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MINING THE RICHES: A deeper look into Revelation 14:1-3 and worship
n my senior year I learned to love downhill skiing. As I toured a snow-covered college in Iowa, I blurted out a dumb question:“Is there any place to ski around here?” The tour guide’s pretty face turned blank.“No. There are no mountains in Iowa. Everyone goes to Colorado.” She was right about skiing, but wrong about Iowa. Every Sunday I found comfort and joy at a mountain right there in Iowa. God put that mountain there to help me, a poor, sinful college student. St. John saw the same on a Sunday. The Lord revealed to Him what’s really going on in the Divine Service. The pews and altar become part of Mount Zion, where Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, gathers His people to sing the new song. John saw the Lamb of God and the 144,000 baptized into His name together on Mount Zion. Revelation often pictures Jesus as a Lamb. In chapter five John weeps because no one is worthy to open the scroll which contains the end of sin and death. But then the Lion of the tribe of Judah comes before the throne of God as a living, but slain Lamb. Only Christ crucified opens new life. Our Savior always is the sacrificed
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Lamb leads His church. Jesus’ bride is arrayed as an army of 144,000. Numbers in Revelation are pictures (like Jesus’ seven eyes and seven horns in Rev. 5:6). 144,000 depicts the whole Christian Church on earth as a perfect army, 12,000 from each tribe (Rev. 7:4-8). Christ’s church daily battles Satan, the world’s way, and our own sin. The Lamb meets with us at Mount Zion—God meets His people there to have mercy. In the Old Testament God met His people at the Tabernacle (“the tent of meeting”). They could always find God’s mercy there as sacrificed blood covered their sin. Finally, the Ark of the Covenant, the heart of the Tabernacle found a permanent home at the Temple on Mount Zion. The God-Man’s blood spilled for sin just on the outskirts of Zion. Then, at the place of mercy in the presence of the God of mercy, John hears a voice from heaven, like many waters and thunder. In Rev. 1:15 Jesus’ voice sounded like many waters,
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But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel (Hebrews 12:22-24 NKJV).
