In our text today we are introduced to the four horsemen of the apocalypse; First, it’s important to name them. They are not Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley, and Elmer Layden, in spite of what die hard Notre Dame football fans would have you believe.

We also need to look at their missions – both in terms of what John’s readers would have seen and what we see today.

Leading the charge is the rider on the white horse. Strangely, he is identified by the tools he carries – a bow and a crown; and the nature of his task – conquering and to conquer.

The bow, remember Noah, represents divine glory. God placed a bow in the heavens and now the rider carries a bow. This heavenly bow also shows up in Ezekiel. The crown is rather self-explanatory. And when John speaks of conquering he is not talking in the military sense. This isn’t death and destruction stuff.

Remember other references to conquering in the New Testament. By rising from the dead Jesus conquered death. It is also the type of conquering attributed to churches in the second chapter of Revelation. Ephesus and Pergamum conquer by not listening to the words of the Nicolaitans. Smyrna conquers by being faithful until death. Philadelphia conquers by continuing to do Christ’s work until the end.

Put it all together and it’s pretty clear who the white rider really is. I know it’s confusing since it’s Jesus, in the guise of the lamb, who is opening the scrolls but this is Revelation. You’ve got horses jumping out of the scrolls and slaughtered lambs with seven horns and seven eyes. So It’s entirely possible that Jesus can be both the lamb opening the scrolls and the white rider – leading the people, us, as we conquer the forces of darkness in our world.

Next out is the red rider – permitted to take peace from the earth. Several years ago we engaged in an adult study course titled “Eclipsing Empire: Paul, Rome, and the Kingdom of God”. In the course John Dominic Crossan presented the gospel message of “The kingdom of God” as it challenged the imperial theology of Rome. One of the main points of the course was that Peace as Christ defined peace is radically different from peace as defined by imperial Rome. The Pax Romana – the peace of Rome had to do with stability, with lack of challenge to the existing order. Everyone knew their station and their place in the world and nobody challenged anything (if they knew what was good for them). Slaves stayed slaves. Refugees were not to be trusted. Immigrants were out to take our jobs. Jews had to be stopped from taking over everything. And Christians needed to see the wisdom of worshipping the emperor. Peace and order was enforced at the point of a sword.

Jesus came proclaiming a much different peace; a peace achieved thru sharing of resources, meeting needs without regard to value or worth, accepting one another, acknowledging that each one is a beloved child of God.

When we read about the red rider, who takes peace from the earth, we need to understand that he is removing the peace of imperial Rome, not the peace of Christ. And we need to ask ourselves, where do we see the peace of imperial Rome today? Where in our world is peace enforced at the point of a sword, or a handgun, or a tear gas bomb?

One other thought about Imperial Roman Peace. Yes, it did serve to maintain order throughout the empire. Like our Roman forbearers we tend to think of peace in terms of the strength to enforce orderly calm. Recent moves by police departments to obtain used armored personnel carriers for their SWAT teams come to mind. But here’s the strange thing. When you consider the Roman Empire that relied on strength of arms to enforce order and the Christian church that preaches a very different kind of strength, and you ask yourself; “Which one is still around 2000 years later?” It kind-of makes you wonder if our reliance on military might is really the best way to go.

Next comes the black rider, herald of famine. In these two verses there are rather obvious ties to events in chapter 18, the message being that this rider facilitates the wealth and gluttony of Babylon and the associated famine among the poorer classes described in that chapter. Haven’t these people heard of supply-side economics? Don’t they know that wealth trickles down from the upper classes to the laboring classes? Apparently not.

The reference to “A quart of wheat for a day’s pay, and three quarts of barley for a day’s pay…” is a clear reference to famine – possibly an occurrence that would have been familiar to those in John’s time. But the implication for us is clear. Just as the second rider came to replace imperial peace with the Peace of Christ, so too the third rider confronts a world where income inequality is an ever growing problem, where women are generally paid less than men performing the same work, where corporations receive tax credits as they ship jobs overseas. This rider calls for just pay for work performed and for an equitable distribution of resources.

The final rider, on a pale green horse (some translations call the color sickly pale) is the bringer of death.

If the first rider came to lead the conquest, and the second rider came to upset the social order, and the third rider came to upset the economic order, the task of the fourth rider is to untie the threads that bind society and civilization together. Only then can a New Jerusalem be built from the faithful remnant.

We’ve seen a bit of this in our world in the past couple of weeks. As our country has been fractured, lines drawn, motives questioned we have faced a remarkably similar question. How bad does it have to get? Will we need a visit by the pale green rider in order to break down the barriers we have erected? The divisions we are clinging to, every more tightly?

Fortunately, the pale green rider doesn’t come alone. Otherwise there would be no hope for us. Fortunately, the other riders come first.

The white rider brings the gospel message of love and acceptance, hope and help.

How will we respond to the white rider?

The red rider brings a call to form a just society. In this rider we see a call to strip away the “imperial peace” that provides so much comfort to those of us who identify with the imperial power, yet provides no hope or help for those who are in some way different.

How will we respond to the red rider? How will we work for a just society that measures worth not by skin color, birthplace, religion, sexual orientation, mental or physical ability, but by the willingness to be loved?

The black rider brings a call to form an equitable economic order. In this rider we see a call to disabuse ourselves of the concept that material wealth is a sign of personal worth, a bringer of security, a sign of God’s approval.

How will we respond to the black rider? How will we work to change attitudes toward value and worth? How will we change policies built on the concept that all value comes from capital and that those who control capital are the real drivers of our economy?

The pale green rider brings a call to change our very society. In this rider we stand convicted of participating in a society that is fundamentally at odds with God’s will.

How will we respond to the pale green rider? How will we change our society? How do we bring justice without regard to race or creed? How do we show mercy to all without regard to their worthiness? How do we walk humbly with our God and with each other?

How will we work for a just society that measures worth only by the willingness to be loved? How will we work to change attitudes toward value and worth? How will we let go of our beliefs about what our society should be?

These are hard questions. Frankly they are questions that some here will consider to be the wrong questions. But I don’t believe that. I believe these are the questions at the very root of what we talk about when we speak of a society that has lost its way, is no longer great. And hard as they are, these are the questions that we, as Christians, are called to address.

When I first wrote that sentence, I said we are called to answer the questions. Rereading the sentence I thought better of it and took the easy way out. I’m not sure we can answer the questions. First of all it seems to me to be the work of the society as a whole to fully answer these questions. Or if not the work of society, at least the task of our leaders – to lead us in a way that guides us to the answers.

But while we can’t answer the questions we can certainly address them. We can ask them of each other. We can ask them of our neighbors. We can ask them of our leaders – at all levels. By asking we challenge others to think about what the answers might be. By asking we demonstrate the importance of the questions. By asking others we also ask ourselves, over and over again, until the very questions become a framework for how we view the world and a personal call to work for answers.

This is not easy stuff. But Revelation wasn’t meant to be easy. It was meant to convict us, to call us to envision a New Jerusalem, and to work for a world that sees that same vision. And in the second part of today’s text we get a foretaste of the rewards of our labors.

In this section we are introduced to a great multitude standing before the throne waiving palm branches and praising God and the Lamb. We are told by one of the elders that they are the ones who have come out of the great ordeal. They have run the race; addressed the questions. Their work is done. For them there is no more hunger, no more thirst, no more scorching sun. The lamb is their shepherd and God is their shelter.

The bible isn’t really clear about what the “great ordeal” is that these saints have been through. That’s not totally true. The bible is very clear about the ordeal, and its description is very clearly metaphor. But it doesn’t take a great amount of imagination to come to some conclusions about what that ordeal might be for us. In the past weeks we have seen it played out on the streets of Charlottesville and Barcelona, Chicago and Miami. We have seen it in the defacing of our own Anne Frank memorial and the attack on the Holocaust memorial in Boston. In the nightly news and the morning paper we see a society that too often succumbs to violence and lack of fundamental respect for each other – road rage, bullying, domestic violence. We become numb to the horrific tragedy, retreating into our own safe place until the next headline proclaims that nothing has changed. I cry out for Jesus to shepherd us, for God to wipe away our tears. I think in some measure we all do the same.

But the work isn’t done. The questions remain. How will we work for a just society that measures worth only by the willingness to be loved? How will we work to change attitudes toward value and wealth? How will we let go of our own selfish beliefs about what our society should be?

And in the face of these questions I can offer this comfort. You are not alone. We are not alone. John 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…”. This is the church; our past, our present, our future. Together we can address the questions. Together we can face the horsemen.

Will it be difficult? Probably so. Do we have any assurance of success? No, we don’t; but we have hope and we have faith in the one who calls us to follow him as he rides forth, with bow and crown, to conquer the darkness and to usher in the New Jerusalem, God’s kingdom among us.

Amen.