Washed in the Blood of the Lamb

Preached at Blue Ocean Faith Columbus on August 3, 2025

A sermon on Revelation 7:9-17 NRSVUE.

Note - Remember, the video and the text may differ a bit. I rarely stick 100% to my written material when I preach.

Last Sunday we celebrated together the wedding at Cana when Jesus disrupted the order of oppression which saved and continues to save the best wine for the privileged and give the cheap wine to the marginalized; which intoxicates people on the good stuff until they can’t see how they’re being stripped of their rights and their integrity until it’s too late. Jesus steps into that dynamic and says, “No more!” Jesus doesn’t just provide something equivalent to what the wealthy and powerful have, he gives something that is infinitely greater.

And remember that the miracle came via jars used for purification. Today I want us to dig deeper into the miracle and I want us to see tonight’s Scripture as a continuation of what we read last week, because, friends, what happened at that wedding feast was just the beginning of something much bigger than anyone could have imagined.

The Blood of Justice and Forgiveness

But now we come to Revelation 7, and suddenly we’re not talking about water or wine anymore. We’re talking about blood. The blood of the Lamb. And some of you might be thinking, “This is getting heavy. Where’s the good news in all this blood?”

Here’s the thing, friends: Justice work is messy. Fighting for liberation is costly. Standing up for the marginalized, advocating for the oppressed, challenging systems of injustice, it leaves stains.

Those robes in Revelation? They didn’t start out white. John tells us they were washed in blood, the blood of the Lamb, but also, if we’re being honest, the blood of struggle. These are the people who “came out of the great ordeal.”

The great ordeal. Not a little inconvenience. Not a minor setback. The great ordeal.

You want to know about great ordeals? Ask our immigrant siblings about family separation, about living in the shadows, about being told they don’t belong in the land their labor built. Ask our LGBTQIA+ family about conversion therapy, about being rejected by their churches, about fighting for the right to exist authentically. Ask our sisters about having their reproductive choices controlled by male politicians who will never face the consequences of those decisions.

These are great ordeals!

And in those ordeals, we make mistakes. Oh, church, do we make mistakes!

Sometimes we get so angry at injustice that we forget to love our enemies. Sometimes we get so focused on the destination that we hurt people along the journey. Sometimes we forget that we aren’t called to be saviors on our own and that liberation is collective work. Sometimes we get so righteous in our cause that we forget that we need grace too.

Turn to someone and say, “We make mistakes.”

In fact, our Scripture tonight has been preached by other pastors and at other times with a major and racist mistake. Rather than presented as the multitude washing their robes, their garments in the blood of the Lamb, it’s been said that they washed themselves and made themselves white. That black and brown bodies would be saved and made white before God’s throne. We recognize the racist lies and the patently false nature of that claim, yet it is a mistake that continues to be made and continues to infect the theology and worship particularly of white Evangelicals. As a white pastor and white person, I have to name that mistake even though it is not my own. Hopefully, the mistakes we’ve made and the mistakes we will make aren’t as egregious as this error, but we still need to look at our mistakes and the mistakes, intentional and unintended, we will make in our pursuit of justice. Amen?

When Jesus Shows Up in Our Mistakes

But here’s the beautiful, radical, life-changing truth that John is showing us in Revelation: Even when we mess up in our pursuit of justice—especially when we mess up—that’s when Jesus shows up with forgiveness and peace.

Look at that multitude in Revelation again. “From every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.” This isn’t a congregation of perfect saints who never made a mistake in their activism. This is a crowd of ordinary people who got their hands dirty fighting for God’s Kin-dom, who probably said the wrong thing sometimes, who probably hurt feelings while trying to heal the world, who probably wondered if they were doing more harm than good.

But they washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. And friends, that’s not just about personal salvation. That’s about the cleansing power of grace to wash away the stains of our imperfect justice work and send us back out to try again.

The blood of the Lamb doesn’t just save us FROM something; it saves us FOR something!

Let me say that again: The blood of the Lamb doesn’t just save us FROM something; it saves us FOR something!

It saves us for the work of justice. It saves us for the work of liberation. It saves us for the work of love. Even when we mess it up. Especially when we mess it up.

The Great Multitude: God’s Vision of Inclusion

And can we talk about this multitude for a minute? “From every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.” In John’s time, this was radical. In our time, this is still radical.

This is God’s vision of the Kin-dom, and it looks nothing like the exclusive country clubs masquerading as churches that try to tell our siblings they’re not welcome. It looks nothing like the immigration policies put forth by supposed Christians that separate families and demonize the stranger. It looks nothing like the laws that try to erase Trans people or deny women autonomy over their own bodies.

God’s Kin-dom is radically inclusive!

And notice they’re not all the same. John doesn’t say they all became one tribe, one people, one language. No! They kept their diversity, their uniqueness, their beautiful differences, and they all stood together before the throne.

This is what liberation looks like, church! Not assimilation. Not erasure. Not conformity. But celebration of the magnificent diversity of God's creation!

Every nation! Every tribe! Every people! Every language!

Every sexual orientation! Every gender identity! Every immigration status! Every economic class! All of us, together, palm branches in our hands, celebrating the God who calls us beloved exactly as we are!

No More Hunger, No More Thirst

But it gets even better. Listen to this promise in verses 16 and 17: “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the living water.”

No more hunger. Tell that to the families who can’t afford groceries because wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living and tariffs threaten to raise grocery costs. Tell that to the children who depend on school meal programs to eat. No more hunger; that’s economic justice and food justice!

No more thirst. Tell that to the communities where clean water is a luxury, where environmental racism has poisoned the wells and reservoirs. Tell that to communities whose civil infrastructure can no longer sustain healthy cycles of life. No more thirst; that’s environmental justice!

The sun will not strike them. Tell that to the farmworkers laboring in deadly heat, tell that to migrants who accept the jobs and the pay other people won’t, tell that to the homeless population with nowhere to find shade. No scorching heat; that’s dignity for every human being!

This is the Kin-dom we’re working towards!

And notice how it happens: “The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the living water.”

Springs of living water. Just like Jesus promised the woman at the well. Just like the water that became wine at Cana. Just like the cleansing blood that washes away the stains of our imperfect justice work.

God Will Wipe Away Every Tear

But here’s the promise that should break us open: “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Friends, God knows we’ve been crying. God knows about the tears of rage when another Transgender person is murdered. God knows about the tears of frustration when another family is separated at the border or during an ICE raid. God knows about the tears of exhaustion when we wonder if all our activism is making any difference at all.

Turn to someone and say: God sees every tear.

God sees the tears of the mother who can’t afford her child’s medication. God sees the tears of the teenager kicked out of their home for being Queer. God sees the tears of the woman denied reproductive healthcare even though her life is in danger. God sees the tears of the immigrant family living in fear.

God’s promise is not “Stop crying.” God’s promise is not “Pull yourself together.” God’s promise isn’t even, “You’ll never cry again.” God’s promise is “I will wipe away every tear from your eyes.”

Every. Single. Tear.

That’s personal care from the God of the universe. That’s the Divine showing up not just to fix the systems, but to tend to the individuals wounded by those systems.

The Call to Keep Going

So, what does this mean for us, church? What does this mean for us as we leave here today and go back out into a world that often seems more interested in building walls than breaking them down?

It means we keep doing the work. Even when we make mistakes. Even when we hurt the people we’re trying to help. Even when we say the wrong thing, take the wrong approach, or let our anger get the better of our love.

We keep doing the work!

Because every time we stand up for someone who’s being bullied because of their identity, we’re washing our robes in the blood of the Lamb.

Every time we advocate for living wages, for affordable healthcare, for comprehensive immigration reform, we’re part of that great multitude standing before the throne.

Every time we mess up, ask for forgiveness, and try to do better the next time, we’re participating in the radical grace that turns water into wine, that transforms ritual exclusion into extravagant celebration.

We are the multitude! We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for!

We are the ones from every nation, every tribe, every people, every language, every gender, every sexual orientation. We are the ones who’ve come through great ordeals. We are the ones whose robes bear the stains of injustice and the cleansing of divine grace.

From Water to Wine to Blood to Living Water

Friends, the journey from the water jars at Cana to the wine that’s better than anything the world could offer to the blood of the Lamb in Revelation is the journey of every person who’s ever tried to make this world more just, more loving, more like the Kin-dom of God.

We start with water, with the old ways of deciding who’s clean and who’s not, who’s acceptable and who’s not. But Jesus takes that water and transforms it into wine, into celebration, into abundance, into radical inclusion.

Then we discover that this transformation comes at a cost. The wine of liberation requires the blood of struggle. Justice work leaves marks, physical and invisible. Fighting oppression is messy business.

But here’s the miracle: When we wash our stained robes in the blood of the Lamb, they come out whiter than snow. When we bring our imperfect activism, our flawed justice work, our stumbling attempts at liberation to the foot of the cross, Jesus doesn’t say, “You messed up, try harder next time.”

Jesus says, “Come to the springs of living water. Let me guide you. Let me wipe away your tears. Let me send you back out with forgiveness in your heart and peace in your soul.”

That’s the good news for every person who’s ever wondered if their advocacy was good enough, if their activism was pure enough, if their justice work was perfect enough.

It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be faithful. It just has to be love trying its best to show up in a broken world.

The Vision That Sustains Us

And when the work gets hard, and it does get hard, when the systems seem too big to change, when the powers and principalities seem too entrenched to challenge, when we feel like David facing Goliath with nothing but a slingshot, that’s when we remember John’s vision.

That’s when we remember the multitude so large no one could count them. That’s when we remember that we’re not alone in this work. We’re part of a movement that stretches across time and space, across cultures and languages, across every barrier that human beings have ever erected to keep each other apart.

We are part of something bigger!

We are part of the Kin-dom of God breaking into this world one act of justice at a time, one moment of grace at a time, one transformed heart at a time.

And someday we’re going to see the fullness of what God has been building through our imperfect efforts. Someday we’re going to stand in that great multitude, palm branches in our hands, and we’re going to realize that every stumbling step we took toward justice was part of God’s perfect plan.

Every tear will be wiped away!

Every separation will be healed! Every injustice will be made right! Every person who was told they didn’t belong will find their place in the great celebration! Amen?

The Invitation

Friends, Jesus is still in the business of turning water into wine. The Divine is still transforming our mistakes at advocating for justice into something beautiful, something powerful, something life-giving.

So, bring your water jars. Bring your ritual washing. Bring your careful attempts to make yourself acceptable to God and neighbor. And watch Jesus transform them into the best wine, into celebration, into radical welcome for every person created in the image of God.

Bring your stained robes. Bring your imperfect activism. Bring your flawed attempts at liberation work. And let the blood of the Lamb wash them clean, not so you can stop doing the work, but so you can do it with grace, with forgiveness, with peace in your heart.

Turn to someone and say: “The invitation is open!”

The invitation is open, my friends! The table is set! The multitude is gathering! And there’s room for everyone, particularly the ones the world and the empires of this world say don’t belong.

From every nation! From all tribes, peoples, and languages! From every sexual orientation and gender identity! From every economic class and immigration status! All of us, together, washed in grace, sustained by love, commissioned for justice!

This is our destiny! This is the Kin-dom of God breaking into the world through our imperfect, beautiful, grace-filled lives!

Let’s go out there and do the work, friends. Let’s make mistakes, ask for forgiveness, and try again. Let’s get our hands dirty and our robes stained and trust that Jesus knows how to wash even the messiest justice work clean.

Let’s remember that every time we stand up for the oppressed, every time we welcome the stranger, every time we advocate for the voiceless, we’re part of that great multitude standing before the throne, crying out with a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Water into wine into blood into living water. From ritual exclusion to radical celebration to costly discipleship to eternal joy.

That’s our story. That’s the gospel we carry into the world! Thanks be to God!

Amen and amen!