Good Friday: I Saw a Lamb

by Jesse Steven Wheeler*

I begin today’s reflection with a word that may be triggering for some of us in the movement for Palestinian liberation: Apocalypse. However, rather than denoting a cataclysmic end-of-days confrontation between the forces of good and evil, apocalypse refers to the revealing or unveiling of that which was heretofore hidden or unknown. As such, the great apocalyptic literature of scripture works to “draw back the curtain of heaven,” allowing the prophet to understand and report upon the true nature of historical events as seen from above (rather than below). It shows us that God is sovereign and in control, even if everything around us may appear hopeless and lost. Here, John presents us with a vision of the throne room of heaven:

Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who was sitting on the throne. There was writing on the inside and the outside of the scroll, and it was sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel, who shouted with a loud voice: “Who is worthy to break the seals on this scroll and open it?” But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll and read it.

Then I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll and read it. But one of the twenty-four elders said to me, “Stop weeping! Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has won the victory. He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Then I saw a Lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered, but it was now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the twenty-four elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which represent the sevenfold Spirit of God that is sent out into every part of the earth. He stepped forward and took the scroll from the right hand of the one sitting on the throne. And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they held gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. 

And they sang a new song with these words: “You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have caused them to become a kingdom of priests for our God. And they will reign on the earth.”

Then I looked again, and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and of the living beings and the elders. And they sang in a mighty chorus: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered—to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.”

And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang: “Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.”

And the four living beings said, “Amen!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb.

—Revelation 5:1–14 (NLT)

Standing above and against all imperial pretenders ancient or modern is Jesus, not Caesar, who reigns as king. Yet, the Lion of Judah reigns not through the power of domination and might but as the humiliated lamb who was slain and whose sacrificial blood would prove more powerful than mighty pharaoh in all of his destructive, imperial grandeur. The messiah reigns with bloody robes and a crown of thorns. Residing, therefore, at the very heart of the Christian story is the complete redefinition and total rejection of power as typically practiced. Instead, true power is found on the cross, in Christ’s willingness and ability to take upon and absorb within himself all of the cruelty, humiliation, and death-dealing violence that empire has to offer. True kingship consists in self-sacrificial love. To reign with Christ is to follow his lead and carry our own cross in loving, sacrificial service to a world crying out for redemption and deliverance. Even if things look bleak, we act in hopeful anticipation of the coming resurrection.

As with the disciples on Good Friday, the situation in Palestine looks hopeless. It is not.

Let us pray the following prayer of Walter Rauschenbusch:

God, the great Redeemer of humankind, our hearts are tender in the thought of you, for in all the affliction of our race you have been afflicted, and in the sufferings of your people it was your body that was crucified. You have been wounded by our transgressions and bruised by our iniquities, and all our sins are laid at last on you. Amid the groaning of creation we behold your spirit in travail until the children of God shall be born in freedom and holiness. We pray, O Lord, for the graces of a pure and holy life that we may no longer add to the dark weight of the world’s sin that is laid upon you, but may share with you in your redemptive work. 

As we have thirsted with evil passions to the destruction of women and men, do fill us now with hunger and thirst for justice that we may bear glad tidings to the poor and set at liberty all who are in the prison-house of want and sin. Lay your spirit upon us and inspire us with a passion of Christ-like love that we may join our lives to the weak and oppressed and may strengthen their cause by bearing their sorrows. And if the evil that is threatened turns to smite us and if we must learn the dark malignity of sinful power, comfort us by the thought that thus we are bearing in our body the marks of Jesus, and that only those who share in his free sacrifice shall feel the plenitude of your life. Help us in practice to carry forward the eternal cross of Christ, counting it joy if we, too, are sown as grains of wheat in the furrows of the world, for only by the agony of the righteous comes redemption. 

—Walter Rauschenbusch (1910)

*adapted from Jesse Steven Wheeler, Serving a Crucified King: Meditations on Faith, Politics, and the Unyielding Pursuit of God’s Reign (Eugene: Resource Publications, 2021)