Third Sunday of Easter
May 4, 2025

Love Will Win

Tom Are Jr.
Interim Pastor

Revelation 21:1–5a
Revelation 7:13–17; 11:15

Who are these robed in white?

These are the ones who have been through the great ordeal. These are the ones who have suffered. These are the ones who have endured oppression. These are the ones whom the world refused to see, but now they stand before the throne of God singing hymns of praise, as God has wiped every tear from their eyes.

It is the ultimate hope of this faith that, even when the world forgets you, God never will. Even if the world’s assessment is that you do not matter, God will forever hold on.

The best book I have read in years is Allen Levi’s novel Theo of Golden. There is a holy moment narrated there.

Kendrick is invited to meet with the district attorney of a small town in Georgia called Golden. Kendrick is a single dad of Lamisha, who is in the hospital following an accident. Lamisha will never walk without a limp, because a year earlier someone hit the car that her mother was driving. Her mother, and Kendrick’s wife, was killed. Lamisha was injured.

Kendrick is asked to appear in court, because the man who struck his family is going to trial. The driver was Mateo Manedez. Mateo came to the States from Guatemala without papers and for fourteen years worked as a bricklayer. After fourteen years, he was picked up and deported. He left behind his eight-year-old daughter, who was critically ill. At his first opportunity, Mateo returned to the States. His daughter needed him. Driving all night to escape detection, he fell asleep at the wheel, which is when Lamisha was injured.

Kendrick went to court expecting to see a monster, but instead he saw a little man grief-stricken by the harm he had caused. These two fathers looked at each other, both in tears. Kendrick told the DA he wasn’t a monster. “When I looked at him all I could see is one little man who loves his baby girl looking at another little man who loves his baby girl” (Allen Levi, Theo of Golden, p. 263).

It’s a bit counterintuitive, but it is really hard to see people. To really see them. What is easier, particularly for some, is to see the worst in them and let the worst in them define the whole of them. Kendrick looked past the man in chains and saw a father who would do anything for his daughter.

I’ll come back to that.

The last book of scripture is often bypassed by reasonable Presbyterians, because it’s weird with dragons and other beasts, blood, and gore. Just mention Revelation, and it would not surprise me if you thought, oh, that’s the book that threatens the world is going to end. Get your house in order, because Jesus will come in the dark of night, and you don’t know the hour. We have friends who often stand at the Water Tower waiting to tell passersby the same.

But Revelation deserves a closer look. Revelation is what scholars call apocalyptic literature. It is a particular kind of writing that uses bigger-than-life words to paint larger-than-life pictures to speak truths that are too immense for everyday talk. Yet, if you read it with a careful eye, the message is quite simple: Jesus is Lord. Even when the world appears to contradict this claim, Jesus is still Lord.

Most importantly, Revelation is written to a particular people. Without the right audience in mind, it is easy to miss the message. Revelation is not a threat, but a promise. It is not written to threaten that the world will soon end. Revelation is written to a people who suffer so profoundly that their greatest fear is the world may never end.

It is written to those on the bottom. It is written to those whose humanity is ignored. It is a word of hope for those who are invisible in the world — the oppressed, the impoverished, the brutalized, the frightened. And for these, Revelation stares suffering in the face and responds with singing. It is littered with hymns. In the face of suffering, Revelation offers no explanation, just a hymn of hope: the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever, hallelujah. That’s not Handel; that’s Revelation.

The elder asks John, “Who are these clothed in white? And where have they come from?” And I said, “You are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; these are the ones who have been forgotten. These are the ones who know the full weight of the boot of oppression. These are the ones the world never really sees, but they are gathered at the throne of God to sing their praise. They will hunger no more. And thirst no more. The sun will not strike them. For the Lamb will be their shepherd, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

That’s not a threat. That is God’s promise. And that is almost impossible to believe unless you trust that Jesus is Lord.

I was twenty-seven and took a trip with other church folk to Argentina. It was there that I saw the March of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. Old women. Young women. Walking in silent protest around the plaza. Around their necks hung photos of men. Old men. Young men. Some still children. All abducted by the state and disappeared in what is called Argentina’s dirty war. People accused of criminal offenses just because the state said so. Their lives taken. Their bodies discarded. Just gone. Collectively they were known as the disappeared. Individually they were children of God.

These mothers and wives and girlfriends gathered every week, walked in silent protest to insist that the thousands who were disappeared are loved. They looked into each other’s eyes and, to paraphrase from Theo of Golden, they were just mothers who love their sons looking at mothers who love their sons.

I never believed such evil could happen among us. But it is not unlike the terror the state has inflicted on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to name one, who — according to the Supreme Court — was illegally deported to prison in El Salvador. The administration says it was a mistake, but rather than do everything it can to bring him home, they have chosen McCarthy-like slander, continuing to accuse him of unproven crimes. And then seem to delight in the prospect of El Salvador building more prisons where citizens deemed enemies of the state can be shipped off without due process … disappeared.

It happens when the basic humanity of others is disregarded. Without due process, simple allegation now leads law enforcement officers who are wearing masks to scoop up groups of people to confine or deport.

It is not unlike Mr. Mahdawi, a green card holder, arrested at what he was led to believe was an appointment for citizenship, because of his being bothered that 50,000 Palestinians, most of whom are women and children, have been killed. Being bothered that for three months all aid has been halted at the border. Evidently to have such concerns is deemed antisemitic by some. But it seems to me concern for the innocents is a very Jewish concern.

When the power of the state deems you are suspect because the state does not approve of your identity or your views, our humanness is threatened — and not just the humanness of a few, the humanness of us all. Because it systematizes the practice of not seeing one another.

Of course, this is not the first time, and maybe not even the worst time. It has happened among us before. But every time we fail to see our neighbor as a child of God it is shameful.

I imagine Mr. Abrego Garcia, who is the only name I know of those who have been so shamedly treated, feels that his place in the world has been stolen from him. But what I know of God is that God will hold fast to him, and it should give us pause to mistreat those of whom God has a tight hold.

Because Jesus is Lord, which means we face such brutalities with love. Love is our power.

In Theo of Golden, before Kendrick meets with the DA, he sees his friend Theo. Kendrick tells Theo his quandary: what to say to the DA now that Kendrick has seen Mateo — “I saw a little man who loves his baby girl looking at a little man who loves his baby girl.”

Kendrick says, “I just want to say the right thing tomorrow, so that’s what I was sitting here thinking about. Theo, maybe the Lord put you here to help me figure this out. What do you think I should tell him?”

Theo pondered. Then said, “Just tell him what you think is right, Kendrick. And be as kind as you can.”

Revelation speaks a word to a world that is broken, to a world that has lost its way. And Revelation says do not lose hope. For Jesus is Lord. And his love sees you and sees all.

This is our quandary. There is no circumstance where love is not the response. For us, love is our ultimate power. And love is a power but it is a fragile power. It is a strength, but a vulnerable strength, and it can be hard to trust unless you are confident that Jesus is Lord.

Who are these robed in white?

These are they who have been through the great ordeal. These are ones whose humanity was ignored. And they are singing “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever.” They sang from the bowels of the Roman Colosseum while hungry lions were waiting. They sang “Swing low, sweet chariot” from slave cabins in rural Georgia. They sing from the rubble of the Middle East. They sing from concentration camps in El Salvador.

So sing. And love. Love with a love that is patient. Love with a love that rejoices in the truth. Love with a love that is not arrogant or rude. Love with a love that is kind. Yes, be as kind as you can. For in time, in God’s promised day, love will win, and God will wipe every tear.

For in the end, there is only God, and the love of God will not turn aside and will not let go. That’s why even from the bottom you can hear the singing:

“Finish then thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be. Hallelujah.”

Love is our power, and love will win, because Jesus is Lord.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church