Good morning. Happy Easter. Christ is risen. We are not together in the way that we want to be, but by God's grace, we can be together in spirit, and so we will worship today in spirit and in truth. So I open with the apostolic greeting. This is something that the apostles say in many of their letters, especially St. Paul in his letters in the New Testament. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. By way of opening, I'd like to read from the New Testament, the book of 1st Peter, and I'm gonna be reading 1st Peter chapter one. Hear God's word, 1st Peter chapter one, and I'm gonna be reading verses three through nine. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. We're celebrating today, as we do each week, in fact, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're celebrating that God has provided a way of salvation and reconciliation to him, so that we do not need to be stuck with our sins. We do not need to be the way we are for all eternity. And we do not need to be condemned by our sins, but we can have forgiveness. We're celebrating today the salvation that Peter says is reserved and ready for us and ready to be revealed from heaven at the last day. And we are celebrating that we've been redeemed. We've been bought. That's really what that means. So that when you buy somebody out of slavery, that's called redemption. We've been redeemed from our sins, not with things like gold and silver that he says are perishable. much less with something like paper money or the U.S. stock market. We have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb, blameless and perfect. So we're worshiping together. And as we worship, as we worship together, I want to pray for some of the needs that we have among us and that we see around us. Let's turn to God in prayer. Heavenly Father, we come to you praising your name. We thank you for your mercy. We thank you for your forgiveness. We thank you for your provision. We thank you for your protection because every one of us here, if we're here watching this together, if we're worshiping together in spirit, although not in person, Lord, we are all enjoying your blessings because you've given us life and life itself is the most precious gift that any of us enjoy in this world. So we thank you, Lord, for continuing to show your mercy on us. We thank you that you gave us breath and we woke up this morning and we're able to do what we're doing today. We thank you for a beautiful day. We thank you for beautiful spring weather and for the flowering trees and for the daffodils that are coming up and so many other good things, Lord. We thank you for your mercy. And so even during a time when things are not as they should be, when the future seems uncertain, when many are sick, and we are prepared for many more to be sick. Yet, Lord, we confess and we praise you for your kindness to us because your mercies are new every morning. We give you thanks especially, along with the whole world today, that Jesus is risen from the dead. We thank you that through him we have the promise of new life after death, that through faith in Christ we do not need to perish forever and ever, but we can have new bodies, we can live forever in a new heavens, a new earth, We can live in a world that is not impermanent and changing and always falling apart and always seeming to need to be rebuilt. We can live forever in a world that is perfect and unchanging, that is more real and more good than anything we have ever experienced. Lord, we come to you also with confession. We have all sinned against you in our thoughts and our words and our actions. None of us can stand before you and pretend to be perfect, and so, Lord, we refuse to pretend. We pray that you would forgive us for our idolatry. Even if we haven't bowed down to statues or pictures, Lord, we have all made gods in our hearts. We have all taken good things. It could be security or pleasure or family or any good thing, and we have made them into ultimate things, and we have given ourselves for them, and we have sometimes lied and cheated and stolen in order to have these good things. Lord, we have turned your creation into substitute gods. We pray for your forgiveness for that. We pray for your forgiveness for our grumbling. All of us have done it, Lord, especially right now when things are tough. We pray that you would please help us to humble ourselves under your hand so that at the right time, you will lift us up. We pray for your forgiveness for our arrogance and presumption, that we dare to stand before you and make demands. Lord, we have no right to do that, but we often do it. We pray for your forgiveness. And Lord, in all of this, we confess and acknowledge that the evil that we see out there in the world is also evil in each one of our hearts, that that which is wrong with us collectively comes back to what is wrong with each one of us individually. And so we pray for your forgiveness, but we also pray, Lord, that you would transform us to make us more like your son, Jesus Christ. And Lord, as we come to you in worship, we also lift up to you our needs and the needs of the world around us. We pray for your mercy on those who are working dangerous jobs, jobs that didn't previously seem to be dangerous in some cases. We pray for those who are working in grocery stores. We pray for delivery people. We pray for people who are working in cleaning and laundry, especially hospital laundry and hospital cleaning. We pray for medical personnel that you would bless them and protect them. And we pray that your angels would preserve them. We pray for our families and our homes There is tension in a lot of our houses. There are cooped up kids. There are couples that are fighting with each other. There's just a feeling of this has gone on too long and we see no end in sight. We pray for your mercy and your grace. We pray for those who are struggling with depression and anxiety in the face of their current circumstances and the uncertainty of the future. We pray that you would show them mercy and lift them up from the deaths that depress them. We pray for the elderly and unwell, that you would protect them. We pray for expecting mothers. We pray for those who are very sick, especially those who are sick with coronavirus. We pray that you would protect them and save their lives. We pray for the bereaved who have already lost loved ones to this disease, that you would care for them, and at the right time, you would wipe away their tears. And we pray, Lord, for those who rule over us, for government leaders and decision makers of all kinds, that you would give them energy, that you would give them good information to use, that you would give them wisdom, and that you would give them truthfulness. And Lord, in all of this, we acknowledge that you are good and your ways are above our ways. And so, Lord, you may make us wait longer than we want to, but we thank you that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we know that your purposes for us are not just pointlessness and one thing after another, but you have good purposes for us. And so we pray that you would work them out. In all of this, Lord, we thank you that we can worship together in a real way, although we're separated, and we pray that we may be together again soon. And we pray that in the meantime, Lord, you would sustain us, that you would give us rest, that you would teach us the things that you want us to learn. And Lord, with that in mind, we open our Bibles and we look at your word and we pray that you would teach us things from your word, maybe that we haven't seen before. We pray for your encouragement. We pray, if need be, for your conviction. We pray that in all things, today and every day, you would be glorified. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. If you turn in your Bibles, if you have a Bible, you can take a look at the book of Exodus. Not an ordinary Easter text. We're going to be looking at Exodus chapter 12, and I'm going to be reading verses 1 through 13 of Exodus chapter 12. Hear God's word. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male, a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lentil of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire. With unleavened bread and bitter herbs, they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roast it, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning. Anything that remains until the morning, you shall burn. In this manner, you shall eat it, with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, And on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you and no plague will befall you or to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Today, as we've already said, and as practically everybody knows, is Easter. And that means that this past week was Passover. And all around the world, but especially in Europe, the Near East, and the Americas, Jews gathered this past Wednesday for what is likely the chief holy day of the Jewish calendar. And in it, they celebrated the redemption of the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, known as Mitzrayim, the narrow place in Hebrew. Remember that God sent his servant Moses to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to say, let my people go, back in the book of Exodus. And several times, Pharaoh almost did let the people of Israel, also known as the Hebrews, go. But in the end, he always refused. So God sent 10 plagues to terrify the people of Egypt. Now, we are in a time of plague. thankfully a mild one, at least so far, so I thought it would make sense for us to walk through what the Bible says about plagues and see what that has to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Remember the 10 plagues of Egypt, and I won't talk about them at great length, I'll just list them for you. First of all, the Nile River is turned into blood. After that come plagues of frogs, lice, flies, the death of livestock, boils, hail that kill many of the crops of Egypt, and locusts, then three days of darkness, and then finally the 10th and the worst plague of all is the death of the firstborn of Egypt. And this is the closest thing among all of those to what we normally think of as a plague, an invisible, fast-spreading, deadly presence that takes lives and there's nothing you can do about it. And it was this last and final plague that took place on the night of Passover that we just read about. And it was this last and final plague that was so complete and dreadful that in order to escape it, the people of Israel had to hide indoors. They had to take a beautiful and healthy lamb and slaughter it and paint its blood on their doorposts so that when the angel of the Lord, the angel of death, saw the blood, he would turn away and not harm those who were within as he passed over, and that's why it's called Passover, as he passed over the land of Egypt. Otherwise, he would strike the firstborn of Israel dead along with the firstborn of Egypt. Now, the Old Testament prepares us for the New Testament. The redemption that we see in Egypt prepares us for the redemption of the world. The redemption of Israel prepares us for the redemption of the world. And when God planned the redemption of the world, he paved the way with the redemption of Israel from slavery in Egypt. And when his son came more than a thousand years later, he preached and did wonders for three years up and down the ancient land of Israel. He only allowed himself to be betrayed and put to death at the time of Passover. It was a very particular time. This was the time of the celebration of that escape from Egypt, of God redeeming his people from a plague, of God redeeming his people by means of a plague. And in languages that make more sense than English generally does, people don't call this holiday that we're celebrating today Easter, they call it Passover, or they use the Greek word for Passover, which is Pascha, because Jesus has become our Passover lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Remember the words of John the Baptist when he first saw Jesus, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, in John chapter one, verse 29. What he is saying, what John the Baptist is saying is that Jesus is the one who will die to shelter us from the plague of God's wrath. Now let's look some more at this idea of plague as a punishment for sin. Now again, in Egypt, The plague that befalls Egypt on that Passover night falls on the Egyptians, and it would also fall on the Israelites, except for the blood of the Lamb. But that's far from the last plague of judgment that we see in the Bible. As we go on, we find the episode of the golden calf, the famous golden calf. In the desert at the foot of Mount Sinai, where Moses was getting the Ten Commandments at that very time, Israel made a golden calf and worshipped it. They became impatient while they waited for Moses to come down from the mountain. And at Moses' command, the Levites, the tribe of Israel that the priests of Israel came from, put to death many of the Israelites in response to that idolatry, that worship of idols. And afterward, God sends a plague on the people as well. Later on in the book of Numbers, which is another early book of the Old Testament, we find the incident, what's called Baal Peor, which means that they're at a place place called Peor, and they start worshiping the local god who is called Baal Peor, or the Lord of Peor. And what happens there is that the Israelites fall into immorality and idolatry with foreign non-Israelite women, with Moabites and Midianite women. And as a punishment from God, plague begins to go through the camp. And in the middle of this plague that's happening, an Israelite man named Zimri brings a Midianite woman into his tent. Open sin, right in front of everybody, he knows exactly what he's doing and he doesn't care. But Israel is then delivered by a spear-wielding priest named Phineas. Later on in the Book of Numbers, we find plague coming as judgment for presumption and for grumbling. Let me unpack that. One of the great themes of the Old Testament Book of Numbers is that not just anyone can go into the presence of God. Even though the nation of Israel was holy and set apart for the worship and the service of God from among all the other nations of the earth. Not all of them could be priests, and only the priests were authorized to make sacrifices and serve in the tent of God. Now, more than once, when the people grumble about this, God responds by sending a plague, and you find this in Numbers chapter eight and chapter 16. Now, this may all seem just like ancient history, and it is, of course, but it means something for us too. It means that we need a priest to take us safely into the presence of God. God is not okay with our presumption. We don't have the right to stand before God on our own two feet. This is a death sentence for people who are less holy than God, and everybody is less holy than God. Human beings, even the best human beings, are sinners. The Book of Romans says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But God has given us a priest. not a mere man with a robe and a collar. The Old Testament priests even had to offer sacrifices to atone for their own sins before they could offer sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people. And what that means is that even in Israel, the priests are not good enough. No mere man is good enough to stand before God as our priest. But God has sent us his son, Jesus, who is both God and man to be our high priest and to be our sacrifice. He is the only one we have and the only one that we need. Now, this goes on. There's also judgment, plague is a judgment for breaking covenant. We get to the book of Deuteronomy and it really frames what happens later on in the Old Testament. Plagues were also among curses for breaking covenant. God made a covenant or a solemn treaty with his people, and he promised them blessings if they obeyed the requirements of his covenant, and promised curses, including plagues, if they disobeyed those requirements. And these curses, including the curse of the plague, come to pass many years later on in the prophecies of Jeremiah, almost 1,000 years after Moses and 500 years before Jesus. And we find these three words, this phrase that comes up over and over again in Jeremiah 14, 21, 32, 34, and so on. Sword, famine, and plague are prophesied against the city of Jerusalem as judgment for their sins. So some themes emerge from the Old Testament. Plague is a judgment for idolatry, and the hallmark symptom of idolatry which is sexual immorality. Plague is judgment for presumption, the sin of thinking we have a right to approach God without a mediator. Remember that the first nine plagues in Egypt simply didn't affect the Hebrews. But the last plague, the Great Plague, would have destroyed both Hebrew and Egyptian if it weren't for the sacrifice of the Lamb. And we should learn from this, by the way, not to presume on our own identities as Christians. It is not the label, Christian, that counts, but the contents. It's whether we are covered by the blood of the Lamb that matters. Plague is judgment, furthermore, for grumbling against God. Boy, that's a hard one to hear, isn't it? Because who among us hasn't grumbled against God? And then we come full circle in Jeremiah, and the plague is, again, a judgment for idolatry. In the book of Jeremiah, the people of Jerusalem and Judea had begun worshiping the gods of other nations again. And the prophets spoke against their idolatry again, and their immorality again, and also against a sin that we find particularly in a well-established and prosperous people, which is mistreatment of the poor. And God responded to these plagues with sword, famine, and plague. Do you know what a comorbidity is? Some of you know what a comorbidity is. It's a disease that accompanies another disease. Like type 2 diabetes often brings nerve damage, or being from New York makes people obnoxious. And I can say that because I'm from New York. In Jeremiah and Ezekiel, we run into the comorbidities of sword, famine, and plague dozens of times. The three go together. So let's just talk about this just for a second. First of all, sword. We have not known a great pandemic in perhaps 100 years, although maybe the 1957 and 1968 flus were as bad as this one. We don't know because this one isn't over, so we can't say. We have not known a great war, one that took many American lives and turned the world upside down in 75 years. Now long may that continue, and far be it from me to predict warfare in the near future. As Amos says, I was no prophet nor a prophet's son, I'm just telling you that they go together. Furthermore, famine. We have not known wide-scale hunger since the 1930s, more than 80 years ago. Even during World War II, we had enough as a nation to eat and to help foreign lands. And we can see from this how merciful and generous God has been with us as a people. May we never know hunger. May we all always have problems of prosperity rather than problems of austerity. but I simply tell you again that they go together. And whether you see these three, sword, famine, and plague together or apart, you are seeing the hand and the purpose of God, and you should pay attention. And of course, they show up in the book of Revelation, which we're gonna be talking about a little bit more, where we see the symbolic four horsemen. We read in Revelation chapter six, verse eight, they were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth." Well, how do we respond to plague? Well, the interesting thing is that we don't always respond well to plague. Other than Exodus, the best place in the Bible to find a plague is definitely in the book of Revelation, which is this very strange book that fascinates some and terrifies others, and most of us are kind of a mix of those two. In the book of Revelation, which is the last book of the New Testament, we find that people do not always treat acts of God as if they were acts of God. So we read in Revelation 9, the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood. which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. We read in Revelation chapter 16, verse nine, they were scorched by the fierce heat and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. And of course, just this past week, We heard Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York say, this is not an act of God we're looking at, it's an act of what society actually does. Now, a charitable reading of what Governor Cuomo says is that he thinks people can affect the spread of COVID-19 by their behavior, and that's true. But understand that whether it's spread by airplane or cruise passenger, biological weapon, chicken, bat, pig, pigeon, pangolin, or choir practice, a plague is always an act of God. That's something we need to reckon with. And when God brings the sickness and death of many and the panic of many more, we need to pay attention. And we need to take this time not to start blaming other people's sins for what's happening, but to examine ourselves and deal with the garbage in our own hearts. Second thing we need to see from the book of Revelation, responding to a plague is the call to come out. Now in the book of Revelation, the whole world is under judgment, but especially this symbolic city called Babylon. And this is a picture of Rome or Jerusalem or New York or DC or Providence, really any place where human power sets itself up in the place of God. And after warning of Babylon's coming fall, a voice from heaven says, Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues, for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Revelation chapter 18. So how are we called to come out of Babylon? Well, sometimes in a very direct way. There could be friendships, families, neighborhoods, churches, or nations so toxic, so bad, that the only way to escape sin is to leave those places, to move out, to leave the state, to change churches, to stop talking to your parents. But there's a different way to come out of Babylon. Remember what Paul says in the book of 1 Corinthians. He says in 1 Corinthians 5, verses 9 and 10, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. In other words, he's saying, come out of Babylon doesn't mean physically leave and get away from any kind of sinful people. It's saying, if there are people who claim to be Christians and continue to walk in open sin, keep your distance, step away from those people, because it is not going to go well for them and it is going to rub off on you. We are not normally called to physically escape Babylon, but we are called to a new citizenship, citizenship in heaven. The act of baptism cuts us off from one community, one city, Babylon, and marks us as citizens of heaven. Think about what Israel passing through the Red Sea or the Jordan River did. It cut them off from their old place, whether that was in Egypt or in the desert, and brought them into a new place. Baptism is a cutting off from one community and bringing you into a new one. And the practice of repentance, which means we consciously acknowledge and confess our sins to God and abandon them, shakes Babylon off of us and prepares us for our new home. This is why it's so important to repent of sin. We do not want to be holding onto Babylon when Babylon is wiped away in judgment. Remember Lot's wife, as Lot and his family fled from Sodom and Gomorrah. When her city was being destroyed, she just had to turn around and look at it one more time, and that meant the end of her. And with all these things in mind, consider again the lamb. Remember that lamb that had to be slaughtered in each Israelite household in Egypt, and its blood painted on their doorposts, so that they would be protected from the plague and the wrath of God. We're dealing with a plague right now, but again, a light and mild one, at least so far. Not light and mild for those who die or their families, but compared to many in the past, we are soaked in God's mercy. The thing to do in a situation like this is to give thanks and give God the glory and to repent of our sin. Remember that the first nine plagues of Egypt were serious, but they were nowhere near as serious as the last. And in the first nine, the bad things simply happened to other people, and the Hebrews were fine. But for the last, they had to prepare. They had to prepare for death. And the only way to be saved from death was through the blood of the Lamb. It is the central teaching of the Christian religion that Jesus died. and came and died so that we could live. And that on the third day he rose because Jesus is the true lamb whose blood saves us. He took on himself the guilt and corruption of our sin. He suffered the punishment that we deserve, even though, as 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, he knew no sin. He was not acquainted with sin by sinning. That's how most of us know sin. He knew sin only from the outside, and yet he bore the penalty for our sin. Peter, in the passage we read earlier, speaks of him being, actually no, in the same passage but later, speaks of being ransomed from the pointless life inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. We have been bought out of our sins, not just our sins, but the sinful things that we inherited from our families and from our communities and from the culture around us. The things that are wrong with each of us, the things that are wrong with all of us, we have been ransomed out of that slavery by the blood of Christ. What happened in a partial and temporary way, although still an amazing, glorious way, in Egypt happens truly, finally, once and for all on Calvary, the hill where Jesus died. The plague of God's judgment falls on the Lamb so that the people of God can be saved. Now, how do we live in light of that? Are we then off the hook and free to live for ourselves? As Paul puts it in Romans chapter six, shall we sin that grace may abound? Right, we're saved by grace, you could go to town now, right? And he responds, absolutely not, no way. The redemption of the Lamb calls us to a life of holiness. One of my favorite books is definitely 1 Corinthians, favorite books of the Bible is definitely 1 Corinthians, which one pastor calls Christians gone wild. Because Paul writes to this church and there's some pretty crazy problems going on inside of this church. In chapter five, Paul addresses an ongoing issue of sexual sin in the church and tells the Christians in the city of Corinth to take it seriously. And the way they're supposed to take it seriously is kicking the guy out who won't behave, who won't repent of his sin. Referring to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which started with the Passover each year, Paul says these words, cleanse out the old leaven, meaning the yeasted bread, that you may be a new lump of dough as you really are unleavened. In other words, you've been cleansed, just like the Israelites, and even today, observant Jews will take all of the leavened bread out of their house very, very carefully, make sure there's not a crumb of regular bread left in the house before Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." Our claim that we are Christians must be sincere and truthful. We must keep our eyes on the one who redeemed us so that we can become more like him. We must come out of Babylon and escape her plagues. We must repent of our presumption and grumbling, our idolatry and immorality, and cling to the grace of the Lamb of God. Be in the house, shielded by the blood, when death comes. Now back to Revelation again. Revelation also presents Jesus to us as the Lamb of God. And this is even more powerful when we read about all the plagues that God's angels pour out on the world, a repetition of the Exodus, but on a much larger scale. So we read several places in the book of Revelation, pictures, by the way, both of sort of the end of the world, but also of the ways in which God brings judgment on corrupt and evil civilizations from time to time and place to place. In chapter 15, verse one, I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished. Chapter 16, verse one, I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God. But then something wonderful we find in chapter 21. One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls of the seven last plagues spoke to me saying, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. This is a picture of the church, the people of God, who are the bride of Christ. So where does the Lamb come in? Actually, much earlier, in chapter five. The whole book is a series of visions. In chapter 5, John weeps because he sees a scroll which seems to contain the meaning of human history. But nobody can open it. Nobody is worthy to open this sealed scroll and reveal it. What's the point of all this? Including the plagues and the suffering that we experience in this world. Finally, one of the elders that he sees in his vision comes to him and says, Weep not, the lion of the tribe of Judah is worthy to open the scroll. And that lion of the tribe of Judah, this is rich Old Testament language. It means Jesus. Jesus can open the scroll. Then we read, now you expect the camera now to turn and we're gonna look at this lion of the tribe of Judah. And it does, but listen to what we read in chapter five, verses six and following. Between the throne of God and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. Do you see? The lion is the lamb. Where is God right now? Where is God when plagues and wars and famines roar through the earth? What is the meaning of human history? Is there a meaning? What's in the scroll? The conquering lion is the slain and risen lamb. In the place of bowls of plague are bowls of incense and harps, the prayers and the praises of God's people. The meaning of history is, among other things, this, that God is saving people through the blood of Christ for their salvation and for his glory. to bring us out of the crashing, crumbling, dying Babylon and into a world and a city that doesn't end. And that is what Easter, Pascha, Passover means. The Lamb saves us from the plague of God's judgment by taking that plague on himself. And so the angels proclaim in Revelation chapter 11, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. You know what that means? It means that the innocent death is redeemed. The pointless is explained. Terror is turned into joy. Guilt is turned into grace. Death is turned into life. And he shall reign forever and ever. Happy Pascha. Christ is risen. Heavenly Father, we come before you acknowledging that your word is strange, your word takes us in directions we would never go on our own, that it makes us uncomfortable, and yet we thank you that through Christ the scroll containing the meaning of human life and history has been opened. We thank you that we see in Christ, the one who is at once the great lion of the tribe of Judah and the lamb who has been slain and is risen. We thank you that Jesus is risen. We thank you that he came into this world. He became one of us. He suffered and he died for us. He shed his blood as of the blood of a perfect lamb so that we could have the wrath of God, the plague of God's judgment pass over us and be saved. So I pray that each one of us would cling to that hope. I pray that we would Seek to be holy as Christ is holy. Christ our Passover is sacrificed. I pray that we would keep the feast as we ought to. Lord, I pray that each one of us would live a new life of holiness and hope and trust in God. I pray that we would come out of Babylon, that we would do this, some of us by baptism, having never done that, but all of us by repentance, constantly looking at ourselves. and seeing whether we are clinging to Babylon and Babylon is clinging to us. Lord, may we be full of the hope of the new heavens and new earth. May we be full of trust in the risen Christ, and may the spirit of Christ be powerful in each one of us. We pray again that soon we would be able to worship together, and yet, Lord, we thank you that you are with us wherever we are. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. By way of wrapping up, I just want to encourage you to sing. If you don't have one, you can get a psalter from a psalm book from Crown & Covenant. It's crownandcovenant.com. You can also use psalter, p-s-a-l-t-e-r.org. or Spotify to get some recordings so you can listen to MIDI files so you can hear how to sing the different tunes. But you can also, on Spotify, there's a great playlist that has all of the psalm selections from the Book of Psalms for worship, and I encourage you to take a look at that if you haven't. It's also a good app for these things. If you're at home and you're gonna be singing, I encourage you to sing Psalms 148A, 20B, 81A and 16D. I'll say that again. Psalms 148A, 20B, 81A, 16D. And if you only sing one today, sing Psalm 16D, which speaks of God's redemption of his Messiah, his bringing his Christ and keeping him from staying forever in the grave. He rose again on the third day. Tithes and offerings, reminding members, if you're not a member, don't worry about this, but if you wanna send checks to our P.O. box, it's on the Facebook page and the website, and that's just a way to continue supporting the church while we're under this lockdown. But I bid all of you a happy Easter. Christ is risen, truly he is risen. He is reigning over all. He is God, he is King, he is our hope, and he is our life. Amen, have a great day.