editors, Reve-
lation, (John Knox Press, 1989), Interpretation.
9
Northumbria was primarily composed of north east England and southern Scotland.
10
Philippians 4:7.

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MacLeod, David J., ‘Heaven’s Hallelujah Chorus: An Introduction To The
Seven ”Last Things” (Rev. 19:1-10)’, Bibliotheca Sacra, January-March
(1999):156, pp. 72 – 84, This is article one in an eight-part series, ”Exposi-
tional Studies of the Seven Last Things in the Book of Revelation.”.

Sengupta, Somini, Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee, (http://www.

nytimes.com/2008/10/13/world/asia/13india.html, Oc-
tober 12, 2008).

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