In exactly
one month’s time, Godwilling, the
McKeowns will be seven miles above the Atlantic in a KLM plane bound for
Seattle Washington.
We’re going
over to see our friends the Canlis’s, who up until last year were the manse
family in Methlick, and we’ll be there for just over three weeks, staying with
their family for part of the time. Longest holiday we’ve ever had, and the
farthest flung as well.
Now by
nature, the McKeowns like to have the detail figured out but at the time of
writing there are still a lot of unknowns!
But we know
this – the Canlis’s are good people, and we’re safe in their hands. They’re
going to look after us. And though the fine detail’s still obscure, we’ve got a
good idea of the big picture for the holiday. Time to see the sights in Seattle
and Vancouver, a trip to Mount St Helen’s, a preaching gig at Matt’s church in
Wenatchee, a week at a beach house on Whidbey Island, good food, good company
and good conversation with dear friends whom we miss very much.
In my
imagination I see us dining in Matt’s parents’ restaurant in Seattle; catching
the ferry to Canada; drinking great coffee in the kitchen of their new home
while the kids play in the yard; sliding a patio door and walking down to a
beach where the waters of Puget sound lap at my feet; standing on the
observation deck of the Space Needle and looking over to Mount Rainier, still
covered with snow even in the height of summer.
And that
vision of our time away fills the present moment with impetus. We need to get
ready.
So the
passports and the estas are in place. We’re organising our money and credit
cards. We’ve studied the guide books. We’ve bought or borrowed suitcases, and
they’re slowly beginning to fill up with summer clothes.
That
imagined future which is, at one and the same time both real and as yet unrealised,
is laying its hand on the present and giving it shape and content. We are
living now in the light of what’s to come.
And I start
with that this morning, because I think that’s a helpful way into this most
complex and misunderstood of Biblical texts – the book of Revelation.
Revelation,
to the best of our knowledge, was written by the apostle John. John was one of
Jesus disciples, one of that inner circle of three who were especially close to
him. John was with him on the mount of transfiguration, sat next to him at the
Last Supper, stood by him at the foot of the cross and beat Peter into second
place in that incredulous Easter Sunday dash to the newly empty tomb.
It was John,
after a lifetime of service to Christ and his church, who wrote both the Gospel
and the three letters in the New Testament that bear his name.
And now we
find him, at the end of his days, in exile on the island of Patmos – the last
of the disciples to escape martyrdom according to tradition, but imprisoned for
his faith in Christ and his testimony about him.
Cut off from
the rest of the world, and from his brothers and sisters in the churches.
Confined. And yet given a vision of such huge breadth and imagination that its
imagery still impresses itself on the mind two millennia later.
To what end,
though? What is this vision really about?
Down the
centuries, many have argued that Revelation’s all about the future. Jesus gave
John this vision so we might know what’s to come and if we can only unpick all
the riddles and the imagery then we’ll get to the chronology. We’ll be able to
work out how and when it’s all going to end.
So whether
it’s 4th century monks poring over the book by candlelight, or 21st
century bloggers posting their latest assessment of who the antichrist is,
there has been a long and rather wacky tradition of Christians trying to read
the future in the tealeaves of Revelation.
And that, I
think, is to read it badly.
One
commentator puts it this way – “people get interested in everything in this
book except God, losing themselves in symbol hunting, intrigue with numbers,
speculating with frenzied imaginations on times and seasons, despite Jesus’
severe stricture against that sort of thing.”
On the rare
occasion when Jesus did speak about things to come, he admitted that even he didn’t
know the day or the hour that his Father had set for the fulfilment of the
ages. He didn’t tell us to get out our
diaries and calculators and make our best guess at when he might return. He
told us to live each day in the light of his coming. “Be ready”, he said. “Stay
awake! Don’t get caught napping.”
Jesus
doesn’t encourage us to speculate on the future. He urges us to live each present
day in the light of what’s to come.
So although
Revelation alludes to the future – the future itself is never the focus.
But nor, I
have to say, is the political situation of the time in which John wrote.
That’s the
line that I got at University when we studied Revelation. It was all about the
politics of the day, they said. And there may be some degree of truth in that.
It might
well be that John’s using cryptic language to critique the Roman Empire because
he couldn’t do it overtly.
John writes
of a powerful beast with seven heads and he tells us that these heads represent
seven hills. And he speaks of a degenerate woman sitting on the beast, who
represents a great city ruling over the kings of the earth.
A degenerate
great city, built on seven hills? To the ancient mind that could only mean one
thing – Rome. And it’s quite possible that when John talks about the
destruction of the woman and the beast, he’s alluding to the truth that one day
even the mighty Roman Empire will fall.
But if
Revelation is nothing more than a subversive political tract, written to
undermine the government of the day, it has little to say to us in our time and
place.
No – there
is a third way to read Revelation – a way that’s not obsessed with the future
or stuck in the past, and for this I’m indebted to Eugene Peterson and his
excellent commentary on Revelation called ‘Reversed Thunder’.
Peterson’s
insight is that John’s motivation in writing – or better still, Christ’s
motivation in getting John to write– is pastoral.
John isn’t
writing into a void. He’s writing to churches. Seven of them, strung around the
Mediterranean basin. Facing all kinds of challenges and persecutions. Thrown
out of the synagogues for their faith in Jesus; torn to shreds by wild animals
in the Coliseums; blamed by Nero for the great fire of Rome and persecuted in
their home communities for being different.
They, like
John in exile, are having a hard time. The political and social forces they
have to reckon with seem to dwarf the church. To the casual eye, the Lower
Story seems to be winning the day.
And that’s
why the focus of Revelation isn’t the future. but the one who holds the past,
the present and the future – Jesus the Christ. He is the centre of this text.
He is the beginning, middle and end of the story.
At the turn
of the year, Will Stalder preached a marvellous sermon on John’s opening
Revelation vision of one like a son of man with a voice like many waters; burning
eyes; a face like the sun in all its glory and feet like burnished bronze. At
the sight of him, we’re told, John fell at his feet as though dead.
But the one
in the vision speaks kindly to him. “Do not be afraid” he says “I am the First and the Last. I am the Living
One; I was dead, and now look – I am alive for ever and ever.”
This is our
Christ, John is saying. My Christ, even as I’m stuck here on this island in
exile. Your Christ, even as you struggle on in your congregations. This is the
one we’re worshipping. This is the one in whom we’ve placed our trust; our very
lives.
He is, and
was, and is to come. He is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead,
the ruler of the kings of the earth.
He is the
Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end.
He holds the
stars in his hand and walks among the golden lampstands which are the churches.
He is the
Amen – the last word on everything. The ruler of creation.
He is the Lion
of Judah; the Root of David; the Lamb
that was slain.
He is the
rider on the white horse, whose name is Faithful and True and the Word of God.
He is King
of Kings and Lord of Lords
Wave after
wave after wave of names and titles gathering to a greatness. This is our
Christ, our saviour.
I don’t know
what worries or concerns you carry here with you this morning – whether they’re
trivial or profound. But I know this – if you’re a person of faith, you don’t
face them alone. Christ is with you in it all.
Never think
that the Lower Story has the last word, no matter how challenging your
circumstances might be. Christ always has the last word.
That’s the
vision that John wants to inspire his people with.
All the
vivid imagery of future battles against dark powers is there not to pique our
curiosity, but to reassure us that the final victory of God over all that
opposes him is certain. Nothing and no-one can stand against the Lamb who was
Slain.
Much, as you
know, is made of the number of the beast, which is 666, and throughout history
- by playing around with names and Roman numeral - people as diverse as Anwar Sedat and Mikhail
Gorbachev have been accused of being the antichrist. Kind of helped that Gorbachev
had that suspicious big birthmark on his head too.
But that’s
barking up the wrong tree.
Numbers
always have significance in the Bible – and 7 is seen as the perfect number. 7
days of creation, 7 miraculous signs of Jesus in John’s gospel, the sevenfold
spirit of God before the throne.
And God is
Trinity – Holy Holy Holy cry the angels. Seven Seven Seven.
So what’s
666? The number of man. The number that falls short of perfection. The number
that represents every effort of man to deny God, forget God or usurp God.
When we live
life that way, we dance to the enemy’s tune whether we know it or not. We take
his number, so to speak.
And John
wants us to understand that in the end, everything that stands against Christ
will be brought low and held to account. Everything.
In John’s
Revelation - The Dragon and the Beast, Death and Hades. In the experience of
the seven churches to which John writes, Empires and Kingdoms. In their day and
in ours- the arrogant, the cultured despisers, the selfish and immoral. And we
applaud this. We would be angry if justice didn’t come on them.
But the
things is, it’s not just them who gets judged.. For John goes on to tell us
that God will judge everything in you and me and everyone, which refuses to bow
the knee to God in Christ.
Books will
be opened, he says. The dead, great and small will stand before the throne. And
he tells us that some will go on to eternal life, while others will meet their
final end, because they never acknowledged the Christ – either implicitly or
explicitly.
This is a
hard word, but it’s the word of the Lord. And we need to reckon with it.
CS Lewis
puts it this way – “When the author walks onto the stage, the play is over. God
is going to invade, all right. But what is the good of saying you are on His
side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream
and something else comes crashing in? This time it will be God without
disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible
love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late, then, to
choose your side. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time
when we discover which side we have really chosen, whether we realised it before
or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side.
We’ve
reached the end of the story, and it ends with a new beginning where all that
stands in opposition to God is put away and dealt with once and for all.
And in its
place come a new heaven and a new earth, a new city where God dwells with his
people in harmony and peace – which has been his heart’s desire all along. A
new beginning, were death and mourning and crying and pain are things that have
passed away.
Because of
what Christ has done, that’s the future the cosmos is heading for. And the good
news is that we can choose to find a place in it. “In my Father’s house are
many rooms” said Jesus. If it were not so, I would have told you.
“I am going
there to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you I
will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am”.
From the
first nanosecond of creation, this is what God has been bringing creation to.
“Now the
dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his
people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
This is where it’s all been going.
So let us
learn to live in the light of that sure and certain future. May we let it shape
the way we live and the people we’re becoming
May we give
him our yes, both now and forevermore.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment