A Vision with Hope – Often when we need comfort or hope and reach out for a Biblical passage for help, we latch onto things like “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” from Psalm 23, and most of us do not turn to the book of Revelation because of its graphic scenes of destruction.  However, this final book of the Bible gives us glimpses of God’s kingdom, and those glimpses, as with today’s scripture from Revelation 7:9-17, are full of hope and comfort.  It helps if we realize that Revelation was written to believers in a period when they were being crushed under Rome for their beliefs and rejection of the Roman emperor as the king.  Some believers were even killed for that.  This passage is one of the visions in Revelation of God on the throne with the lamb, representing Jesus, there, too, and innumerable people from every nation and language dressed in white, carrying palm branches, and praising God.  It is a model for our hopes when things are bad and we need comforting.  In the end it is the love of God and the beckoning of Jesus that will solve our problems and leave us comforted and rejoicing.  It reminds us of who we are, whose we are, and where we belong.

(NOTE:  Emphasizing the importance of the Word, the videos begin with the scripture reading, but if you want, you can scroll back to the beginning of the service in each video – the entire service is available.)