Service Sunday June 1, 2025
Pride Sunday; Environment Sunday;
National Indigenous Peoples Month begins
All are Welcome!
Worship Leader: Rev. Max Ward
Music Director: Melissa Stephens
(For a Printer Friendly PDF version click this link)
Watch a video recording of the whole service using YouTube below.
The Gathering
WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS:
FOCUSING ON THE LIGHT OF CHRIST:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF TERRITORY: In Unison
Let us, in this place, remember, acknowledge, and give thanks for Indigenous and Metis Peoples, who have been the stewards of this territory since time immemorial. Especially in this place, we honour and acknowledge the Williams and Robinson Treaties that were made with the Original Peoples. May the work of reconciliation and right relations continue among us.
THE APPROACH
CALL TO WORSHIP:
One: When we gather, we cannot help but find that all of our voices unite as one.
ALL: Strong and brave, our spirits sing in such harmony, for we sing to God gathered round Christ’s love and humanity.
One: So let us lift our voices as we sing…
Written by Jim McKean, while at Severn Shores U.C., Severn, Ont.
Gathering, Easter*Lent 2025, p.44. Used with permission.
HYMN: “All Things Bright and Beautiful” VU #291
1 Each little flower that opens,
each little bird that sings,
God made their glowing colours,
God made their tiny wings. Refrain
Refrain
All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful:
in love, God made them all.
2 The purpleheaded mountains,
the river running by,
the sunset and the morning
that brightens up the sky; Refrain
3 The cold wind in the winter,
the pleasant summer sun,
the ripe fruits in the garden:
God made them every one. Refrain
4 The rocky mountain splendour,
the lone wolf's haunting call,
the great lakes and the prairies,
the forest in the fall; Refrain
5 God gave us eyes to see them,
and lips that we might tell
how great is God our maker,
who has made all things well. Refrain
A NEW CREED: Spoken in Unison
We are not alone; we live in God’s world.
We believe in God: who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the church: to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation, to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.
MINISTRY OF MUSIC:
LEARNING TOGETHER:
HYMN: “Draw the Circle Wide” MV #145
Refrain
Draw the circle wide. Draw it wider still.
Let this be our song, no one stands alone,
standing side by side, draw the circle wide.
1. God the still-point of the circle,
‘round whom all creation turns;
nothing lost, but held forever,
in God’s gracious arms. Refrain
Refrain
Draw the circle wide. Draw it wider still.
Let this be our song, no one stands alone,
standing side by side, draw the circle wide.
2. Let our hearts touch far horizons,
so encompass great and small;
let our loving know no borders,
faithful to God’s call. Refrain
3. Let the dreams we dream be larger,
than we’ve ever dreamed before;
let the dream of Christ be in us,
open every door. Refrain
THE WORD
Scripture: Revelation 22:12-21
Leader: Hear and listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church.
ALL: Thanks be to God.
MESSAGE:
“Revelation Revealed”
Listen to an audio recording of the Message below or read it at the bottom of this page.
OUR RESPONSE
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE and THE LORD’S PRAYER: (sung VU #960)
HYMN: “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” VU #602
1 Blest be the tie that binds
our hearts in Christian love;
the unity of heart and mind
is like to that above.
2 Before our Maker's throne
we pour our ardent prayers;
our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
our comforts and our cares.
3 We share each other's woes,
each other's burdens bear;
and often for each other flows
the sympathizing tear.
4 This glorious hope revives
our courage on the way;
that we shall live in perfect love
in God's eternal day.
AFFIRMING MOMENT:
PRESENTATION OF OUR OFFERINGS
OFFERTORY PRAYER
Through the peaks and valleys of life, you accompany us, O God. We offer these gifts so that stories may be shared of encounters with you on the road of life. Amen
Written by Laura J. Turnbull, Penticton, B.C.
Gathering, Easter*Lent 2025, p.48. Used with permission.
SUNG BLESSING: VU #574 vs 4
4 Come to my heart, O thou wonderful love!
Come and abide, come and abide,
lifting my life till it rises above
envy and falsehood and pride:
seeking to be, seeking to be
lowly and humble, a learner of thee. ©
SENDING FORTH:
A Time of Fellowship
© Music Reproduced with permission under License number A-605748, Valid for: 26/10/2024 - 25/10/2025; One License - Copyright Cleared Music for Churches.
Sermon 2025 06 01
“Revelation Revealed”
Revelation 22:12-21
Gracious God, be with us today in this place, in the Scriptures and in our words.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts praise your Holy name. Amen.
The book of Revelation is probably one of the most misunderstood and misused books in the Bible.
Ironically, it is also one of the most read.
I run into a lot of people who say that they have read it and most of them have read it more than once.
Yet few claim to understand it.
Those who do claim to understand it, often differ on what it means.
One claims it says one thing and they have a long list of verses to back up their interpretation while another, with an equally long list, claims it means something else entirely.
Then there are those who want to decode it so that they can calculate the exact date and time of Jesus’ return.
I won’t be doing that this morning, but I do plan to reveal what revelation is all about.
The book of Revelation is 22 chapters long or 404 verses.
It contains: 7 letters to churches, 4 creatures with 6 wings, 1 lion that is actually a lamb, 24 elders, 7 seals, 144,000 sealed saints, a great multitude dressed in white, 7 trumpets, 3 woes, 4 horsemen, a woman giving birth, a dragon, 2 beasts(one with 7 heads and 10 horns), the number 666, 7 bowls of God’s wrath, 2 witnesses, a tree of life, a new Jerusalem with 12 gates, a new heaven and a new earth.
I hope you all brought plenty of paper to take notes and your lunch because we could be here a while.
Just joking!
I could never cover all of that in one sermon.
I often avoid the book of Revelation because it is a bit of a problem text.
In Marcus Borg’s book, “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time,” he offers an excellent summary and interpretation of Revelation.
With Marcus’s help, what I want to do today is put it all into perspective.
I want to give the big picture, because once you have the big picture the details fall into place much more easily.
There are two common ways of reading Revelation.
One is the Futurist Interpretation and the other is the Past-Historical Interpretation.
The Futurist Interpretation is the one that gets the most attention.
Futurists read Revelation looking for signs of the end times.
There have been many that have already predicted the end of the world but we are still here.
The trouble with this interpretation is that it is focused on the individual being “saved” and the vast majority lost or suffering.
It also is not very socially or environmentally friendly because if the end is near then why waste time trying to fix the social and environmental problems of our world.
This is not the interpretation that I subscribe to, and I discourage others from adopting it as well.
The Past-Historical Interpretation sets Revelation into perspective with the context of the past.
The context of the book of Revelation is the persecutions of the early 2nd century.
Some believe it was written during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domition.
The church was under attack because Christians refused to call Caesar “Lord.”
Many were being martyred as examples to everyone else.
New and grotesque ways were invented to punish these Jesus people.
But some of the old ways were used too.
Ways like crucifixion and imprisonment.
That is where the Book of Revelation begins.
On a hot barren prison island called Patmos where John was imprisoned on account of the Word of God.
John wrote Revelation as a commentary on the horrible current events for Christians and hoped that things would get better very “soon”.
When things didn’t get better soon, the Past-Historical Interpretation causes us to re-examine the divine inspiration of John and even the whole Bible.
You be the judge.
The Book of Revelation begins on a prison Island in the 2nd century, but it doesn’t stay there for long.
After brief but poignant greetings to the churches in Asia Minor, John has a vision where he is taken up to heaven with Jesus.
With a literal cast of thousands, John is shown “what must soon take place.”
The images that follow are bizarre and frightening.
They include angels and demons, beasts and dragons.
That is the content that most disturbs people.
The vast middle section of Revelation that contains all these frightening images is disturbing yet these images seem to fall loosely into two categories: images of judgment and images of vindication.
The first, images of judgment, are truly frightening.
And Revelation pulls out all the stops.
It depicts the world in all its ugliness.
In Revelation the world is a sinful harlot that is drunk with the blood of the martyrs.
The world is an awful beast that tries to devour anything good that is born into the world.
In these images, God’s judgment is poured out upon that evil.
Early in the book, John is shown a vision of the martyred saints of God calling from beneath that altar.
And all these saints are calling to God to bring judgment on the world.
And adjacent to that, the prayers of the saints on earth are brought before God.
I imagine John and others were asking God, “How long will you let this persecution go on?”
The world can be a truly terrible place sometimes.
There are forces in our world that try to stomp out any fires of love or hope that God starts.
How long will God let this keep happening?
So the book of Revelation reassures us that this situation will not go on forever.
There will be a judgment, and God will bring an end to the evil that pervades our world and injures all that is good and righteous.
This is where the images of vindication come in.
God will protect God’s own.
They will be sealed.
They may suffer physically, but they will be vindicated.
They will stand before God in heaven with white robes and branches of victory.
They will have their prayers answered.
The evil that seems to be in charge in this age will be destroyed.
And all will be made new.
God will create a new heaven and a new earth where evil is absent and all is full of God’s glory.
And God will wipe every tear from their eye.
And the full glory of God will dwell with humanity.
This brings us to the final chapter of Revelation.
Consider where we started.
A prison island on Patmos with the Christians being persecuted: a literal Hell on earth.
And look where we have ended up: a vision of heaven on earth!
This is the point that Revelation sums up in the last chapter.
Jesus is coming again to judge this wicked age and vindicate the persecuted church.
And those who stand strong will be rewarded.
They will enter this New Jerusalem and dwell eternally in the pure glory of God.
But the book doesn’t really end in that blessed vision of the future.
It ends in the here and now of that prison island.
The final words are a call to follow Jesus in the present not to merely look toward heavenly glory.
It addresses the reader and says, “Come, let anyone who wishes take of the water of life.”
Revelation can be seen as a book of judgment and a book of vindication.
God is unfortunately painted as a vengeful God ready and willing to smite out the earth and most who live there.
But despite Revelation’s flaws, it is the same old story of how, in the end, Good always wins; God is a God of Justice, Systems of domination will not win.
God is Lord, the kingdoms and cultures of this world are not.
Finally, Revelation attempts to reunite God with humanity, overcoming the exile that began way back in Genesis in the Garden of Eden.
The river of life flows through it and the tree of life is in it.
There we will see God.
It is difficult to imagine a more powerful ending to the Bible.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
