The Only One Who Could Open the Book

Revelation 5

Do you know what John saw, when heaven opened like a door?

He saw a throne. And on it, the One who made everything. And in his hand, a scroll, rolled up and sealed shut. Seven seals, pressed down tight.

Inside that scroll was the end of the whole story. How everything sad gets undone. How everything broken gets mended. How God brings his children home, every last one.

But the scroll was sealed. And a mighty angel called out, with a voice that filled all of heaven:

"Who is strong enough? Who is good enough? Who can open the book?"

And John waited.

He looked up, to the bright and shining ones. He looked down, across the whole wide earth. He looked everywhere, to the very edges of everything. And there was no one strong enough and no one good enough, not one.

And John began to cry. He cried and cried. Because if no one could open the scroll, then the sad things would stay sad forever, and the broken things would stay broken, and nobody at all was big enough to make it right.

Maybe you have felt something like that, when a thing is broken and you look and look for someone strong enough to fix it, and no one comes. That heavy, empty feeling. That is how John felt, weeping in the middle of all that brightness.

Then a voice beside him said, "Don't cry. Look! The Lion has won. The mighty Lion, the strongest of all. He can open the book."

So John turned to see the Lion. And standing right in the middle of the throne was a Lamb.

A little Lamb. And the Lamb looked as if he had been hurt. As if he had been wounded. As if he had been slain.

Heaven had been waiting for a Lion, fierce and roaring, and the strongest one of all turned out to be a Lamb who let himself be given up.

That is how God's kingdom works, upside-down from everything you would guess. The winner won by being wounded. The strong one was strong because he was gentle enough to give himself away. Long ago there were other little lambs, given so a family could be spared. This was the one they were always pointing to. The King became the Lamb, to carry every broken thing himself.

And the Lamb stepped forward, and took the scroll right out of the hand of God.

He could open it. He was the only one who ever could.

And when he took it, all of heaven burst into song. Every angel, more than you could ever count. Every creature in the sky and the sea. They sang and sang:

"Worthy is the Lamb! Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!"

The whole wide universe, singing to one little wounded Lamb.

That song is ringing in heaven this very moment, and it is starting, soft and small, in you. One day you will stand in that bright and happy crowd and sing it with your own voice, and you will see the face of the gentle Lamb who was strong enough to mend it all.

His name is Jesus. And when he begins to break those seals open, John will see who is coming: a crowd far too big to count, from every family on earth, every one of them his.