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Crescent Hill Baptist Church

Louisville, Kentucky

All Saints Day / Pentecost 25

November 2, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism

TRUE HOLINESS

Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10, 22; 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Matthew 23:1-12

It seems dream-like this vision of heaven’s future given to John by the angel. It was said of the great
Scottish poet, Robert Burns, that he could not read this passage without tears coming to his eyes; and we
can see why.

John looked and saw a vision of heaven’s final victory over sin and death. He saw a great multitude, too
many to number, a multitude too large for the human mind to count.

And the multitude is diverse. From every nation, race, tribe, class and tongue. It is so beautiful to hear
Karen and English languages together when we raise our voices in song or prayer. It’s just a small taste of
what heaven will be like.

Those who make up this diverse multitude are wearing robes - clean, fresh, white robes. And they are
standing before the Lamb, the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world, Jesus the Christ, and they are
waving palm branches and singing:

Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb.

And their song is answered by the song of heaven’s perpetual choir singing:

Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God
for ever and ever! Amen!

It’s even more beautiful than Handel, one of the white-robed multitude, could ever have imagined.

This heavenly choir is singing a song of joy and pure delight in the presence of God and the Lamb. Having
come through life’s great tribulations, beat up by life’s demands, they have strived to live gospel lives of
justice and peace in a world of greed and violence.

The voice of heaven says, “These are they who have washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb.”

“Washed in the blood of the Lamb.” That language may embarrass some of us. But we should be cautious
about relinquishing the rich language of biblical metaphor. The Blood of the Lamb is our human poetry
pointing to the self-emptying love of God acted out on the cross. It points us to the truth of grace: what we
cannot do for ourselves, God has done for us. We cannot wash away the stain of our sin, nor can we rid
the world of its sin, but Christ is the Lamb who taketh away the sins of the world. It is the truest form of
holiness the world has ever known.

Our Gospel lesson this week from Matthew records Jesus’ rebuke of the scribes and pharisees for a false
holiness. A piety that sits in the seats of honor and longs to be shown respect in public places and to be
called by their titles rather than their names. They say the right things. They teach the right doctrine, but

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they do not practice what they teach. They make religion a heavy burden to bear, constructing a list of
do’s and don’ts. Any helpful deeds they do, they do only to be seen by others.

But Jesus calls us to a life of secret servanthood, rooted in a holiness only God can give, a holiness
grounded in a relationship with Christ, where God’s Spirit does the work of transformation within us, a
transformation that will not be complete until the day we gather around the throne of God and the Lamb,
wearing a white robe washed clean by the grace of God.

Saint Bernard explains how Jesus brought true holiness to him. He says: “[Jesus] is life and power, and as
soon as he enters in, he awakens my slumbering soul; he stirs and soothes and pierces my heart, for before
it was hard as stone, and diseased. So he began to pluck out and destroy, to build up and to plant, to water
dry places and illuminate dark ones; to open what was closed and to warm what was cold; to make the
crooked straight and the rough places smooth, so that my soul may bless the Lord, and all that is within me
may praise his holy name.”

Whatever the cost, isn’t this the goal that all of us who bear Christ’s name share? And who can live in
today’s world and not experience the hardening of heart of which Bernard speaks? We don’t want it to
happen. But it does. Our hearts become infected by the violence, lust, greed, dishonesty, and materialism
that rear their ugly heads daily. [1]

Flannery O’Connor wrote a short story inspired by this text from Revelation. The main character, Mrs.
Turpin, is someone who occupied herself at night by naming the classes of people. At the bottom of the
heap were most colored people, then next to them were the white-trash, then above them were the
home-owners, and above them the home-and-land owners, to which she and her husband belonged.

Mrs. Turpin goes into a doctor’s office and finds herself thrust into the company of people she despises.
Mrs. Turpin considered herself a good, respectable Christian woman and she silently thanks Jesus that he
didn’t make her like the other people in the room, described in her words as “white trash,” “lunatic,”
“ugly.” Her silent prayers were silent, but her attitude came through clearly in her conversation.

Suddenly, the young woman across the room Mrs. Turpin had silently called ugly attacked her and called
her a “wart-hog from hell.” Mrs. Turpin felt the words driven into her heart; they tore into her as a
conviction of the Spirit. She went home, out into her backyard, and as she gazed into the pig-pen she saw
a vision. From the ground a brilliant swinging fiery bridge was raised from earth to heaven and along that
bridge “a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven.” O’Connor describes the transforming vision:

There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of blacks . .
. in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And
bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who,
like herself . . . had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned
forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable
as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were
on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned
away. [2]

Mrs. Turpin had been given a vision as had John on the Isle of Patmos. As have we. And the vision is of a
multitude of people from every nation, race, tribe, class and tongue, people battered and bruised by life’s
tribulation, people guilty of evil and self-righteousness, yet all of them, including the twenty-five we have
remembered today, wearing robes washed white in the Blood of the Lamb, smelling clean with the rays of
eternal sunshine, singing and shouting, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

And if we look closely we see among them our own “shocked and altered faces,” for we, too, have been
invited to the heavenly banquet feast. Where we can worship God day and night with all the saints of all
the ages. Tears of grief and sorrow wiped away. Drinking from the springs of living water that never shall

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run dry. Springs fed from the river of life that flow from the throne of God and the Lamb. Sheltered by the
Shepherd who made us and died for us, risen so that we might have life in his name. And if that’s not good
news to you, you haven’t heard the good news.

True holiness is the holiness that only Christ can bring, where even your virtues are burned away, and you
are robed in white, dressed in the righteousness of God.

Did you know, did you know there’s a white robe ready for you, made just for you? Christ is holding it for
you even now. What do you say? Come on. Put it on.
______________________________________

1. Linus Mundy, A Retreat with Benedict and Bernard: Seeking God Alone - Together, St. Anthony
Messenger Press, 1998, 29-30
2. Flannery O’Connor, The Complete Stories, 1971, 509

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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH

2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425

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