Sermon — Revelation is Good News

(I preached this sermon on Sunday, July 27, 2025 at Christ Lutheran Church. It is based on Revelation 1:4–8).

In 1963, Dr. King wrote a letter-not from an office, but from a jail cell in Birmingham.
He had been arrested for confronting injustice.
His letter wasn’t angry-but it was urgent.
He opened it with “My dear fellow clergymen…”
He was writing to the Church-to wake it up, to call it to courage, to remind it who it’s supposed to be.
Graceful, but not soft. Truthful. Healing. Prophetic.

A century earlier, another letter of sorts was issued.
The Emancipation Proclamation-spoken in the middle of a war.
Lincoln didn’t wait for peace to declare freedom.
He spoke it into the war, as a word of hope and transformation.
“All persons held as slaves… shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”
It didn’t end the war. But it redefined its meaning.

That’s what John is doing in Revelation.
He writes from exile on the island of Patmos, from the edges of empire.
Not from power, but from pressure.
And still-his very first words are: “Grace to you, and peace.”
A greeting. A healing word. A declaration of freedom from the heart of oppression.
This is Revelation not as a codebook or end-times map, but as a pastoral letter to the wounded.