A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
27 July 2025
Series: Revelation: An
Unveiling for Our Times
Revelation 1.4–8; John 8.13–20
Grace to you and peace from the
one who is and who was and who is to come.
We begin this new preaching
series on the Book of Revelation
with the words that begin
John’s own letter
to the seven churches of Asia
Minor.
Words that were meant to be
read aloud in the gathered assembly,
perhaps in a room not so
different from this one: Grace and peace.
It’s a striking place to start.
Because if you asked people on
the street today
to describe the Book of
Revelation in one phrase,
I suspect most wouldn’t say
“grace and peace.”
They might say “end of the
world,” “apocalypse,” “doom,” or “judgment.”
They might recall beasts and
plagues, dragons and destruction.
Some might even remember being told
that Revelation predicted
specific events of our times
—wars in the Middle East,
European political unions,
microchips as the
mark of the beast.
For many, Revelation has been a
text of terror.
But John begins with “grace and
peace.”
This is our first clue that we
have often misread this extraordinary book.
And it is our invitation, at
the start of this new series, to ask:
What if Revelation isn’t
about escaping the world,
but seeing it more
truly?
What if it is not an
instruction manual for the end times,
but a pastoral letter for
difficult times?
What if it is not a code to be cracked, but a vision to be entered?
John’s first hearers lived in
the shadow of empire.
Rome dominated the
Mediterranean world.
Its armies enforced a peace
that came at the price of subjugation.
Its emperors claimed divine honours.
Its temples and markets and
forums and statues
shouted an unending propaganda
campaign:
Rome is
eternal. Caesar is Lord.
And yet John begins with ‘Grace
and peace’?
For the Christians of Asia
Minor—small, marginal communities,
facing local hostility and the
looming threat of imperial persecution
—grace and peace were not
cheap words.
They were not the marketing slogans of empire.
They were subversive.
They were counter-imperial.
They proclaimed another Lord, another kingdom, another reality.
And so, John writes to these
seven churches with the bold greeting:
“Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who
is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from
Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of
the kings of the earth.” (1.4)
Let’s listen carefully to that
greeting.
John does something very
deliberate here:
he repurposes the form of a
letter to speak a prophetic word.
Revelation is not just a
strange vision. It is a letter.
It is written to real
communities
—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum,
Thyatira,
Sardis, Philadelphia,
Laodicea.
Communities with real fears and real hopes.
These are real places: Liz and
I visited them a few years ago.
And John wants the people in
these towns to know: this vision is for you.
It is for your life.
It is for your witness.
It is not an escape from
history.
It is an unveiling of its true
shape.
“Grace and peace” is how Paul
begins his letters too.
But here the source of that
grace and peace is named with radical specificity.
It is not Caesar who gives
peace.
It is not Rome that secures
grace.
In John’s letter, Grace and
Peace come from
“the one who is and who was
and who is to come.”
This is the God who transcends time.
The God who is not caught in
empire’s cycles of violence and revenge.
The God who holds history in
sovereign hands.
It is “the seven spirits before
his throne” (1.4)
—a symbol of the fullness of
the Spirit of God.
And it is “Jesus Christ.”
Now John slows down. He can’t just
mention Jesus in passing.
He has to describe him.
“Jesus Christ, the faithful
witness, the firstborn of the dead,
and the ruler of the kings of
the earth.” (1.5)
This threefold title is the key
to everything.
First: the faithful
witness.
In Greek, the word here is martys,
which is the root of our
word martyr.
Jesus is the one who bore
witness to God’s truth even to the point of death.
He did not compromise.
He did not accommodate to
empire.
He testified to the kingdom of God.
And for that, he was executed
by imperial power.
To confess Jesus as faithful
witness
is to remember that
truth-telling can be dangerous.
It is to acknowledge that the
gospel is not neutral.
It is not simply “good advice”
for living better.
It is good news that challenges
the lies of empire.
Rome proclaimed: Caesar is
Lord.
John proclaims: Jesus is Lord.
Rome promised peace through
victory.
John proclaims peace through
the cross.
Rome demanded loyalty even to
death.
John proclaims Christ who
remained loyal even unto death, for our freedom.
Second: the firstborn of
the dead.
Jesus was killed—but God raised
him.
At the resurrection, Rome’s
ultimate weapon—death itself—was defeated.
For John’s hearers, living in
fear of persecution,
this was no abstract theology.
It was hope.
If Christ has been raised, so
will those who remain faithful.
If Christ lives, then Caesar’s
threats are empty.
Third: the ruler of the
kings of the earth.
This is breathtaking.
This is not saying that Jesus will
be ruler one day.
Nor is it saying that his reign
is in spiritual terms.
But rather, the claim John is
making hers
is that Jesus is now
the ruler of the kings of the earth.
John wants his readers to see
the present
in light of God’s ultimate
reality.
It doesn’t look like
Jesus rules.
It looks like Caesar does.
It looks like violence wins, wealth triumphs, oppression is unchallenged.
But Revelation says: look
again.
Look from heaven’s perspective.
See who really reigns.
See whose kingdom will endure.
John then breaks into doxology,
into thanksgiving:
“To him who loves us and freed
us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his
God and Father…” (1.5-6)
This is the gospel in
miniature.
Jesus loves us.
Jesus frees us.
Jesus makes us into something new.
Not a people waiting passively
for heaven.
Not a people resigned to
empire’s rule.
But a kingdom of priests.
Think about that.
A kingdom—but not like
Rome.
A kingdom not built on
violence, but on love.
A kingdom not ruled by coercion,
but by the Lamb who was slain.
And priests—people who
mediate God’s presence in the world.
People who stand between God
and neighbour,
interceding, serving,
blessing.
John’s vision is not escapist.
It is transformational.
And it is deeply political, in
the best sense.
It unveils the false promises
of empire.
It unmasks the claims of
absolute power.
It calls the church to live as an alternative community
of truth, peace, justice, and
mercy.
John continues:
“Look! He is coming with the
clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account
all the tribes of the earth will wail.” (1.7)
This is a quotation from Daniel
7,
where the Son of Man comes
with the clouds
to receive authority and
dominion.
It is not describing a secret
rapture or a timetable of end-times events.
It is describing the public
vindication of Christ.
The empire tried to silence
him.
But God raised him.
And God will reveal him to all.
So every eye will see.
Even those who opposed him
will know.
This is both promise and
warning.
A promise to the persecuted:
your Lord is coming.
A warning to the powerful:
your reign is temporary.
Finally, God speaks:
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,”
says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (1.8)
Alpha and Omega—the first and
last letters of the Greek alphabet.
God is the beginning and the
end.
History is not a random cycle
of violence.
It is not controlled by the
whims of tyrants.
It has a direction.
It has a goal.
And that goal is God.
Friends, this is the vision
John wants us to see.
Revelation is not meant to
confuse us.
It is meant to unveil
the truth.
It is not written to terrify
us.
It is written to give us hope.
It does not call us to escape
the world.
It calls us to see the world
differently, and to live accordingly.
And so, as we begin this series
together at Bloomsbury,
I want to invite us to let
this vision shape us.
We live in our own age of
empire.
An empire not of legions and Caesars,
but of global capital, of
militarised borders,
of manufactured scarcity, of
relentless consumption, of systemic injustice.
We live in a world that tells
us to accept things as they are.
That worships power and
wealth.
That silences truth-tellers.
Revelation invites us to see
through the propaganda.
To unmask the lies.
To refuse to bow to idols.
To remain faithful witnesses.
But what does this really mean
for us, here and now?
We might think that talk of
“empire” is ancient history
—something about Rome and
Caesar,
a problem for those
first-century churches but not for us.
Yet empire has many faces.
Today it wears the suit of
corporate boardrooms
that value profit over people.
It wraps itself in flags and
anthems that promise security
while building walls to keep
out the desperate.
It speaks through advertising
that convinces us our worth lies in what we own,
what we achieve, how we
appear.
It is embedded in systems that
privilege some while oppressing others,
that extract wealth from the
poor to enrich the powerful,
that destroy the earth for
short-term gain.
We are told this is just “how
the world works.”
We are urged not to question
it.
We are warned that to resist is naïve, idealistic, even dangerous.
But Revelation calls that
bluff.
It says: See it for what it
is.
It is Babylon, drunk on its
own excess.
It is the beast that demands allegiance.
It is the false prophet that
sells us comforting lies.
And Revelation says to us: Come
out of her, my people.
Refuse her mark.
Worship the Lamb not the beast,
worship Christ not the empire.
This is not a call to physical
withdrawal.
We are not told to abandon the
world,
to retreat into gated
communities of the saved.
Rather, we are called to be a
counter-community within the world.
A city on a hill.
A lamp on a stand.
A kingdom of priests.
We are called to bear witness
to another reality:
That love is stronger than
hate.
That peace is not made by violence but by justice.
That the last shall be first
and the least shall be greatest.
That Christ is Lord, and Caesar is not.
Bloomsbury, this is our
vocation.
To read Revelation is to ask
ourselves:
Where do we see empire at
work in our city?
What idols tempt our
loyalty?
How will we choose to
witness to the Lamb who was slain?
This is not easy work.
It will cost us.
But it will also set us free.
Free to live truthfully.
Free to love boldly.
Free to be, even now, citizens
of God’s new creation.
This is why our companion text
from John’s gospel matters today.
In John 8, Jesus says:
“Even if I testify on my own
behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am
going.” (8.14)
He speaks with authority
because he knows his origin and his destiny.
Revelation calls us to root our
own identity in Christ’s.
To know where we come
from: a God of grace and peace.
To know where we are
going: toward the Alpha and Omega.
Bloomsbury, we are called to be
a kingdom of priests.
A community that mediates God’s
grace in London.
A people who tell the truth
about empire.
A congregation that refuses to be co-opted.
A church that welcomes the
outcast, confronts injustice,
proclaims Christ crucified and
risen.
So let us hear John’s greeting
afresh:
Grace to you, Bloomsbury.
Peace to you, beloved
community.
Not from any earthly power.
Not from any political
program.
But from the one who is and who was and who is to come.
From the sevenfold Spirit
before his throne.
And from Jesus Christ: the
faithful witness,
the firstborn of the dead, the
ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him be glory and dominion
forever and ever.
Amen.
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