Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
‘Salvation belongs to our God who is ”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, August 17, 2025
by Dr. Kimberly Leetch, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: The promise of God’s vision for humanity includes healing we may not even realize we need.
In this vision, people from every nation, tribe, people, and language gather before the throne, celebrating and worshiping the sacrificial Lamb by whose blood they were cleansed, united, and healed. It is a miraculous vision of unity and victory.
Being from the developed world, we often view the world from a perspective in which we are in a position to uplift the peoples and nations that are suffering. We believe we are privileged, and that by Christ’s blood, the poor, the suffering, the oppressed, and the lowly can be lifted up to where we stand in a place of privilege and honor. While it is a noble thought that we desire to uplift the lowly to a place of privilege as where we stand, it is also profoundly selfish and entitled. Who in our world is suffering from poverty? Those people who lack the opportunity that we possess. Who in our world is suffering from war? Those people who don’t live in a country insulated from such suffering. Who in our world is suffering from political and social oppression? Those people who lack our privilege and our freedom.
How arrogant this perspective! How entitled to believe that we do not suffer from poverty, war, or oppression! When we look upon the vision provided in Revelation we must begin to see that we are also among those unworthy to unroll the scroll, unworthy to be seated on the thrones surrounding God, unworthy to be praised as the sacrificial Lamb. We see ourselves as above the suffering described. Yet we too, live in poverty of spirit (if not of possessions). We live with the threat of war perhaps just out of reach at the moment, yet much closer than we like to admit. We live in a system of oppression so well disguised and integrated into what we consider “normal” that we cannot even see it. And we cannot lift ourselves out of systems of suffering and oppression if we cannot see them. Nor can we desire to fully surrender to the only One worthy or capable of lifting us up if we are incapable of admitting to ourselves the nature of our demise. We cannot let ourselves be led to “springs of the water of life” if we cannot admit we are thirsty. Maybe today we can lean into our own tears and hunger, and blisters from a scorching heat, admit our need for sacrificial Lamb, and revel in the gift of life that is for us, too.
