The Harsh and Wonderful Reality
Revelation 3:14-22 14 "And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: 'The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. 15 "'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21 The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'"
I am one of those people who always expects the worst. But at the same time, I act outwardly like I am invincible. And I HATE going to the doctor.
Some of us take the following approach – it’s probably nothing. Most of the time we are correct. It really is nothing to worry about and our personal assessment is correct. Some of us think, “Oh, it’s just a bit of a sore knee” but it turns out you actually tore your ACL. In this case, it’s nothing to really worry about, but there is something that needs medical attention and our personal assessment was wrong. Some of us, like me, say, “Oh no, it’s probably terminal” and even get so worked up about it we almost pass out in the chair because we are expecting the worst. In this case, there is nothing truly wrong and our assessment of doom is incorrect. Some of us don’t go to the doctor because we don’t want to hear bad news – even though there may be nothing wrong. In the healthy, well-adjusted world, the reason we go to the doctor is because we want an objective assessment of what is really wrong, and we want to know how to fix it.
The problem with most of us is that we often fall into the group where we see our condition as better than it actually is. On top of that, we make it worse by the fact that when we get the diagnosis, and the condition is treatable, we don’t follow the doctor’s instructions. If the news is not good, its hard to take. Perhaps sending us into a confused spiral of hopelessness and depression.
Those serving and leading in Washington have some insight here. This is a town and system set up for you to experience whiplash as you are thrown between the narcissistic, self-congratulatory time before lunch and the overwhelming feelings of impending doom that comes when you open the email after lunch.
This brings us to the church at Laodicea.
The Apostle John, late in his life, was exiled to the island of Patmos off the coast of Greece. He is the only of the disciples who was not executed. In his exile, he wrote a letter designed to encourage Christians who were living under extreme stress in the later part of the first century. Included in his letter is a series of “revelations” for seven key churches of Asia Minor. We know John’s letter as “The Revelation of John.”
Right from the start of the letter Christ is presented as the true and faithful witness. So, if Christ is the true and Faithful witness, then there are probably some things that we, as those who seek to follow him should do in response to what it is that he is witnessing about.
Like the church in Laodicea, we must trust Christ’s assessment of our condition, and his assessment is…you are worse off than you think. Look at the text.
Verse 17 makes clear they have overestimated the good of their condition. “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.”
Many, but not all, folks serving and leading in government are upper middle class. As such, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that we have it all together. Apparently, the church at Laodicea is prospering.
It is hard to understand why the church there is prospering. What is known is that Laodicea was a prospering financial town that thrived on their textile industry, and apparently, a medically advanced community that produced a highly sought-after eye ointment. Regardless, the church at Laodicea was prospering and had a very high view of themselves - at least materially. But their assessment of their condition does not match up at all with Christ’s.
They had also underestimated the bad of their condition. Christ’s assessment is that they are actually, “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” That’s a far cry from being “rich, prospering, and lacking nothing.” Each of the three negative assessments lines up against the three sources of wealth for the community of Laodicea. They are a banking center – but they are poor. They are known for a highly effective eye salve - but they are blind. They live in a community known for their textiles – but they are naked. So Christ says, “you are wretched and pitiful.” Their assessment of themselves could not have been more off base. As far as Christ is concerned they are worse off than the locals.
Christ doesn’t stop there. He also says, "'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. What he is saying is, “You know what you are good for Laodicea? Nothing!” Not exactly a ringing endorsement! For a long time I had no idea how to understand this verse. Was Christ saying that it is just as good to be a “hot Christian” as a “cold Christian?” No.
We need to cooperate with the author. For everything the town was famous for, water was not on the list. There were hot baths nearby, but not in Laodicea. There were cold water wells nearby, but not in Laodicea. So they tried to pipe the good water in, but by the time it got to their town it was tepid, and it also had a knack of making people sick. No one likes a nice tall glass of lukewarm water or a nice lukewarm bath – in both cases the water is useless. And that is Christ’s assessment of the church. An assessment that may fit many of us.
Simply put we struggle with the real and pervasive human tendency to overestimate one’s achievements and capabilities in relation to others. And yes, there is even a technical name for it - confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias and clouding the gospel
Confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and to avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. Those serving and leading in Washington are familiar with confirmation bias. Opinion pages, news shows, and press secretaries are all working to reframe information in a way that reaffirms and strengthens viewpoints that are beneficial to particular ideologies and candidates. Confirmation bias is seen when two people with different ideologies come to compile tell different assessments after looking at the same information.
This is why it is so hard for us to make an accurate assessment of ourselves. We are not objective! We see the facts the way I want to see them – especially if they make our ideological positions look good. This lack of objectivity is a huge obstacle in relationships, and until we are truly ready to see ourselves how Christ sees us – our relationship with Him and the rest of the world will be damaged.
It’s tough to hear that you are completely useless to Christ. Imagine your spouse or a parent telling you that you are useless. For some these words might crush our souls to the point that we spend the rest of our life thinking we are a piece of crap. But there is a deeper concern. What if a devastating assessment of our condition is correct but said in love?
How can we avoid the severe depression that might come from understanding ourselves rightly? The first step is not concluding that the entire weight of fixing the problem is on your shoulders.
If Christ were to leave us in this place we would rightly be depressed, because the assessment is correct and we are unable to make the changes needed. But the grace of Christ is that he does not leave us in this place, and he does not ask us to work our way out of our condition. He offers himself as the solution to the problem.
Instruction for Remedy
Christ’s words to the church in Laodicea is, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.”
Christ has every desire that they are wealthy. The ironic thing is that Christ puts himself forward as the means of wealth. He offers them all that they need – gold, clothing, and salve for their eyes. But, like them, we focus on material goods and social status. In doing so, we settle for far less, and much like the story of the emperor’s new clothes…we should be ashamed of our current state.
How much might all this cost you ask? That is another source of irony. The prices for what Christ offers us are listed in Isaiah 55:1,
"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.”
Well, that sounds easy enough. We’ll come back to that in a minute.
Another important point to be made here is that, like most of the churches that Christ has addressed, he calls the church at Laodicea to repent - to turn from their current method of operation and seeking all of their value outside of Him.
Notice what Christ says to them in verse 19 “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” One thing is sure, this church is being reproved. But they are being corrected because Christ loves them. The love that is talked about is the kind of love that you would have for a dear friend, someone you enjoy and care about. The issue in Laodicea, as it is so often with us, is they are far off track, lacking in objectivity which is about to be their ruin. Despite their troubling situation, they are NOT unloved and are still part of Christ’s body. His message is “I love you, repent, and get what you need from me!”
With the quick-changing of fortunes in Washington, it’s important to place our value and worth in a place that is unchanging. One election can bring us from the doghouse to the clubhouse. The following election can send us right back.
Christ as the center and source
Christ’s message is – I should be the source for everything you hold dear! I am the source of everything that you need! This cuts against us being the center of our own world. Why do we refuse to buy what we need for free from Christ?
Because we want to provide everything that we need. In a world where we provide our own meaning, and we provide all of our own answers, it is nearly impossible to look outside ourselves for answers, instruction or correction. Those of us who look for meaning, or answers outside of ourselves, still want to do so on our own terms. We want to be the person who sits in the seat of authority and proclaims, “I am good.”
We don’t want to have other people’s truth claims, or instructions for our lives, laid upon us (because we want to maintain authority over our own lives). But, here’s the rub, we want to have other people think like us about social issues and lifestyle issues, because we want authority over their lives too – at least just a little bit.
So, Christ saying, “Find your value in me” is about the hardest sell that we can imagine today. But we are hard to convince and stubborn. As a result, we end up exhausted from trying to supply our own meaning and value. What is required to make a claim of being able to give someone else instruction?n Authority.
Christ has been saying all along that He has authority and that he is in a position of authority over his creation. We can see it in his title, the “beginning of God’s creation”. He is the beginning of God’s creation because as we learn from John 1 – he is God, and that gives him the ability not only to assess but to instruct.
Having Jesus as Lord is recognizing his right to cross our lines of self-protection in order to tell us how to live, because he is in charge, and, as the passage says, He loves us.
Finally, one important thing to understand is that Christ does not require us to live in poverty, or that we must wear dowdy clothes. Being rich and being a follower of Christ are not mutually exclusive. The problem comes when you find all of your riches in your earthly pursuits because that has the typical outcome of making us complacent about the thing that we should care most about….which brings me to our final point.
Sharing the gift
The very rescue that we experience in accepting that Christ offers us all that we need, is a rescue that others desperately need as well.
Look at verse 20-22, “20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me. 21 The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.”
The last phrase of this passage is drawing on language for the Song of Songs. A collection of love poems.
Song of Solomon 5:1-5 “I came to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gathered my myrrh with my spice, I ate my honeycomb with my honey, I drank my wine with my milk. Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love! 2 I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound! My beloved is knocking. "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night." 3 I had put off my garment; how could I put it on? I had bathed my feet; how could I soil them? 4 My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me. 5 I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the bolt.”
The Song of Song passage that is alluded to here is about the man standing outside of the door and knocking. He wants to be with her and she passionately desires to be with him. It is about having a desire to be with someone. We are the bride of Christ, and Christ desires to be with his bride. This is not an invitation to have Christ come “into” someone’s life, as many of us probably heard it taught. Rather it is a call to have intimacy and passion for Christ.
The church at Laodicea had lost all their zeal for their husband and that was an issue because it deterred them from their mission to tell people about the one that they were in love with so that they could also enjoy the same relationship.
This is the call to get ourselves out of bed, or our own, self-focused world, and open the door to Christ. Washington offers many distractions that make it difficult to think outside of ourselves and easy to redirect our zeal away from Christ. The frenetic pace of this federal city also has a way of slowly diminishing our love for Christ. The result is we lose focus on the mission that Christ has called us to: to participate in his mission of making all things new.
Here is the thing. Even though the assessment that Jesus gives this church seems harsh. These are just the people that Christ came to save. Luke 4:18-19, also ripped from Isaiah 61.
18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Christ’s assessment does not rule people out, it rules them in.
At the end of reading that passage in Isaiah, Christ said to those in the audience, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” In other words, I am here to testify to this right NOW. Because you should have been testifying to it before I came, and you MUST testify to it after I am gone. The idea of testifying is woven throughout the passage.
Yes, we are delusional! Yes, we are corrupt in so many ways! Yes, we are looking to fill that void in so many ways that will never do the trick! And Christ has put Himself out there as the answer to all of our questions, and to all of our needs, and he gives us the instruction that we need to go beyond our self-centeredness, our quest for autonomy, our depression, and shame.
Christ not only delivers a harsh reality, He is the one who offer a wonderful rescue.