1. We gather and join in this great multitude because the Lamb is at its center, and the Lamb’s Kingdom ushers in the peaceable eternity of life resurrected.
  2. John the Revelator sees us in his vision just as much as he sees fantastical creatures and myriads of angels, all of us giving praise to the Lamb who alone is worthy.
  3. In this time of brutal war and divisive conflict, here we have an especially profound word of gospel.
  4. The promise is rooted in the fact that the only way we can endure any ounce of suffering in this life is because Jesus Christ is tending the soil of our lives.
  5. In a world where absolutely everything seems to be in flux, indeed, we are all looking for a place to stand.
  6. Nearly two thousand years after Paul scribbled out these lines, the only reason “we” are here, reading Paul’s magnum opus together, is that we are inheritors of the promise Paul sees in the paradox.
  7. The gift is God’s and not ours, and the fact that any of us have any role to play at all in the Body of Christ is an amazing grace.
  8. The most counter-cultural action any Christian church could take right now would be to foster healthy and constructive conversations among its members and neighbors across their variety of opinions and perspectives.
  9. Paul is thinking of the cross and empty tomb, but the liturgical calendar places us at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, not the end: Jesus standing waist deep in the Jordan River.
  10. As we continue to celebrate the mystery of the incarnation, this is a perfect moment to meditate on how the work of God “in Christ" unfolds in every moment of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.