Revelation 1:9-19; 19:11-16; 21:1-8; 22:16-21
I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution
and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos
because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a
loud voice like a trumpet
saying, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven
churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to
Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”
Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on
turning I saw seven golden lampstands,
and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man,
clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.
His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his
eyes were like a flame of fire,
his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and
his voice was like the sound of many waters.
In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a
sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed
his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last,
and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and
ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place
after this.
Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider
is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.
His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many
diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself.
He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called
The Word of God.
And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were
following him on white horses.
From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the
nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press
of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings
and Lord of lords.”
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and
the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of
heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of
God is among mortals.
He will dwell with
them as their God;
they will be his
peoples,
and God himself will
be with them;
he will wipe every
tear from their eyes.
Death will be no
more;
mourning and crying
and pain will be no more,
for the first things
have passed away.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making
all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and
true.”
Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the
spring of the water of life.
Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their
God and they will be my children.
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the
murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their
place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second
death.”
“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for
the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning
star.”
The Spirit and the
bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who
hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who
is thirsty come.
Let anyone who
wishes take the water of life as a gift.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book:
if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in
this book;
if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy,
God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy
city, which are described in this book.
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming
soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.
The Revelation to John, the last book in the
Bible, is a strange and challenging book. In the 3-year cycle of the Revised
Common Lectionary that is the usual basis for scripture and preaching, there
are only ten readings in total prescribed from this book – and six of the ten
are from only three chapters of the 22 that make up this book. So as
contemporary churchgoers, we are not very well connected with this book.
On the other hand, there have been so many
contemporary, as well as ancient, attempts to interpret its meaning, both for
when it was written as well as today. It has a sort of fantasy book feel to it
– and when we tend to mine the scriptures looking for lessons on how to live
our lives, a story such as this is hard to take in. We understand the word
Apocalypse to mean the end of the world as we know it – but the word has a
greek root – apocalypsis – and that word means revelation.
The purpose of this book is to reveal God, to
reveal Jesus Christ, to reveal the Holy Spirit. And of course, that is the
purpose of all of scripture. The Revelation to John contains 404 verses. Of
those, 275 include one or more allusions to the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, the
five books of scripture that were written and used for worship at the time of
this Revelation to John. The Revelation is a summation of how the Triune God is
revealed throughout the Hebrew Bible. But it is not a logical, analytical,
structured summation. Instead, it is poetry, it is worship, it is metaphor, to
be read with our prayerful imaginations intact, listening for the meaning
behind and beyond the words, remembering that when it was written, such a
subversive and uncivil document would surely have brought death to the one who
would attempt to say directly what this document infers indirectly.
This is how Brian McLaren describes it in this
chapter called The Spirit of Hope, the 51st or
second-from-last chapter of the book we have been using for the basis of our
worship and study over the past year, We Make the Road by Walking:
“As literature of the oppressed, the Book of
Revelation provided early disciples with a clever way of giving voice to the
truth— when freedom of speech was dangerous in one way, and remaining silent
was dangerous in another. Instead of saying, “The Emperor is a fraud and his
violent regime cannot stand,” which would get them arrested, Revelation tells a
strange story about a monster who comes out of the sea and is defeated. Instead
of saying, “The religious establishment is corrupt,” it tells a story about a
whore. Instead of naming today’s Roman empire as being doomed, they talk about
a past empire— Babylon— that collapsed in failure. “
And so the language of metaphor is used, not
only to describe the oppressors of that time, but also to call the people of
God back into a Spirit of Hope. This is done by the revealing of Jesus Christ,
by Jesus Christ, to John, the theologian, poet and pastor who has been exiled
on the island of Patmos because of his allegiance to Christ alone.
In his book, Reversed Thunder, Eugene
Peterson says this about the predicament that John finds himself in:
“Prior to the vision, St. John is on the
prison island in isolated exile. He is cut off from his churches by a decree
out of unholy Rome. Rome is the ascendant power. The gospel has been proved a
weak and ineffective sally against unstoppable evil. Two generations after the
euphoria of Pentecost it is thoroughly discredited. Everything St. John has
believed and preached is, to all evidence, a disaster.
And then, without a single thing having happened
in Rome or in Asia – no earthquake to change the face of the earth, no
revolution to change the government in Rome – St. John is on his feet. He has a
message. He has a job. He has a means for bringing God home to the people and
the gospel to the world. The difference between St. John the prisoner and St.
John the pastor is Christ, in vision and in reality.
St. John, away from his churches, fretting
from lack of intimate knowledge of his people, sees the penetrating, attentive
eyes of his Savior. St. John, weak from confinement, sees the strong, burnished
feet of his Lord. St. John, used to speaking with authority to his apt-to-stray
sheep but now without voice, hears the authoritative voice of the Ruler of
church and world. St. John, homesick for his congregations, sees them held in
the right hand of the Shepherd of Israel. St. John at the mercy of the
political sword of Rome, sees the word of God proceeding swordlike and not
returning void. St. John, nearing the end of his days, the energy of his countenance
in eclipse, sees the presence of a radiating Christ throwing blessing on all.”
Revelation calls upon our imagination, for it
is at its heart a poem. And poetry often gives us its meaning through metaphor,
through allegory, through sights and senses and sounds that come alive to us
through the words, and which take us to a place beyond what the words
themselves describe. The words of Revelation are words of metaphor – which is
why we find the words “as” or “like” – actually the Greek word hõs – so
often. The words are not offering a view of things in any kind of literal way.
This is not Morse code, to be read as if it were concealing a secret message.
Rather, this book is a prophecy that calls upon our imagination and emotion. It
intentionally startles, questions, and disorients us before it points to a
fresh view of reality by its extraordinary imagery. It is telling us – you
think you see the world as it is. But the world, with God in the midst of it,
is completely different from what you are able to see with your limited eyes
and your finite perceptions. What is really going on in the world is beyond
your imagination – but it’s something like this. Apocalyptic imagery –
revelation imagery – because that is what apocalypse means in Greek – it means
revelation, not end of the world – apocalyptic imagery calls us to suspend our
practicality and pragmatism and to enter into its imaginative world.
In his book, Reading Revelation
Responsibly, Michael Gorman recommends an approach to interpreting this work
that incorporates the following strategies:
First and foremost, we must recognize that the
central and centering image of Revelation is the Lamb that was slaughtered.
Christ is Lord, Christ is victorious, and Christ conquers by faithful
resistance experienced in the crucifixion – not by inflicting violence but by
absorbing it; not by actually killing but by speaking his powerful word.
Revelation is counter-imperial, challenging Rome’s theology of Victory and
Power with what many have called “Lamb power.” We are victorious by following
the Lamb, not Babylon, Rome, or other imperial powers, whether then or now.
Second, we need to remember that Revelation
was first of all written by a first century Christian for first century
Christians using first century literary devices and images. They reflect first
century realities, not specifically 21st century realities. But the
images do evoke connections to similar realities at other times, including our
present time – which leads to the third principle.
We must abandon so-called literal, linear
approaches to the book as if it were history written in advance, and use an
interpretive strategy of analogy rather than correlation. Revelation is image,
metaphor, poetry, and political cartooning. It imaginatively reveals the nature
of any and all systems that oppose the ways of God in the world, especially as
revealed in Christ the Lamb who was slaughtered. Those systems, he reminds us,
are not limited to particular future powers but are found in all places and
times. Therefore, we should be examining our own ideologies and “-isms” for
signs of idolatry and immorality. These can be found and expressed in
imperialism, militarism, racism, classism, consumerism, and hedonism. We must
especially examine our own Western, Northern, American, and even Christian
systems and values, for evidences of that which is anti-Christ.
Next, we are challenged to focus on the book’s
call to public worship and discipleship. As Christians, we are called to a
difficult discipleship of discernment, that may lead to marginalization or even
persecution now, but ultimately to a place in God’s new heaven and new earth.
Revelation calls us to nonviolence and nonretaliation. It does not call us to a
literal war of any sort, present or future. Faithful nonconformity, which is by
its very nature a form of resistance, does not lead to absolute withdrawal, but
rather critical engagement on very different terms from those of the status
quo. All of this is birthed and nurtured in worship.
Fifth, and finally, we must place the images
of death and destruction in Revelation within the larger framework of hope. The
death and destruction in Revelation are symbolic of the judgment and cleansing
of God that is necessary for us to realize the hope that is offered in Christ,
for a new heaven and new earth in which God and the Lamb alone reign forever
among a redeemed and reconciled humanity, coming from all tribes, peoples and
nations. The church bears witness in word and deed to this future reality, but
it knows that only God can bring that final, future reality to earth, so we
constantly pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
So, in the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John:
Jesus Christ is revealed as the Lamb that was
slaughtered, reflecting that crucifixion is the form by which salvation comes
to us.
Jesus Christ is revealed as the conqueror of
death – not through violence and retaliation but through grace, love, and
mercy.
Jesus is revealed as the centerpiece of hope –
because no matter what oppression or persecution God’s people experience, God
alone will prevail.
Jesus is revealed as the ultimate judge –
which causes us to examine our own thoughts and deeds, asking ourselves and
confessing to God in humility and truth – whose side are we on?
In the Revelation to John, as throughout the
Hebrew Bible, the gospels, the epistles, we are re-centered on the spirit of
hope – remembering always that God is with us, that we are God’s people, and
that we are called to see the world through the lens of the God who was, who
is, and who will be – to live our lives as God calls us to live, giving of
ourselves for the needs of others, listening to the urgings of the Holy Spirit,
serving Christ who is our Lord and Savior, now and forever more.
