Some Sundays back in seminary, I would slip into

the back pew of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church.

Oakhurst was and is a powerful presence in its Atlanta

neighborhood. For generations now, a multiracial

congregation with deep roots—a hundred years in that

place—and a broad reach across metro Atlanta. If I’m

honest, I mostly went because there was a pastoral

intern there named Sara Hayden, and I was eager for

any excuse to see her. But once in the pews, the witness

and worship of that community captivated me.

The pastor’s name was Nibs. Nibs had been at Oakhurst

for decades, and Nibs had John the Baptist vibes. He

was a voice crying in the wilderness. Nibs baptized a lot

of babies in that church in the decades of his ministry,

and I was blessed to witness several of those baptisms.

And every time he did it, he performed a sort of holy

subversion right there in the sanctuary. After the water

and the words, he would lift the child—carefully, the

way you hold something precious—and then he would

start to walk. Slowly. Up that sanctuary’s center aisle,

toward the oak doors, at the back of the room, and then

he would turn and walk back toward the font. And as he

walked, Nibs would talk. The congregation would listen

in, but Nibs wasn’t speaking to us. He was looking right

into the eyes of that infant he had baptized, and here is

what he would say.

“Little one, this world is going to hand you a script.”

And he’d keep walking, his shoes echoing on that

aged hardwood.

“And here’s what that script is going to tell you. It’s going

to tell you who you are. It’s going to tell you what your

life is for. That script will tell you to dominate. It will tell

you to fight. It will tell you to win. Tell you to look out for

yourself and step on whoever you need to step on. The

world’s script will say your worth is what you produce,

your safety is what you defend, your identity is what you

can take.”

After a pause, he’d continue. “But today, little one, we

tell you something different, something older, something

truer. Today we mark you with a name this world did not

give you and cannot take from you. Child of God. You

belong to Jesus. And nothing in this world can separate

you from his love.”

I never once made it through that walk with dry eyes. It

wasn’t just the beauty of the baby; it was the weight of

the words. He was putting the world on notice. He was

reclaiming a stolen identity before the other voices had

a chance to start their screaming.

Friends, those voices are screaming now. It is a time

of monsters.

John of Patmos heard them. In John’s vision, the voices

of this world don’t just whisper polite suggestions

about how we ought to live to get by in the world.

They roar in Revelation. Those monsters have teeth.

Revelation is a book of monsters. There are dragons

with seven heads. Beasts of the sea with ten horns and

names that sound like curses.

To the Christians huddled in the back alleys of the

Roman Empire, these were not scary stories to tell at

night; they were the evening news every night. The

dragon was the magistrate demanding you bow to

Caesar. The beast was an economy that crushed you if

you didn’t have the right mark on your hand.

They still scream, these voices, don’t they? They speak

into the quiet places of our pragmatism, urging an

acquiescence to the cold reality of a pre-loaded script

that the world is governed by force, that the world runs

on power. And that’s just the way it works.

But in Revelation, this is the Liturgy of the Dragon. It

says power is the only real thing. Strength is the only

real way. You must bow or be broken.

I call it a liturgy because that’s what it is. It’s a kind

of catechesis—it’s a spiritual training, a formation, a

script. It happens slowly, over the years, as we are

taught to equate faithfulness with dominance, or to

hear political slogans as moral guidance, or to see

beloved neighbors as outside threats. The heart can

turn to stone so gradually in our lives that we don’t

even notice the change.

And that’s why we need to be here. That’s why we

need to worship. That’s why we need a different script

and a new vision. It’s why we gather at the font to tell a

truer story.

John names something we must hear. John sees a

multitude standing before the throne. He names them.

They are people from every nation. They are people

who speak every language. Their common thread is

that they have come through the Great Ordeal together.

The Greek word here is thlipsis. Its most common usage

is to describe what happens to grapes when you make

wine. Pressure. This is not regrettable inconvenience

or mild annoyance. Just ask the grape. What John

describes is a crushing pressure. The kind that breaks

families apart. The kind that makes people afraid to

leave their homes. The kind that turns neighborhoods

into occupied territory.

John will not let us look away from the Great Ordeal,

from the thlipsis, the pressure. He instructs us to look all

the way through it—to those who have come out on the

other side, who are standing there along with the one

who led them through it.

Earlier this week, I was on a call with pastors from all

over the country, organized by a friend of mine, a former

Lake Fellow here, Sarah Brouwer, who now serves a

church in Minneapolis. They are not debating headlines.

They are talking of neighbors. People they see in

grocery stores. Families whose kids go to school with

their kids. This is what thlipsis looks like up close. It has

a face. It has a name. The dragon wants us to forget this

truth—to see categories and not neighbors with faces

and souls.

The dragon asks us to accept a script of overwhelming

force, and we must not.

It is Jesus who shows us the way. It was Jesus who took

the script he’d been handed and turned it upside down.

Jesus who said, “You have heard it said... but I say to

you…” You have heard an eye for an eye and a tooth for

a tooth, but I say to you turn the other cheek. You have

heard it said you should love your neighbor and hate your

enemy, but I say love your enemy and pray for those who

persecute you.

This isn’t weakness. It is refusal to let his enemies

dictate the terms of his life. The dragon says: you must

match fury with fury, or you lose. Jesus says: when you

match fury with fury, you have already lost.

I remind you, Jesus never promised it would be easy,

this being formed in a way the world can’t quite get. And

that is why we return to the water. In times of cruelty

and the Great Ordeal, the Church has always come back

to the truth spoken at our baptism. We return not for

comfort, but for clarity.

Because in baptism, we see what John saw. We declare

that the “iron laws” of the world are merely a façade, that

in this book of monsters, there is another creature. He

keeps showing up in the most surprising places and the

most unusual times. This Lamb. The kind of animal that

ends up on a dinner plate, not a throne. And yet, in John’s

vision, here he is, right at the center of the universe.

To anyone who has paid attention to how power actually

works, it’s a joke. You need a lion on that throne, a god

who will crush our enemies, match fire with fire, win

the way the world wins. But John has seen something

the Roman Empire cannot fathom. He has seen that the

Lamb was slaughtered—and yet, there he is, standing.

On the throne. At the center.

John knows that the Lamb’s gentleness is not to be

overcome. It is the victory itself. He conquers not by

becoming a dragon, but by remaining a Lamb. This holy

stubbornness—this refusal to let the world’s cruelty

change the shape of his heart. John knows that you

don’t defeat the beast by out-beasting it. You defeat it by

absorbing the worst and still standing.

John looks out and sees a multitude that no one could

count. Every nation, every tribe, every people, every

language. Standing together before the throne. He

knows that Rome built its peace by forced sameness—

you must submit or disappear. But in the Kingdom of

the Lamb, the things the world used to divide us are

revealed as God’s own source of joy. In the kingdom, our

languages are not erased; they are understood.

Now, there is a voice—maybe you’ve heard it—that says

the Lamb is no answer for the threats we face. Not now.

Now we need a lion. Mercy is a luxury we cannot afford.

It’s time to fight fire with fire.

And that voice can sound like wisdom in a time of

monsters. That voice can sound like survival when the

pressure is crushing. The thlipsis is upon us. But it is

the dragon’s voice. And it is using your fear against

you. Friends, you must not become what God demands

you resist.

John offers this warning: The scariest beast in

Revelation is not the dragon. It is the one in Chapter 13

with two horns that looks like a lamb. It appears as a

lamb but has the voice of a dragon. And that’s the real

terror. Not the one you see coming, but the one wearing

the face of what you love.

You see, the Dragon is not just “out there.” Sometimes

it is “in here,” deep in our hearts. Sometimes it speaks

through us, using our symbols and scriptures to justify

its hunger. This is why Christ must always be greater

than our Christianity.

Friends, listen for the dehumanization. That’s always the

tell. When someone calls a child of God demonic or a

parasite or vermin—while claiming to speak for Jesus—

that is the Dragon’s speech in lamb’s clothing.

Friends, we have another liturgy. We have this font. We

have a counter-catechesis. It begins with renunciation.

We renounce the iron laws of force. We renounce the

lie that our safety requires our neighbor’s suffering. We

renounce the speech of the dragon, even when it comes

from a pulpit. We renounce any faith that values winning

over witnessing.

For we have one Lord. One. Not power and Christ. Not

empire and Christ. The Lamb alone.

Listen. The world has handed you a script. It tries to

train your heart for warfare and your mind for suspicion.

It tries to convince you that only the destroyers are

saved from destruction. But you have been washed in

the water of a deeper truth. You are marked with a name

no leader can grant and no authority can revoke.

You do not belong to the dragon, to the lie, to the

screaming voices of cruelty and chaos that claim to

hold your soul. You do not belong to the fear. You do not

belong to the hatred. You do not belong to the violence

and its false promise of security.

You belong to God.

The iron laws will break. The dragons will all fall. The

Lamb will be standing still. The Lamb is our Lord. The

Lord is our shepherd. Amen.