Jesus is first shown to be majestic and mighty. He is king, ruler, the Lion. He is sovereign, and fulfills our longings for greatness, for a ruler strong and mighty to impress us with power and win our trust and protect us and provide for us and give us life. But we long not only for a great human king. We long for God himself. And this Lion of Judah is not just Messiah, a human king. He is God himself.

One of the reasons that we love Jesus is his paradoxes.
In Jesus in particular, we see realities come together that our human instincts do not expect to be together, and then we see, with surprise and delight, that they do indeed fit together, contrary to our assumptions — and it makes our souls soar with joy.
The beautiful paradoxes of Christ expose our false and weak and small expectations. They remind us that we did not design this world. We do not run this world. And we did not design God’s rescue of us. And we cannot save ourselves, but God can — and does, in the Word made flesh.
As Christians, we confess that Jesus is Lord. That is, he is fully God. He is the towering, all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful God. As God, he formed and made all things, and every knee will bow, and every tongue confess, that Jesus is Yahweh — the sacred old-covenant name of God revealed in Exodus. Jesus is creator, sustainer, supreme Lord of heaven and earth, almighty in power, infinite in majesty, our Lord and our God.
And we confess that Jesus is our Savior. Without ceasing to be God, Jesus took our full humanity: flesh and blood, human body and reasoning soul, with human mind and emotions and will, and with all our lowliness and ordinariness. Jesus had a normal Hebrew name: Yeshua, Joshua. In the incarnation, he added to his eternal divine person a full and complete human nature and came among us, as one of us, to save us.
So, Jesus is glorious as sovereign Lord, and Jesus is glorious as our rescuing, self-sacrificing Savior. And we come to Revelation 5 to linger in the paradox and beauty of majesty and meekness, of might and mercy, of grandeur and gentleness, in this one spectacular person.
Our Longings Met in Jesus
In verse 1, the apostle John looks and sees — in the right hand of God, the one seated on heaven’s throne — “a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals.” These are the eternal and hidden purposes of God to be unfolded in history, the mystery of his manifold wisdom to be revealed in the fullness of time, judgments against his enemies and salvation for his people in the coming chapters of Revelation. Centuries before, God had said to his prophet (in Daniel 12:4), “Shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end.” Now the sealed scroll is in the hand of God, in full view of all of heaven, ready to be unsealed.
John is riveted. He wants to know what’s in the scroll. What mysteries does God have to reveal? What wisdom of God, what purposes for history, might now be made known in this scroll? Then John hears in verse 2 “a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?’”
Now, at this point, it might be tempting to run right through verses 3 and 4 and miss the weight of this moment in heaven. Not so fast. This is what the seasons of Advent and Lent are for: to slow down and feel the weight in the waiting. Instead of racing ahead to Christmas, or Easter, we prepare our hearts by pausing to feel some of the ache of what God’s people felt for centuries as they waited for the promised Messiah. Or the horror and utter devastation of what his disciples felt in the agony of Good Friday and in what must have seemed like the longest day in the history of the world on Holy Saturday. The pause, the waiting, helps us see and enjoy the risen Christ as the supreme Treasure he is.
So, the angel asks, “Who is worthy to open the book?” And verse 3 says, “No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.” No one in heaven. None of the four great creatures around the throne. None of the angelic elders who lead in worship. None of the angels, in all the heavenly host. Not Gabriel. Not Michael. And get this: not even the one sitting on the throne opens the scroll. Not the Father. Not the Spirit. So, heaven waits.
And if no one in heaven, then of course no one on the earth or under the earth. None living or dead is worthy to open God’s scroll. Mere humans like us are not worthy to unveil his great mystery. And so, heaven waits. “No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.”
Weep No More
John begins to weep, loudly. Perhaps he even wonders, What about Jesus? Verse 4: “I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.” John doesn’t tell us how long he wept, but mercifully, the announcement soon came.
In verse 5 — what an amazing moment — one of the elders turns to John and says,
Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.
So, now through the lens of verses 5–6, let’s look together at three aspects of the longing and aches of our souls fulfilled in Jesus, our Treasure.
1. We Long for Majesty and Might
We long to see and admire and benefit from greatness. And the voice rings out in verse 5, “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered.”
“Lion of Judah” signifies that this is the long-promised king of Israel, the Messiah. In Genesis 49, as the patriarch Jacob neared death, he prophesied over each of his twelve sons, and said to Judah that his tribe would produce the nation’s kings.
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Extended singleness is a reality that many, young and old, face today. God is not surprised by this. Rather, He has called his people to live in “such a time as this.” In such a time, the Church has a responsibility not only to recover and uphold the institution of marriage but to graciously help people live out their singleness in self-sacrificial faithfulness.

Americans today are getting married later in life than their parents or grandparents. As of 2022, the average age at which Americans get married is 28 for women and 30 for men. This is eight years later in life than the average bride and groom of the 1960s.  
As many have noted, today’s spike in singleness and single-person households is, in part, the result of a widespread cultural erosion of marriage, both inside and outside of the Church. Over the past 60 years, marriage has taken a social and cultural beating thanks to the legalization of no-fault divorce and abortion, the widespread use of birth control, the proliferation of easily accessible hook-up apps, and the casual dominance of pornography. These realities undermine the maturity, self-control, and responsibility required for stable and successful marriages. Whether or not an individual chooses to engage in these practices, they decrease everyone’s chances of finding a partner interested in or ready for marriage. 
In the wake of this cultural erosion, the Church has had to make necessary and prudential efforts to reinforce marriage and family life as the God-given norm, reaffirming the goodness of marriage and family life in its teaching, serving as a space for Christians who desire marriage to find a spouse, and offering support and recovery for those fighting the temptations of “free love.” However, in these efforts, the Church has often struggled in its approach to singles. While not intentionally excluding singles, the Church has often failed to intentionally include singles—whether young or old, never married or widows/widowers—and create space for them to participate and serve in the life of the Church apart from the pursuit of marriage. In the process, some churches have even given the impression that singleness is only a problem to be fixed, rather than a calling that some have for part or all of their lives.  
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Written by Amy K. Hall |
Saturday, February 26, 2022
If, as Christians, the fuel that fills us with “the fullness of God” and transforms us into humble, gentle, patient, tolerant people is our comprehension of the love of God (who saved us on the basis of nothing but his grace), and if to know that love, we must see that love, how then, after praying as Paul did, do we endeavor to see God’s love? By reading the entire Bible. Repeatedly. 

In last week’s post, I encouraged you to simply read the Bible repeatedly (as you’ve done with other lengthy book series you’ve enjoyed) in order to know it deeply and allow it to change you, so now I want to give you a more specific example of the benefits of this.
Consider the first half of Ephesians. In the past, I assumed Paul’s command in 4:1 to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called” referred generally to acting in a way that reflected well on God, but in context, he’s actually referring to something more specific—something you’ll see if we quickly walk through the text up to that point.
After describing how “in love [God] predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ…according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace” in Chapter 1, and then explaining even more carefully in Chapter 2 that this is all by his grace—that though we were “by nature children of wrath,” deserving only punishment, “because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)”—and that, in this way (i.e., by God’s loving grace), even Gentiles can be reconciled to God together with Jews through the cross, “for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father,” he then, after marveling at God’s wisdom and the “unfathomable riches of Christ,” comes to this prayer:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:14–19)
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