Sermon Reflections at Old Union Church

Revelation 22:7-21 – Jesus Is Coming: Look Busy

2010-02-04T11:28:00.001-05:00

This final section of Revelation offers a concluding promise and admonition. It also expresses the deep longing of Christians for Christ’s return. If you’ve ever heard the word “Maranatha,” it means “Come, O Lord” (in Aramaic, the language that first century Jewish Christians commonly used). It’s the next-to-last closing sentiment that John offers at the end of his book, but this whole passage expresses Jesus’ promise that he is indeed coming soon. For people in the midst of struggle and persecution, it’s the hope that they clung to. And are we all that different? Granted, the level of suffering that most of us are dealing with is relatively minor compared to what some people are enduring and have endured. But let’s face it: the world is a harsh place. Even if we are only experiencing what is common to all people (death, illness, a bad turn of fortunes for ourselves or for those we love), things can be lousy enough. But if we have a particularly nasty encounter with sin (our own or someone else’s), then we’re even more aware of how bad things can be for life in this world. We watch for and celebrate the ways that God is present today, and how he intervenes to save us. But let’s face it: it’s not enough. We pray for people to be healed, and they die. Nations are wracked with war and natural disaster. Addictions and destructive behavior ruin lives. Prejudice, greed, and jealousy poison our relationships and our society. And that only scratches the surface! It’s wonderful to experience God’s love, but we’re looking forward to the time when that’s all the we know. As Christians, we know that it will only happen when Christ returns. So we plead for him to come and complete his redemptive work for us.

But we don’t pray “Maranatha” for that reason alone. We want Jesus to come back, because we love him. We want to see him face to face, and to be united with our Lord. Think of a time when one of your loved ones was away from home: perhaps on a business trip or to go away to school. Think of the military families who count the days until that special someone comes marching home again. This separation that we now have from Jesus is even more painful. Sure, we have the presence of the Holy Spirit, and we know that Jesus is with us, even if only two or three of us are gathered in his name. But it’s all provisional and partial. We will only know the fullness of peace and joy when Jesus returns.

So it’s a great reassurance to hear Jesus tell us repeatedly in this passage that he is coming soon. But it’s one of our faith’s greatest challenges to deal with the fact that Jesus’ version of “soon” isn’t quite the same as ours. It’s been nearly 2,000 years. That’s only considered a short period of time if you’re dealing with geology or biological evolution. Empires have come and gone. Entire new bodies of knowledge have emerged and become passé. Even the very languages that John wrote and spoke in are “dead.” So what’s so soon about “soon”? Theologians and Bible scholars have wrestled with this issue ever since, well, about the time that John wrote this. Here are a couple of the ideas that have been floated around.
1. God keeps time differently from us. A thousand years is like a day to him. It’s the sentiment that we find in 2 Peter 8-9. So we may complain about the delay, but that’s not the way God sees it.
2. Jesus has already come. His promise has already been fulfilled: just not in the way that we thought it would. Think of first-century Jewish hopes for the coming Messiah. We Christians generally believe that they had their own conception of what this coming would be like, and they couldn’t recognize Jesus because he didn’t match their expectations. According to this line of thought, Jesus has come in some sort of spiritual or existential way. There’s no additional “coming” that we should be waiting for.
3. We will each experience Jesus’ coming at the point of our death, when we leave this world and enter his presence. So for each of us, the time is “soon,” and none of know exactly when it will take place. But Jesus’ “coming” is for each of us as individuals; the world as we know it now will continue to go along as it has for millennia.
These are just a sampling of answers that people have offered for this question. Personally, none of them satisfy me. Sort of like eating rice cakes. We feel in our bones that things just aren’t concluded until Jesus comes into the world and, once and for all, takes care of business.

On a side note, I’ve heard it said that when Jesus does come, the three major Abrahamic religions will come together. The Jews are expecting the Messiah, so when Jesus comes they will say: “You’ve finally come!” We Christians, who are awaiting his second coming, will say, “We missed you! Thank you for returning!” As for the Muslims, not only do they believe that Jesus was a prophet (but not the Son of God), but they also believe that he will come again. They also believe that the last prophet is the most authoritative. And since Muhammed was the last prophet, that’s why they follow his revelation. But when Jesus comes, he will be the new prophet that they will follow. So these divisions that we get so worked up about will come to an end.

In verses 9-10, John succumbs to the same temptation he had in 19:10, and begins to worship the angel who has been guiding him. Once again, he is rebuked and reminded that God alone deserves our worship. This is a reminder for us that it’s easy for us to worship the wrong person or thing. In Jesus’ absence, we want to direct our devotion to someone or something that we can see. The fact that John does this for a second time reminds us that we never really overcome our temptations. We must continually be vigilant, and always be prepared for God’s corrective action.

The angel tells John not to seal up his book. The word he uses here is “biblon” in the Greek, which isn’t a book like the ones we have. That would have been called a codex in those days. “Biblon” is a scroll. He’s not supposed to seal it up because the predicted events are going to happen soon; we’ve already talked about this as a problem. Don’t stick it in the archives, don’t put it on the back burner. Always keep the promises and the warnings in front of you. Verse 11 tells John, in essence, that things are going to be what they are. The wicked will keep doing evil and the righteous will continue to do good. This isn’t a sense of fatalism (“nobody’s going to change”) but simply a recognition that, after all the warnings, encouragement, and discipline, no one is going to repent anymore. Things have reached their final status.

The second nut to crack in this passage, after our struggle with why Jesus hasn’t come yet, is the promise of reward in verse 12. This isn’t the first time that we’ve encountered some language in Revelation that sure sounds like works-righteousness. It gives the impression that we get into heaven if we do good things, and verse 15 sounds as though the evil-doers never stand a chance. Some of these evil-doers certainly are the nasty people of the world, like murderers. But what about “everyone who loves and practices falsehood”? Even if we don’t love it, we would be practicing falsehood if we said that we never practiced it. The idea that you are rewarded for doing good by going to heaven, and that you can’t get into heaven if you’ve done evil, contradicts the good news of the gospel that we find throughout the New Testament. So what are we supposed to do with this?

Verses 14 and 17 set us straight. We gain the right to enter the city (or heaven) by having our “robes” “washed.” In other words, to have our sins wiped away by the redeeming work of Christ. The gift of this life-giving water that we can drink and bathe in is completely free, and available for everyone who wants it. That certainly sounds more like the good news of the Christian message that we pin our hopes upon. We are only able to do good, and to turn away from doing evil, because of God’s regenerating Spirit within us. Through Christ, we are blessed by becoming who we are meant to be as God works in us.

A fitting way to end this study on Revelation is to reflect on the way that Jesus describes himself in verses 13 and 16. These are descriptions that we’ve run into already in the book, but it’s good to remember them once again.
Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End: Everything starts with Jesus (John 1:1-4, Colossians 1:16), and as we’re seeing in Revelation, it all moves toward him as the final goal and purpose.
Root and Offspring of David: Isaiah 11:1 calls Jesus the shoot that comes from the Root of Jesse, the royal family of Israel. He is the source and the final culmination of the leadership that God provides for his people.
Bright Morning Star: The one who heralds the glory of God that breaks into our lives, just as the morning star heralds the light of a new day.

Revelation 22:1-6 - Peace LIke a River

2010-01-28T14:11:00.001-05:00

John’s vision of the heavenly city of Jerusalem, which began in the last chapter, continues now as he travels into the city and arrives at its very heart. There should be no surprise for us to discover what’s at the center of heaven: the throne of God. After all, ever since Chapter 4 we have seen visions of heaven with the throne as the focal point, surrounded by the living creatures, 24 elders, and so on. Until now, the throne was sorting floating out there by itself. I have to admit that in my mind’s eye the throne of God was this location that was surrounded by some gray, dark, neutral space all around its immediate vicinity. Now we find out that the throne is in the middle of a city! Was the city always there, but just wasn’t revealed to John for him to describe for us? Or is this something new, now that God has made his dwelling with men (21:3). I’d like to think that it’s a combination of the two. Yes, we are certainly looking for that time when we are directly in the presence of God. And we know that the heavenly city, where we will live, will at some point in the future make its appearance (21:10). But ever since the Lord became Emmanuel, we know that God is with us. He has already made his dwelling with us.

Sometimes we’re like John: we aren’t able to see God’s presence in the heart of our experiences. Or if we do, we don’t realize what it’s really all about. Far too many people worry about how God’s direct involvement in their lives would lead to condemnation or rejection. I suppose it’s natural and expected. When we have a healthy sense of our sinful condition, we know that we don’t deserve to be there. (An unhealthy attitude is one that makes us think that we can never be with God.) And with all the rather frightening descriptions of God’s wrath and discipline that we’ve encountered in Revelation, who could blame us for cowering in fear at the thought? This is one of our great challenges, and great opportunities. First, to see beyond the gray fog of our lives and realize that God is with us in all his glory. Not at the periphery, but at the very center of the “city” of our lives. Second, to know that it is a presence that brings blessing, healing, and peace. As John 3:17 (the verse right after the really famous one) puts it, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Sure: we’ll experience challenges, struggles, and even difficult discipline. But the presence of God in our lives, as we are reconciled with Him through Christ’s saving work, is peace, healing, and joy.

John’s description of how God’s presence in the city blesses its people evokes images of the Garden of Eden, where God walked and interacted with Adam and Eve naturally and comfortably. First, of course, is the river of life that springs from the throne and runs down the main thoroughfare of New Jerusalem. Four rivers flowed from the center of Eden: rivers that were major waterways in the ancient Near East. The image that comes to my mind here is of Dutch towns with canals in the middle of the street. Jesus described himself as the one who supplies living water, water of life (John 4:13-14, 7:37-38). And water is a common image of life-giving in the Old Testament. It’s only natural, of course. In an arid place like the Holy Land, water is a source of life. The river from the throne symbolizes our need for God’s life-giving presence in our lives in order for us to live, to thrive, to be what God wants for us.

We also hear about the tree of life. This was one of the two trees that was in the middle of the Garden of Eden. It was the source through which God’s life-giving presence made Eden the paradise that it was. (I can’t help but to think of the movie “Avatar,” and the way that the Tree of Souls united all of the life on Pandora. The tree of life isn’t quite like that, but if you’ve seen the movie you might have an idea about what it’s like.) The other tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and it was the one that Adam and Eve weren’t supposed to eat from. Because they did, they got kicked out of Eden, which meant that they lost their connection with the Tree of Life. Now that Adam and Eve’s sin, which had been passed down to all of us their children, has been removed, we’re able to gather around the Tree of Life once more. It’s a tree that’s always in season. Have you ever tried to get watermelon in May, or corn on the cob in March? If you can find it, it’s probably so overly-preserved or frozen that it tastes like cardboard. But what about a tree that provides a different nourishing crop every month of the year? That sounds like something we could all enjoy. It’s a reminder also of our constant need for God’s grace to allow us to live and grown.

As the TV sales pitches go, Wait! There’s more! Not only does the Tree of Life provide year-round food, but even its leaves are valuable. The leaves are leaves of healing. Thing perhaps of teas or poultices that can be made from the leaves of certain shrubs or trees. This tree can heal us. The healing we’re talking about isn’t (or isn’t only) about physical ailments from cancer to the common cold. It heals our spirits. Far too many of us are far too wounded psychically from what we’ve experienced in this broken world of ours. Once we’re in the glorious presence of God, not only are we rescued from the things that damage us, but we find healing for our souls. There truly is a balm in Gilead. But as any good TV sales pitch would say, Don’t Stop There! You’ll get something even better! The leaves aren’t just for the healing of God’s people. They are for the healing of the nations. We cause so much damage by our divisions, and nations are the prime example. What “nations” are you part of, which define themselves by what they do, who they are, or what they value? Every time you’re part of a “nation,” you’re excluding those who aren’t part of it. And frequently opposing nations develop which compete and contend against each other. The tree of life heals us of all the damage and pain that our nations cause upon each other. Remember that the true Tree of Life is the cross of Calvary, upon which Jesus went to provide life for us all. And as Ephesians 2:11-18 explains, his work on the tree has removed all the barriers between the nations so that we can be united as we serve and celebrate in God’s presence.

Further, we hear that there is no need for any other light in the city, because God himself illuminates the town. Remember Psalm 119:105: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” We count on God now to light up the paths that we should take. But at times that illumination seems pretty dim, and we lose our way. Physical light is good; we need it to see and to get around. But the light that God supplies is also light for our souls: to illuminate the dark corners where we’re afraid that monsters lurk. To allow us to bask like sun worshipers with no fear of skin cancer. To see fully all that’s going on inside of us and around us.

We get to see God face to face. In the Old Testament we know that no one can see God and live. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul predicts the time when we will see—and be seen—face to face. We will finally be able to understand the fullness of God. And when God looks directly upon use, we’ll be able to know ourselves as well.

Revelation 21:9-27 – Urban Planning

2010-01-16T12:28:00.001-05:00

John now describes the new Jerusalem that he sees from the vantage point of a high mountain. The mountain isn’t named, but the best place to see today’s Jerusalem is the Mount of Olives. It’s odd that the arrival of the city is announced by one of the angels who poured out a bowl of God’s wrath in Chapter 16. There’s some sort of relationship between tremendous destruction and punishment on the one hand, and unbelievable blessing and joy on the other.

This is the third time that the people of God (or, the city of God) is described as a bride; we’ve seen it already in 19:7 and 21:2. Marriage is the fullest and most complete relationship that two people can have, and so it’s fitting for John to compare God’s relationship with us to that of a husband with his bride. In fact, many commentators on the Song of Songs (aka Song of Solomon) believe that this romantic expression of the love for a man and woman is a metaphor for the love between God and humanity. And this is the true and greatest of all the splendors of heaven: that God is fully united with his people. The entire arc of creation’s history seems to bend toward a reconciled love between God and us. I have to admit that it baffles me. Sure, we’re made in God’s image (Genesis 1), and we’re made a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8). But quite frankly, it’s hard for me to believe that God takes such great delight in me—or in anyone else for that matter. Maybe I’m just too much of a Calvinist: aware of how deep the stain of sin colors the human condition. I take to heart messages like the line in Amy Grant’s song “I Have Decided:” “The only good inside your heart is the good that Jesus brings.” Apparently there’s much more to the story. Yes, we are full of sin. But there is something about each of us that has led God to claim us as his children from before creation (Ephesians 1:4), and to go to such great lengths to reclaim us. There is an essence to us, to the way that God has made us, that fills him with delight and leads him to view us as precious. While humility and a healthy awareness of our sinfulness is appropriate, we need to be sure we don’t go too far in the other direction either. God delights in us the way that newlyweds do. And we do a disservice to Christ’s saving work if we think that we’re so undeserving that he shouldn’t have done it.

John describes the eternal paradise that awaits us as a city. Granted, it’s a precious city that’s encrusted with every conceivable gem. (We shouldn’t stop at the simple literal understanding of this, by the way. There are no earthly treasures that compare to the value that God places upon us. These descriptions are the best that John can do to express it.) But a city? There’s not many people who think of cities as paradise. We’d much rather dream about paradise being like the Garden of Eden, the original paradise. Most inspirational artwork has beautiful nature scenes: mountains and rivers and flowers and trees and birds and beaches. Not sidewalks and traffic lights and skyscrapers and buses! I’ll admit that I’m the first to imagine paradise as a beautiful wilderness, not an urban center. I feel so much closer to God in the beauty of nature and the grandeur of creation. But maybe that’s the point. As we live in this world of ours, filled as it is with corrupted and problematic relationships, heaven means getting away from them all and being alone with God. However, this is completely different from the fate for which we have been saved. Relationships are restored in heaven: not just between God and humanity, between each person. The Presbyterian Confession of 1967 develops this theme of reconciliation (see 2 Corinthians 5:18-19). The city of the New Jerusalem is more like a family reunion than a dangerous urban center. In fact, it’s even better than a family reunion: no creepy uncles or embarrassing cousins to deal with! Because we will have all been transformed by the work of Christ, we will be nothing but the wonderful treasures that God had in mind for us when he created us, and that fills him with such delight. No one will want to be alone, because of how delighted we’ll be to be together. When perfect relationships have been restored, nothing will be better than being together.

It also helps for us to bear in mind that the way we modern westerners think about cities and the countryside is very different how the ancients did, and how some people do today. A couple of years ago we had guests from Ghana visiting, and they were worried and amazed about an older woman who lived by herself in a relatively isolated house. For them, this was a perfect situation for bandits to take advantage of. They could attack her, and probably overcome her easily, and then rob her. For her, and for the rest of us, this was a strange concern, because we all think that her home is beautiful and that she is blessed to be surrounded by such beauty. Ancient people lived in towns for protection. Cities meant safety, and the wilderness meant danger. If we grasp this understanding, even if we don’t share it, we can understand that the people of God will be eager to enjoy the safety of the new Jerusalem, where there be room for everyone.

John watched as the angel measured the city. It’s a scene similar to John’s measuring of the temple in Revelation 11:1-2, but with a couple of important distinctions. First, the angel uses a golden rod instead of a reed to do the measuring. This is a more precious object being measured. And second, it’s the city and not the temple being measured. That raises to points. First, the temple has always been understood as the dwelling place of God. Now, however, we learn that the God lives in the entire city, with all of his people. He’s not cooped up in the Holy of Holies of the sanctuary. Everyone has access to him, directly, and is able to bask in the light of his love. The second point is closely related to the first. The angel needs to measure off an entire city, because that’s what it takes to fit in the family of God. You may recall that John measured the temple in Chapter 11 as a sanctuary for the people of God to escape from the forces of evil. Now, the sanctuary is simply massive!

There are several things to notice about this city of God, where the Lord and his people live together in perfect relationship with each other. First, it’s a massive cube, 12,000 stadia on each side. Twelve is the number of the people of God, and it’s multiplied by 1,000, which Revelation uses to express a massive number. The city measures about 1400 miles on each side. That’s roughly the distance from Pittsburgh to Denver: long, wide, and high! (For John’s audience, which never heard of Pittsburgh or Denver, it’s the distance from Jerusalem to Rome.) A city so massive hardly qualifies as a city at all. The proportions of God’s city are of the same unimaginable scale as his grace.

The city is incredibly precious, and a description of its building materials is like going through the precious gems exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. Some features, like gold, pearl, sapphires, and emeralds, are pretty well-known. But others, like chrysoprase and jacinth, seem pretty obscure. Why does John see these particular gems in his vision, and why is he so precise in describing the order in which they serve as foundations for the city? There are theories. First, the twelve stones may be a reminder of the high priest’s breastplate, which is described in Exodus 28:15-30. This important part of the priest’s attire was decorated with twelve precious stones, each of which represented one of the twelve tribes of Israel. It’s pretty much the same list of gems, if we take into account some confusion from translation between various languages. We already heard in verse 14 that the foundations of the city have the names of the twelve apostles on them, so it would be fitting if the materials of each foundation represent the twelve patriarchs. Remember the twenty-four elders that surround the throne of heaven; they are the patriarchs and apostles: the leaders of the united people of God. Our relationship with God is made possible because of Jesus’ atoning work, but it is built upon the work of saints and heroes of the faith who have come before us. There’s just one problem: John’s precisely detailed description of the order of the foundation-gems doesn’t quite march the order of the stones of the high priest’s breastplate. That may be significant, but perhaps we shouldn’t allow it to discredit the identification of the foundations with the patriarchs of Israel.

There’s a second meaning for the stones: twelve is not only the number of patriarchs, but it is also the number of signs in the zodiac. While first-century Christians looked to the heavens as the bottom view of God’s heaven, their pagan neighbors looked to the skies for astrological guidance. Just as each tribe of Israel was associated with a gem, so also were the signs of the zodiac (a little bit like the birthstones we have today). And guess what? The order of gems that make up the foundation of the new city are precisely the opposite of the order of gems for the zodiac-signs. As a symbol, the foundation of the city not only evokes recognition of the patriarchs, but it also demonstrates the undoing of pagan beliefs and practices

Amid all the other descriptive of the city, I’d like to focus on the fact that the city is built upon the foundations of the patriarchs and the apostles. While it is emphatically God’s doing, it comes through the work of people. God has made the patriarchs and apostles his partners in the work of salvation. But he doesn’t stop there. We are all part of his plan to build up a glorious city, and to populate it with the redeemed. It would be good for us first to recognize and to appreciate how others have been part of our faith experience that has brought us into the relationship with God that we have. And it would be good for us second to realize that we are the path that God uses to encounter others. Let’s make sure that we’re a clear path!

That is possible only because of God at work in us. On their own, the patriarchs were faulty and sometimes obscure,. By their own merits, they couldn’t lay the foundation for anything more impressive than an outhouse. Think of the character of these men. Ten of the patriarchs schemed together to get rid of the one that they were jealous of, even though it broke their father’s heard. One of them, Judah, slept with his daughter-in-law: but only because he thought she was a prostitute! (It’s hard to figure out if that makes things better or worse). And the apostles weren’t much better. As Mark describes them, they were a group of idiots who could never understand what Jesus was trying to tell them, no matter how plainly he explained it. John and James were so power-hungry that they fought over who would get the most honor in Jesus’ kingdom. Peter, their leader, proved to be nothing but bluff and false bravado at the moment of crisis. And the rest of them scurried into the woodwork like cockroaches under a searchlight. The lesson for us? We can mess up royally, but God will still use us for his work. Even a chipped and broken stone can be a good foundation, when God is the mason.

And some of these men were obscure. We hear about some of them relatively frequently, such as Judah, Reuben, and Benjamin among the patriarchs, and Peter, James and John among the apostles. But how about some of the others? Except for the times when their names show up on the group list, we hear practically nothing about them. Search your Bible, and you won’t learn about any of the deeds of Zebulun, or Issachar, or Naphtali. The names of apostles like James the son of Alpheus and Simon the Zealot only grace the pages of Scripture as part of lists of the Twelve. By our accounts, these men were obscure and insignificant. But not by God’s! They are each part of the foundation, the very core, of his work of salvation. Their significance may not be discernible to us, but God recognizes and honors their value.

This brings us back to the point I raised earlier. God cherishes and honors us, even when we fail to see anything worthwhile in ourselves. There is no insignificant deed that is done in God’s name (Matthew 10:42: not even giving someone a cup of water), and there is no one obscure in God’s eyes (Matthew 10:29-30: God keeps track of the sparrows, and we are worth so much more to him).

Revelation 21:1-8 – New and Improved

2010-01-07T12:38:00.001-05:00

Finally, after a long description of God’s destruction of the forces of evil, we hear about what is in store for the people of God. The first word to latch onto in this description is “new.” The old heaven and earth are gone, and a new one comes. God makes everything new. So often, we think about Revelation as a description of the “end times.” The fancy term for this part of our theology is “eschatology,” which means literally the study of, well, the end. But the point to all of this isn’t how things will come to an end. We are looking forward to something new that is coming. Granted, the old stuff has to come to an end for the new to come. But our focus is on what is coming. C.S. Lewis did a nice job of capturing this in his novel “The Last Battle” at the end of his Chronicles of Narnia series. When the old Narnia is gone, Aslan’s followers enter into a new world are overwhelmed with delight of the wonders to explore in it.

When we hear about new that is coming, it’s great news. But so often, the old life weighs us down. We have obligations, duties, routines, expectations, things to worry about, matters to take care of, plans to follow through on. We have relationships that aren’t what we wish they could be. It all drags us down like weights on a runner. We can’t make progress because of all that entangles us and hinders us. Hebrews 12:1 urges us to throw it all off so that we can run the race with Jesus, but let’s face it. We can’t do it on our own. A fresh start sounds wonderful, but we don’t know how to make it happen, and we don’t have the ability to do it even if we did.

Yes, our passage speaks of a new heaven and a new earth. But it’s us that needs to be made new. Granted, there are a lot of problems in the world we have now, and the brokenness that we encounter in it prevents us from living fully in the new life. Romans 8:19-20 tells us that creation itself longs to be made new. But if God would plop us, as we are now, into a new and wonderful world, it wouldn’t take long for us to mess it up all over again. If we put ourselves into a new setting, the same old problems will be there because we bring them with us. Think of two examples. First, think about what happens when you go on vacation. It’s wonderful to get away from all the problems and hassles at home and enjoy new surroundings and relaxing or invigorating activities. But there’s a reason why most vacations are only a week or two long. After a while the newness and excitement wears off and the things from back home start to catch up with you. Family squabbles resurface. You find yourself doing some of the same things on vacation that you wanted to get away from: feeling obligations to do certain things, or fretting about situations back home that you wanted to escape. Vacation is great, but it’s only a short break. Second, consider someone in a troubled and broken marriage. She realizes that the problems she has with her husband are intractable, so she divorces him. After all, wasn’t he and the baggage of their marriage the source of her troubles? She develops a new relationship with someone else, only to find herself facing the same problems that she had in her first marriage. Why? Because she still has her own problems that she didn’t address, which infect the new relationship. It happens far more often than you may think! In fact, people who leave a failed relationship often seek a new partner who shares many of the same traits that the old partner had. The patterns of brokenness run that deep. The person herself must change in order to experience a healthy relationship.

The key for us, therefore, is for God to make us new. We need him to change us and transform us. And that’s the good news that we find in verse 5. God says (and by the way, this is the only thing in the entire book that God himself says) “I am making all things new.” He is not sitting around, waiting for the “end” to happen. He is at work, even now, to change us and re-create us. The good news is that we are not frozen in our old categories and situations. People truly can change! And as Ephesians 2:8 reminds us, this is not from ourselves, but is the gracious gift of God. This means several things for us. First, don’t lose hope and think that you or someone around you is doomed to deal with the situation you’re in now. There is always hope, as long as God is on his throne. We have an optimistic faith. Second, never give up on other people. There may be a curmudgeon in your life that makes you miserable, or a pain in the neck (or other parts of your body) that causes you endless aggravation or misery. It’s so easy for us to write off such people as hopeless. They’ll never change, we think. But that is never true! In the first few months of my pastoral ministry, God granted me the privilege of working with an old man who had spent his entire life being an intolerable neighbor and family member. But in the last three weeks of his life, he experienced a complete transformation and reconciled broken relationships. God can always make someone new. One of the most disturbing things that I heard about after the Columbine school shootings was an interview with a youth pastor from the town. He was talking about his interactions with Cassie Bernall, the young woman who said “yes” when the shooters asked her if she was a Christian. She had not always been a Christian. In fact, the youth pastor recalled how she attended some of his church’s events with friends. She was resistant to the gospel, and he considered her a “lost cause” and pretty much gave up on her. Fortunately, God didn’t, and she became involved in a different church where the gospel took root in her life. May the Lord spare us from the attitude of that youth pastor, that we would ever think that someone is a “lost cause.” There may be times that, for our own welfare, we must limit our interactions with some people. But God is always able to make someone new.

It happens because, in a word, “Immanuel.” God is with us. His presence is here with us people, and not simply up in some spiritual heavenly realm. Verse 3 proclaims the wonderful message: “The dwelling of God is with people, and he will live with them.” All the benefits of the new life come from this. Death, mourning, crying, and pain will all disappear as part of the old world, and God With Us wipes away our tears and embraces us as a husband tenderly and lovingly embraces his bride. At times, as we continue to live in the old broken world, God seems so distant from us. It’s hard to be devoted to him and to trust in his power to make things new when it’s so hard to be in touch with him. It’s a constant effort that we know as discipleship.

Jesus speaks to John in verse 6 and claims the same identity that we heard in Revelation 1:8. He is the Alpha and Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet): the beginning and the end. But to say that he is the beginning and the end is to say that he is everything in between. When he calls himself the Alpha and Omega, it’s exactly the same thing as someone saying that they know everything from A to Z. The vitamin pill that contains everything A to Zinc. The car company that has everything from the Altima to Z (the 370Z). And we’ll discuss further in Chapter 22 how he brings life-giving water (for now, refer to Isaiah 551 and John 4:10-14, 7:37-38).

He provides a promise for everyone who “overcomes.” It’s a reminder of the promises that ended each of the seven letters to the churches in Chapters 2 and 3. The Greek word used here is nike: the word for victory. In fact, the Greeks even had a god of victory, named Nike. And yes, in case you’re wondering, that’s where the shoe company gets its name. Wear our sneakers, and you’ll win. “Overcome” seems not to capture the active nature of being victorious or winning. When we become new, we conquer and vanquish the old ways of the world. And even more importantly, we prevail over the old and sinful parts of ourselves. Through the power of God that is present among us, we don’t need to sit in a corner and ache, waiting wistfully for things to change. We can rise up, be strong, and take courage.

Speaking of courage, notice the list of people who will not be included in glories of God’s new creation. This is one of several “vice lists” that we find in the New Testament, and for the most part it’s exactly what you’d expect. The sexually immoral, the murderers, the magicians, and so on. And yes, the liars, which should make us realize that dishonesty puts us in the same camp as adulterers and others who misuse the gift of sexuality. The real surprise, however, is the vice that tops the list: cowardice. Because it’s at the head of the list, we may assume that it is at least equal to the others, if not the worst of all. To be a coward is to fail to recognize and accept God’s presence and power. It is to give too much credit to the opposition: even after it has been totally annihilated! We overcome, or are victorious, when we watch for how God is making things new, and recognize how he is working through us. We win when we know that he is living with us and that he encompasses everything from A to Z.

Revelation 20:7-15 - The Day of Reckoning

2009-12-29T13:18:00.000-05:00

If the beginning of this passage sounds familiar, it should. This is the third time in Revelation that we see the armies of the nations gathered together to attack the people of God. The first time was in 16:16: the famous “battle of Armageddon.” But this passage only says that they gather; it doesn’t tell us what happens or what they do. The second time is in 19:19-21. This time Satan and his followers are defeated, and Satan is thrown into the Abyss for a thousand years. Now we see it happen a third time. But this is the final, complete, and total defeat of Satan and the forces of evil. For reasons not entirely clear to us, the first defeat of Satan led to a thousand-year bondage (in my previous comments I suggested that this was his pre-trial imprisonment as the saints are raised and prepared for their role as co-judges with Jesus). We know all too well that while God is fully sovereign, evil is pernicious and doesn’t give up easily. So this is truly the final battle. Because Revelation doesn’t necessarily describe events in chronological order, it makes sense to understand this as the battle that follows the gathering of armies in 16:16.

The army that gathers against God and his people come from every nation. They are the ones who have been deceived by Satan. After all, why else would anyone attack God? Not only is he all-powerful, but he wants nothing but blessing and joy for all people (1 Timothy 2:4). It’s only by the devil’s trickery that anyone would want to oppose God. But let’s face it: all of us are deceived like this all the time. Hardly a day goes by that each one of us thinks that we know better than God, or that God isn’t really looking out for us, so we have to do it ourselves.

John tells us that the army comes from “Gog and Magog.” Don’t bother looking for these places on the map. They are mythical names that we read about in Ezekiel 38 and 39, to describe the evil and terrifying people who attack Israel. In Ezekiel’s day, Gog and Magog were the Babylonians. But the Babylonians were only the embodiment of Gog at that time. Gog is at work all the time, when people gather together to fight against God and his will. But the full expression of Gog and Magog will come in this final confrontation.

The first thing to notice is the universal and totalizing aspect of this event. It includes all people from across the globe. No one can sit back and watch without participating. There’s no such thing as abstaining or not participating. As the old song puts it, we will all have to answer the question: “Whose side are you leaning on?” You are either part of the army of the people that Satan has deceived, or you are in the camp of God’s beloved people. There will be no spectators or fence-sitters. The question for us is this: what does it take to be a member of God’s camp, and not one of the soldiers in Satan’s army? The answer is relatively simple. First, accept the love that God offers to us. And second: resist Satan’s deception. Cling to the truth that God provides. Satan is a wily snake, and his lies aren’t always easy to detect. In fact, the moment that you feel confident that you have him figured out is the moment when you’re in the greatest danger of getting sucked in.

The second thing to notice is how the defeat of Satan’s hordes is accomplished. There’s no call to arms for God’s people. There’s no dramatic battle, like Hollywood loves to provide as the climax in situations like this. Instead, there is a simple description of God’s fire coming down from heaven and destroying them all. This should come to us as no surprise; in Revelation we have repeatedly seen God destroy evil quickly, easily, and straightforwardly. It’s amazing to think of how much thought people put into dramatic confrontations between good and evil. God wins, and his victory is never in doubt. He doesn’t even have to break a sweat to make it happen. The “battle” ends with the final and eternal punishment of the Unholy Trinity: the dragon, sea beast, and land beast that we first met in Chapters 12 and 13. This time, there’s no such thing as putting them in a holding tank like the Abyss. And there’s no limit on the time that they must endure it. They go to an eternal torment. Satan, who has been deceiving people and leading us astray ever since he convinced Eve to eat the fruit, is removed forever.

After Satan’s doom, we learn about the final judgment of the people of the earth. In a sense, this what everything has been leading up to throughout the book of Revelation. All the way back in the letters to the seven churches in Chapters 2 and 3, we were told about the promise of glory for the faithful, and the doom of the wicked. In Chapter 5, the martyrs under the throne demanded the punishment of their tormentors. But this final day of reckoning isn’t just a feature of the book of Revelation: it’s a factor that runs deep in our faith. Perhaps Psalm 73 is the best expression of the final accounting that we’re hoping for. As the psalmist puts it, the lives of the faithful are full of struggles and difficulty, while the wicked appear to skate through life fat and happy. Where’s the justice? It’s a question that Job struggled with for chapter after chapter. It’s the question that prevents many people from coming to faith. As Rabbi Kushner puts it, why do bad things happen to good people? And conversely, why do good things happen to bad people? Remember: Revelation was originally written to believers who experienced first-hand the worst that the world can dish out. They were faithful, but they suffered. And they saw their persecutors living well. Where is the justice?

Our Christian hope consists of two aspects. First, we await the time when the prosperous evil-doers of Psalm 73 will get what they deserve. We, like the martyrs of Revelation 5, look for the time when those who have caused so much pain and suffering will get what’s coming to them. Second, and more importantly, we await the time when our faithfulness will be vindicated. We trust that God will bless our steadfastness in the midst of suffering and deception. In my opinion, this second aspect is the more important of the two. After all, we only read a couple of verses here that describe the torment of the wicked in the lake of fire and burning sulfur. But we get two entire chapters that describe the glories of the life in God’s eternal city. Our faith should focus more upon the goodness that God has in store for those who love him, and a bit less on blood-lust and vengeance.

Detractors to the faith may mock this hope as “pie in the sky in the sweet bye and bye,” or as “opiate for the masses.” And to be honest, our hope for God’s final judgment can be misused to encourage passivity in the face of injustice and evil. But the reality is that we really do expect the time will come when accounts will be settled. This gives us the courage to act now, and to endure what we know in our bones just isn’t right: whether it’s the prosperity of the wicked or good people being treated unfairly (whether by other people or by seemingly random circumstances).

John’s description of the final judgment is pretty straightforward. Jesus sits on the judgment seat, and all the dead are brought before him. The records of what everyone has done are opened, and they are assigned their fate for glory or doom accordingly. It’s a scene akin to the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25. The record books are a reminder of Matthew 10:26-28, which tells us that everything we do in secret will be revealed. That which ha been concealed will be exposed and judged.

But there’s a problem with this description of the final day of reckoning: we will all be judged according to what we have done. But hasn’t Christ removed our sins, so that we won’t be judged by them? There’s no hint of God’s grace in the midst of this entire description of the final judgment. I don’t know about you, but grace is what I’m counting on when I appear before Christ’s judgment seat! I have plenty of self-condemnation over what I’ve done, and I dread to think of how God will treat me over it. However, if you look at the description of the judgment scene more closely, you’ll see the answer. Yes, the record books of what everyone has done are opened up. But there’s another book that is used at judgment: the book of life. This is the register of God’s chosen people: those who have been granted life through Christ’s atoning work. If your name is in the book of life, that trumps whatever can be found in the other books.

Revelation 20:1-6 – Free At Last

2009-12-03T16:47:00.000-05:00

George Caird was a prominent Biblical scholar of a generation or two ago, and in his commentary on Revelation, he had this to say about Revelation 20: "We come now to a passage which, more than any other in the book, has been the paradise of cranks and fanatics on the one hand and literalists on the other." That’s a mouthful, considering the many other passages in this book that inspire so much speculation and excitement. So consider yourself fully warned!

At first glance, the passage seems pretty straightforward. Jesus defeated Satan in the end of Chapter 19. So now Satan goes to his doom. He’s chained up and tossed into the Abyss (the same Abyss from which the locust army came in Chapter 9). The Abyss is sealed up, and God’s faithful people join Jesus in his glory and authority. And that’s great news! The great deceiver has been locked away, evil has been defeated, and God has vindicated the people who were faithful to him through so much.

Well, yes and no. Yes, God’s final and complete reign begins. And in Chapters 21 and 22 we’ll find a full description of this glory that we live in hope for. And yes, Satan is defeated. But no, it’s not completely finished yet. Things are still provisional and incomplete. Satan is locked away, but only for a thousand years. God’s faithful people are raised up and join in his reign, but only the martyrs who suffered for their faith. The Bible says specifically “those who had been beheaded.” I’m guessing that was the Romans’ favorite way of dealing with Christians. But even the most literal-minded among us would assume that if someone was martyred by stoning, or by being fed to lions, the promise applies to them as well. Do you think that the actual method of execution makes a difference for a martyr’s destiny? But this opens the door to some more questions. Does this promise apply only to people who died for the faith (whether by beheading or otherwise)? Or does it apply to everyone who has suffered for the faith, by bearing testimony to Christ and refusing to accept the standards of the world around us? If this is the case, how much suffering must one experience to qualify? Is it enough to be tortured? To be arrested? To be made fun of? To have to get up early on Sunday to go to church? If you really want to stretch it, you could say that anyone who is faithful suffers in some way for the faith. But that seems to run counter to the plain meaning of this passage. It suggests that those who suffer to the point of death receive special consideration in the afterlife. They are the ones who will rule in heaven with Christ, and will join him in judgment. On the other hand, however, Paul tells us that all Christians will share in the blessing of ruling and judging with Christ in heaven (Romans 8:16-17, 1 Corinthians 6:2-3). So the question remains: who is included in the “first resurrection:” just the martyrs (however you define the term), or all Christians?

And if this isn’t enough to make your head spin, we haven’t even made it to the real bugbear of this passage: the idea of a thousand years. Satan isn’t locked up forever: he’s only given a prison term of 1,000 years. Sure, that’s a long time, but wouldn’t we rather it be a permanent incarceration? Think of criminals convicted of horrible crimes like mass murder or child molestation. It seems as though any possibility of their eventual release is something that irks people. That’s even more true in this case. Why wouldn’t God just throw Satan into the Abyss forever? Instead, we get this description that he will come back out after 1,000 years. And beginning with verse 7, we’ll find out what happens after his release. Speculation into this matter is called “millenarianism,” from the Latin word for a thousand. What is this thousand-year reign of Christ with the saints all about? There are three major viewpoints about it. The first is called “post-millennialism,” which says that Christ will come to earth after the 1,000 years. In general, post-millennialists claim that the church is (or will) rule over the earth during the 1,000 years, and that Christ will come at the end of that period. This, by the way, led to massive frenzy in western Europe in the year 1000, because people thought that the time had come. To be honest, I have trouble accepting that notion, mostly because it assumes that the church is ruling the earth now. Not only is there plenty of evidence to the contrary, but Revelation itself makes a big deal of the fact that evil is running rampant on the earth. If you’re a post-millennialist, the best you can hope for is the time in the future when the church runs the world on God’s behalf. The second theory is “pre-millennialism,” which explains that Christ will return to earth literally, that he will raise the believers, and that he will reign on earth for a thousand years. This is probably the most common understanding of this passage today. A third version is called “a-millennialism,” which argues that there isn’t going to be some thousand-year period of time like this at all. It’s all symbolic.

All of these arguments avoid the real question of the passage: why is there a thousand-year period at all? Even if you’re an a-millennialist who says that it’s symbolic, what is it symbolic of? If you’re a pre-millennialist, what’s the point for Christ to reign on the earth for this period of time, instead of just going straight to the glory of heaven? And why is Satan let loose again?

It’s just as Professor Caird said. There has been so much speculation about this passage, which has led to so many different theories, that it makes your head spin. The reason for all this confusion is simple. First, we aren’t given much information to work with, so we have to guess at what’s really going on. And second, we don’t understand what this thousand years is all about. I’m inclined to understand the thousand years as a symbol for a really long time (just like the 144,000 elect of Chapter 7 are an immense number of God’s people and not a specific number). But I don’t have a clue why there’s an end to it.

Here’s my best guess, but I’m not going to stake anything on it. Satan is penned up for a while, and God raises all of the faithful to join in Christ’s glory and authority. Because they are going to be judges with Jesus, they need to be resurrected first. It’s only after they’ve been raised and have had some time to enjoy the blessings of life with Christ that the final judgment takes place. And since Satan is one of the ones to be judged, he has to be released for “sentencing.” The rest of the passage explains what happens to Satan and to those who had not accepted Christ’s gift. So in this case, Satan’s time in the Abyss is like a criminal’s incarceration before trial. God is putting together the elect to serve as judges with Christ. And once he does so, court is in session and Satan gets what’s coming to him. (As it turns out, being trapped in an Abyss is too good for him. But that’s a topic for the next section.)

Instead of focusing on the arcane and mysterious stuff about the millennium and the first and second resurrections, I’d like to look instead at the main theme of the passage. And it’s pretty straightforward and simple: Satan is locked away, and those who are faithful to God are vindicated. All of the suffering and deprivation that they went through came to an end, and the hope that they had based their life upon came true. To put it crassly, the faithful are like the children who have been good all year, in hopes that Santa would bring them the goodies that they put on their lists. All the hard work of doing chores and being polite to adults finally paid off with lots of packages under the tree.

I’d like to look at it somewhat differently, and a lot less selfishly. Our world, and each of us individually, has suffered. Satan and the forces of evil have taken their toll on us all. Misery and distress surrounds us in all sorts of ways: warfare, disease, poverty, injustice, violence, ignorance, famine…. The list goes on and on. It’s on the news every night and in the newspaper every day. It’s almost impossible to be cynical when someone claims to have an answer to the problems that we face. Generally, we assume that they’re just trying to take advantage of us and make themselves a little bit less miserable by making the rest of us more miserable. But when we’re really honest with ourselves, we realize that the problem isn’t just “out there” among all of those rascals that cause problems. It isn’t even just plain dumb luck that strikes one person with cancer and crashes a hurricane into a particular coastline. The forces of evil aren’t just around us; they lie within us as well. Some of us are so painfully aware of the brokenness and trouble within our lives that we can barely function. Others of us know it’s there, but do our best to soldier on in spite of it all, and hope that maybe we can accomplish enough good to make up for the bad that we cause. Still others of us refuse to acknowledge fatal flaw within us. Maybe we’re so proud that we don’t even recognize our own faults. Or maybe they frighten us so much that we don’t want to acknowledge that they exist.

The good news for us, and the hope that moves us, is that this sorry state of affairs isn’t the final chapter in the story. A time will come when evil will be wrapped up in chains, locked up, and thrown into a bottomless pit. The brokenness and the pain that we suffer, and that we cause, will be removed. We’ll finally be released from all that makes life miserable, and we’ll be able to enjoy the glory and the joy that God wants for us all. At times, it may seem like it’s a long way off. And we can’t imagine how the time could possibly come, or the problems could possibly disappear. But that’s our hope, and that’s what keeps us going. Even if we face something as horrible as beheading, the time will come when God will free us from the chains that evil and suffering have wrapped us in.

Revelation 18:21-24 – A Mirror for Medusa

2009-11-05T17:10:00.001-05:00

Medusa was one of the more terrifying monsters of Greek mythology. She had snakes on her head instead of hair, which was bad enough. But what made her truly terrifying was that if anyone looked at her, they would turn into stone. So, how can you fight an enemy that you can’t look at? According to the ancient legends, a hero named Perseus killed Medusa by looking at her reflection on his mirror-like shield. Then, like the enterprising warrior that he was, he used Medusa’s head as a weapon for himself. He’d show up for battle and hold her head up high (while being careful to look the other way). It wasn’t long until the other soldiers would look at the head. Then, instead of facing an army, Perseus was standing in the middle of a statuary.

I’m going to take this mythological tale, and give it a slight twist in order to help us understand this passage. Imagine that Perseus used his mirror to defeat Medusa, but instead of using it to look at her reflection, he held it up to her so that she had to look at her own reflection. In the way that I want to re-write this ancient tale (as disrespectful as that may be), Medusa sees herself, and by looking at herself, turns to stone. Perseus is smart enough to turn Medusa’s own weapon against herself. (Again, I apologize for messing with classic mythology. And there may even be a different myth that makes the point I’m creating here. If so, I apologize).

My tale of Medusa is a fanciful way to describe the downfall of Babylon, the embodiment of evil and oppression in the world. The point isn’t very obvious from this passage all by itself. But as I’ve said before, Revelation is in the back of the Bible for a reason. You need to know the rest of the story before you can make sense out of it. For people like John’s readers who knew Scripture inside and out, the words of this mighty angel who declares the doom of Babylon would sound awfully familiar. And its echo of familiar words would give them insight both into why Babylon fell, and hope for times when they are under Babylon’s heel.

The best way to understand this passage is to hold it beside Jeremiah 25. So let’s look a bit at what this great Old Testament prophet had to say. He brought God’s word during the final days of the kingdom of Judah. For many generations, the nation had slipped away from faithful obedience to God. There had been one or two promising bright points, but the downward slide was painfully evident. It had finally reached the point that God decided he had had enough. It was time for him to punish Judah. So he gave power to the empire of Babylon—yes, Babylon. This is the real Babylon that ends up becoming the symbol of powerful evil in Revelation. He gives the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar the permission and ability to destroy Judah. Under Nebuchadnezzar’s terrifying power, Judah is decimated and becomes a wasteland. Jeremiah describes how joy and productivity will disappear from Judah. No more music or joyful sounds. No more wedding celebrations. No more millstones grinding wheat into food. No more light, even. It’s a devastating and sobering prediction. Jeremiah declares that Babylon will turn happiness into sorrow and prosperity into poverty. But it only happens because God has given the Babylonians the ability to do it. Ultimately, it is God who destroys Judah.

That’s the message from Jeremiah. It’s a sobering one. Under God’s direction and authority, Babylon brings Jerusalem low. But the Revelation passage tells us that it’s only the first act of God’s incredible drama. Here we read how Babylon itself will be destroyed. The similarities between the descriptions of Jerusalem’s demise and Babylon’s destruction are uncanny. John, led by the Holy Spirit, certainly wanted us to read this description of his vision with an eye to Jeremiah. The same doom that Babylon brought to Judah now comes upon Babylon itself. What happened to Judah will happen to Babylon. Babylon had been like Medusa, turning all her neighbors to stone under her terrible gaze. Now, the mirror is turned on Medusa herself, and she suffers the same fate that she had visited upon others. There’s a sense of balance and justice here. The one who causes suffering succumbs to her own weapons.

I’m particularly struck by the angel’s comment at the very end of verse 23: “By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.” We’ve spoken before about the intoxicating, seductive nature of Babylon’s appeal to the world. Everyone (or practically everyone) was led astray from the universal circle of praise around God by Babylon’s allure. Luxury and power had a grip on people that they couldn’t escape. It truly was like a magic spell: something that blinds people to the truth and to what really matters, as they follow Babylon like rats following the Pied Piper. Or, to use the example I started with, everyone is destroyed by Babylon’s terrible, magical gaze that turns flesh into stone. But now, Babylon falls victim to her own magic. Like Medusa turned to stone by her own reflection, Babylon’s power works against itself. The empire that brought sorrow to Judah now faces the exact same sorrow herself. What goes around comes around.

We can pick up three points from this lesson that can help us understand our own lives more fully.
First, be careful not to fall for the spell: don’t look at Medusa. This is the same lesson we’ve learned before. We live in an enchanted forest. Don’t eat the mushrooms! Hold onto the truth of God’s love and faithfulness, which is the surest antidote we can find to Babylon’s evil charms.
Second, be sure you’re not Medusa, or you’ll have to taste your own medicine. What Babylon did to others is what happened to her. It’s a weird way to look at the Golden Rule. If people treated you the way that you treat them, would you be satisified? If not, it’s time to make a change.
And third, if Medusa is attacking you, there’s hope. The one causing your suffering is going to suffer herself. We gain freedom from our captors when they succumb to their own spells. God’s power brings hope in situations of hopelessness. Medusa can be turned to stone.

Revelation 18:9-20 – Somebody Is You

2009-10-30T10:03:00.002-04:00

Sometimes the most gruesome images in films are the ones that you don’t see, but are only hinted at. One a recent crime TV show, the investigators were warned that the victim had been savagely murdered. We saw the look of horror in the eyes, and we heard them deliberated over what kind of a monstrous person would be able to do such a thing. But we, the viewers, never saw the body itself. Notwithstanding the popularity of graphically violent movies like the Saw series, the scariest nightmare is the one that you never really see. In its time, “Alien” was the freakiest special effects/science fiction/horror movie. But you never really got a good look at the alien monster that was terrifying everyone. Horror and destruction are like a beautiful woman: it’s better when there’s something left to the imagination.

So in case you think you missed something, you really didn’t. Up until verse 8, we’ve been told that Babylon the Great, the sinful presence of power and corruption and greed in the world, would be destroyed. And now, suddenly, in verse 9, we encounter people who are mourning because of its collapse. They weep because Babylon’s luxuries are burning, but we’re never told exactly how that conflagration started. I suspect that we’re not told for several reasons. First, as I explained, the undescribed tragedy is the one that grips us the most. Second, we don’t really need to know the details because we know the source of Babylon’s destruction is God. If the specifics really mattered, they’d be listed in the Bible. I’m convinced that if we really need to know something, the Bible will make it clear. What is clear here is that the sparkle and dazzle of Babylon that has enticed people for eons will collapse into nothing more than an object of pity. Exactly how it happens isn’t nearly as important as the fact that it does. God loves to surprise us with the unexpected, and I expect that this will be one more example of that. Third, what matters most to us is not how Babylon will be destroyed, but that the fact that it will be, and what the result of that destruction will be. Remember: Revelation is written for believers caught in the grips of oppressive and demonic powers at work in the world. Its primary message is one of hope: God will destroy these powers and establish his glorious and eternal realm of joy and peace. Secondarily, Revelation’s message is one of warning for those who are caught up in or seduced by Babylon’s power. If you’ve bet on Babylon’s horse, you’re going to lose your shirt, and then some. Even as we hope for and expect the full revelation of the kingdom of God, we must beware the temptation to participate in and trust in what Babylon has to offer. The temptation isn’t merely to enjoy what Babylon promises: political power, financial luxury, prestige, power, glory, pleasure, and the like. We are also tempted to share in the very attitude that makes Babylon what it is: the belief that we can build secure and satisfying lives for ourselves without God’s grace and mercy. Babylon is built on pride. When we live like Babylon, we act as though we don’t need God. We think that we can manage things in our lives by ourselves. This is an insidious attitude that we can very easily fall into, both because of our own inherent sinful nature and also because it’s the atmosphere we live in. It’s so pervasive that we church-going Christians can’t afford to sit back in judgment of “those people” who don’t go to church or read their Bibles or pray. Sure, there are many people caught up in secular lifestyles for whom reliance upon God is as foreign as hunting mastodons with spears. But far too many of us who warm pews every week and begin or end our days with prayer and devotion also share the attitude of Babylon. Once Sunday morning is finished or we’re done with our prayer time, we go back to “life as usual.” And in this case, “usual” means “living like everyone else.” We make our plans and work to accomplish our dreams or achieve our goals. But we do so with the sense that we can do it ourselves, without God’s gracious presence blessing our every act. We do so without considering how our thoughts and words and deeds can bring glory to our Lord.

In this passage, three groups of people lament the collapse of Babylon. First, the kings and rulers mourn because Babylon has lost her power (verses 9-10). Second, the merchants grieve because Babylon has lost her riches and luxurious splendor (verses 11-17a). Third, the sailors are sorrowful because Babylon has lost its worldwide reach (verses 17b-19). These are three features of Babylon that we’ve seen in Chapter 17: seemingly irresistible power, incredible luxury, and influence over all the nations. Whatever God did to bring Babylon down, he did so in a way that fractured all three of these significant features of prideful and demonically-inspired living.

We need to notice something crucial about the triple woe over Babylon. Each woe is declared by the people who are closely related to it: kings and power, merchants and merchandise, sailors and worldwide outreach. It could be as simple as the fact that each of these groups mourns that particular aspect of Babylon’s demise that affects their lives most directly. And that makes sense. Last year, as the economy took a nose dive, people who live on investment income were most concerned about what happened to the stock market. Families caught in ballooning mortgages were most aware of the housing crisis. Those who work in threatened industries worried about job losses. It makes perfect sense: in the face of widespread catastrophe we are most aware of how the disaster affects our own lives.

But there’s more going on here than just that. The kings, merchants, and sailors were not simple pawns in the hands of Babylon. They were full participants in what Babylon had done to the world. They were complicit in Babylon’s arrogant denial of God’s authority. When we live by Babylon’s rules, we contribute to Babylon’s crimes. So when Babylon collapses and we suffer as a result, we should not merely mourn what we have lost. We should also confess and repent from what we have done to participate in the systemic rebellion against God’s will. It’s easy for us to complain that “somebody” is making a mess of the world. At times, we’ll even attach the name of a specific person to the “somebody” that is to blame for how the world fails to operate as God wishes it to.

The news for us is that “somebody” is each of us. Every time we fall for the temptation all around us and deep within us to live life by our own abilities and wits, in order to accomplish our own goals and dreams, we are part of Babylon. And it is our own demise that this passage describes. We may try to excuse ourselves by saying “I’m only one person. I don’t really make that much of a difference.” Perhaps. But if enough of us think that way, and if enough of us support larger systems that operate this way, then we make a terrible difference. I remember my sixth grade social studies teacher who explained it this way. “If you live out in the wilderness all by yourself and you pee in the river, it doesn’t really matter. But there’s a whole city of you peeing in that same river, it’s going to turn yellow.” It’s the reverse of the well-known story of the little boy throwing stranded starfishes back into the ocean. He couldn’t save them all, but he could save some. We, individually, may not make that much of a difference in the larger scope of things. But we make some sort of a difference. And if enough of us do it, or join together to do it, then we can help to challenge the power of Babylon. Here are just a few examples:
• Businesses that are open on Sundays violate the fourth commandment to keep the Sabbath. But we Christians go out to eat and shop after church.
• We are concerned about environmental degradation, but we continue to enjoy living in a throw-away society.
• We complain about our government officials but we don’t vote and we don’t take the time to express our concerns to them.
• We see problems in our community but sit in our homes and wish that “somebody” would do something about it.
Until we recognize that we are “somebody,” Babylon will continue to get stronger and stronger. We ally ourselves with the forces that challenge God’s authority. We’re just like the kings and merchants and rulers who lament Babylon’s loss of power, luxury, and influence without recognizing that they took part in it.

The passage ends with good news and with hope. Sure, it takes great commitment and sacrifice to resist Babylon. You’ll be like a fish swimming upstream, as everyone else wonders why you’re so “weird.” Sometimes they’ll do more than just wonder: they’ll make your life miserable. Maybe they do it because you’re interfering with their self-focused agendas. Or maybe they don’t like the uncomfortable reminder you present to them that life could be different. There have been times when the people under Babylon’s spell have attacked and killed those striving to be faithful to God. Our passage ends with words of rejoicing which replace the cries of woe. Babylon’s downfall means vindication for God’s people. When the Lord’s power is fully revealed, those who resisted the temptation to live for self and Babylon will enjoy the glories that God has prepared for us all.

Will this happen at the end of time? But it also happens right now. Each day, God will give us glimmers of the rejoicing that will come as we continue to resist Babylon.

Revelation 18:1-8 – Don’t Drink the Kool Aid

2009-10-19T11:31:00.001-04:00

Babylon has already been introduced to us in lurid detail in Chapter 17, presented as the prostitute on the beast. She is Rome in particular, at least in John’s time. But more generally, Babylon is the world systems that oppress and persecute people while pursuing their own goals and agendas instead of participating in the creation-wide praise of God that we first learned about in Chapter 4. The time has now come for us to see the doom of Babylon.

The fall of Babylon begins with the pronouncement of an angel with “great authority” and brilliant splendor. The angel’s authority means that his message is worth listening to, because it comes from the One with true authority (the antithesis of Babylon’s “power”). His brilliance is a reflection of the radiance of the One he worships and serves. This is a reminder of the “mighty” angel of Chapter 10, who also bears the characteristics of the God he works for. When the world tries to convince us of what is powerful and desirable and impressive, we need this testimony about authority instead of power, purpose instead of desire, glory instead of flash-and-dazzle. There is so much deception in the world that we are in desperate need of the truth in the midst of the lies. As they say, if someone tells a lie long enough, everyone assumes that it’s true (think of the “death panels” in the current health care debate, for example).

The angel declares that “Babylon the Great” has fallen. It’s a bit of irony for the angel to call Babylon “great.” That’s what the people of the world think and believe. The powers and systems that surround us – political, economic, military, technological, cultural – are so all-encompassing that we may believe that they can’t be resisted. “You can’t fight city hall,” and city hall is a brutal force that we may as well join since we can’t beat. The angel’s words come as a bracing wake-up call. “You think ‘Babylon’ is great? That it’s irresistible and unshakeable? Well, it’s not! It has collapsed like a cardboard shack in the rain.” The angel points out two features about Babylon. First, it is demonic. It is the home of demons and evil spirits (since birds flew in the air, the ancients sometimes considered them to be quasi-spiritual beings. The dove represented the Holy Spirit, and “unclean” birds were the demonic). We rarely recognize this truth. It takes the word of God’s messenger to make it apparent to us. Second, the nations and the kings and the economic leaders have fallen for the lie. The angel describes their acceptance of Babylon’s appeal with adultery, drunkenness, and luxury. Sexuality, intoxication, and acquisitiveness are urges that can be followed addictively to excess. They bought into the lie of how wonderful Babylon is, and how wonderful everything it has to offer is. Like any other addiction, the deeper they go into it, the stronger hold it takes over them until they can’t escape, even if they wanted to. But of course, when you’re addicted, you don’t want to. You lose total control, even of yourself. And the irony is that you started drinking from Babylon’s cup thinking that it would give you power. The expression “Don’t drink the Kool Aid” comes from the tragic end of Jim Jones’ cult in Guyana, when he had everyone drink poisoned Kool Aid as the authorities began to close in. Babylon’s cup is a bit more potent, with “maddening wine” that not only kills your body but destroys your soul. The angel declares the guilt of Rome to indicate that it deserves the punishment that is coming upon it.

After the angel is done speaking, another voice from heaven sounds out. We don’t know exactly who or what is speaking now (another angel? the altar? the temple? the throne? one of the living creatures? God Himself?), but there can be no doubt that the message comes from God. There are two elements to this proclamation.

First, “Come out!” God summons his people to abandon the worldly pursuits that surround them. This is a literal command, as the elect are to flee from the city that God is going to destroy. But on another level, it’s a command for all of us to take to heart as well. We are in the world, but not of the world. There’s something very different about us Christians, and we should beware of the tendency to conform to what’s around us. We start to look and act like the people around us. Does this mean we should all become like the Amish, or live like the Compound Christians? Maybe not. Our purpose is not to isolate ourselves from the world, since we are to carry light into it. Nor should we focus on external features. For us to come out of Babylon, we need to disavow the values and goals of a fallen world. One of the most powerful values of the world we live in, which is emphasized in verses 3 and 7, is luxury. People of our world want to get “stuff” to make life easier and more comfortable, or to increase our status. It was true in John’s time, but it’s no less insidious today. Consider the orgy that Christmas has become, as everyone struggles to come up with gift ideas for people who already have more than they know what do to with. Things that were luxuries just a few years ago are now considered necessities. Do we “need” them to survive? No. But we think that we do. And this touches every part of our world. Even the Amish, who give every appearance to have turned their back on the world, fall victim to this. Anyone who has ever lived in a community where there are Amish can tell you that they are not the quaint, naïve, simplistic folk that they are commonly portrayed to be. It sells souvenirs, but it’s not true. There’s just as much greed and pride among the Amish as there is among the “English.” And I’ve learned that it’s present in less affluent societies as well. The first time I went to Ghana, I was amazed at how happy everyone was, despite (or maybe because) they didn’t have many material possessions or financial resources. As I’ve gotten more familiar with the nation, I’ve discovered that there is just as much greed and bickering there as we have in the US. It looks different, because their circumstances are different. But the call of Babylon is all around us. Everyone is addicted to her drink.

How many of the world’s values do we take on? Do we focus our values upon the political persuasions of whatever party we adhere to? Do we devote ourselves to the financial goals that “everyone else” has? Do we identify ourselves with earthly categories or groups? Do we accept the world’s definition of what’s acceptable, and of what’s desirable? That’s what the heavenly voice calls us to abandon, like Lot fleeing from Sodom.

And that’s the second part of the heavenly proclamation. Destruction is coming. Verse 6 echoes :the words of comfort from Isaiah 40:1-2, but with a very different effect. Both passages proclaim that God will repay people double for their sins. It’s very similar to the message of the law given to Moses that crimes must be repaid double. As Exodus 22:4 puts it, “If the stolen animal is found alive in his possession – whether ox or donkey or sheep – he must pay back double.” Whereas Isaiah presents the message as a source of comfort (“Your hardship is over. You’re done paying for your sin”), Revelation is a warning (“You’re going to get back double for the trouble you’ve caused”). It’s easy for us to think that there’s no reckoning of this sort. After all, if God loves us, and if Christ died to free us from our sin, why should we have to pay for our sins at all, let alone “double”? But that’s not the gospel message at all, even though people still make the mistake that Paul tried to correct for the Romans (Romans 6:1) and the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 6:12-17). When we are saved, we are not merely rescued from the dire consequences of our sins. We become different people, with our lives focused in a new direction. It’s not enough to accept Christ’s gift, while still guzzling Babylon’s poison.

The last thing to notice is that destruction bears the mark of the offense. Punishment comes in the form of the sin. Babylon oppressed others, and so she will become oppressed herself. She sought glory, so she will come to grief. She amassed wealth, so she will sit in poverty. She desired luxury, so she will endure torture. The poison that kills comes in the same cup that seems to be so wonderful.

Revelation 17:7-18 – Never Trust a Cheater

2009-10-15T17:28:00.001-04:00

Earlier this year, Arlen Specter surprised the Washington watchers by switching his party identification from Republican to Democrat. As someone who respects politicians who don’t follow the party line (my favorite political animals are rhinos and blue dogs), I thought Sen. Specter’s change of party affiliation was a nice development. But I am definitely in the minority. A recent poll of Pennsylvania voters shows that both Republicans and Democrats think less of him because of this switch. It’s understandable that Republicans consider Sen. Specter to be persona non grata, especially because his switch gave the Democrats a potentially filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But wouldn’t you expect the Democrats to be happy? Not necessarily. Even if you benefit from someone’s switch allegiance, you’re still likely to think poorly of them and to lose respect for them. If they betrayed someone else’s trust, there’s a chance that they’ll betray yours. If the TV cop shows are to be believed, police benefit from confidential informants (or “snitches”). But they have no respect for them, because they see them as people who will sell out their friends if the price is right. Americans consider Benedict Arnold to be the scoundrel of the American Revolution, but I doubt the British thought much better of him. I don’t mean to imply that Arlen Specter is a Benedict Arnold, although I suspect there are many who would do so. My point is this: if you’re the kind of person who would let people down who thought they could trust you, then nobody’s going to trust you. Even the people you help.

In the book of Revelation, we’re seeing a lot of evil. Or, to word it more accurately, we’re finding a lot of descriptions of the evil that fills our world. And we learn that evil and suffering aren’t just happening because of chance, or even merely because of misguided human choices. There are spiritual influences at work in our world that are behind the nasty stuff that we endure. Most prominently, we read about people worshiping and giving their allegiance to the “beast,” or the Satanic competitor with God for control of the world. People and nations abandon God and good and cooperate with the demonic and destructive. However, we would be sorely mistaken if we assumed that everyone in the camp of evil was happy and content with each other, or that they play well together as one big happy team. The division of the world between the godly and the profane is not simply a difference between two competing camps that are roughly similar, like we may view conflicts like the Axis and Allied forces in World War I. They fought for different purposes, but ran things pretty similarly. There is an inherent difference between good and evil that extends beyond the fact that they are working for different purposes. They operate in different ways. And the people on either side relate with each other differently.

First, let’s think about how the people of God relate (or should relate!) with each other. There are an overwhelming number of passages that describe the unity that we share with each other, and the ways that are to support and encourage each other. For just a few examples, consider Psalm 133:1, Ephesians 4:3-6, Romans 12:10, 15-16, Romans 15:5-6, John 13:34-35, 17:23, Acts 2:44-46, 4:32-35, I Corinthians 1:10, and Hebrews 10:24-25. These are just a few examples! Even the name of our church , “Old Union,” testifies to the unity and mutual support that we are to share as God’s people. In a sense, we’re like the Marines, who never leave a man behind. We work together and support each other for God’s glory. It’s not just a good idea; it’s an inherent feature of what it means to be on the side of blessing.

At times, we may be tempted to think that the same thing is true among the forces of evil. We may assume that the followers of Satan are just as united as the people of God are, and that the only difference is that they are united behind a different leader. But nothing could be farther from the truth. If you are brought together by a spirit of rebellion, then rebellion is always going to be part of your nature. Here’s another way to understand it. The motivation for sin is often selfishness or pride. We want more for ourselves than we deserve, because we think that we are better than we are. So we take from God and others what belong to them, and assume (or kid ourselves into believing) that we deserve it. Or, maybe we don’t think that we deserve it, but our appetites and desires overwhelm our better judgment and we just go for it anyway. (Did Bernie Madoff think he deserved all those billions of dollars? Or did he just take it because he wanted it?). No matter how you look at it, evil is self-centered. It’s about getting what you want for you. There’s no sense of unity or shared purpose, unless you think that you will benefit better individually by banding together with others. But even then, you have to be careful. As the saying goes, there’s no honor among thieves. For a good example of this, remember the bank heist at the beginning of last year’s Batman move, “The Dark Knight.” A team of robbers work together to knock off a bank, but each of them kills their colleague after he has fulfilled his purpose, so that the Joker could leave with all the money for himself.

And this is exactly what we find in our Bible passage. We met the prostitute and the beast in the first six verses of the chapter, when I explained that they represented the seductive allure of power. I touched on the fact that the pride of power was most evident in John’s day in the Roman Empire. Now, we can explore the relationship between the prostitute and the beast that she rides upon a little closer. First, John provides some very thinly veiled references to Rome in his description of the prostitute (verse 9 alludes to the city on seven hills, verse 10 to the Roman emperors, and verse 15 to Rome’s domination of the nations). Fair enough. But the beast upon whom the prostitute rides is an uneasy mount. The beast is, of course, a version of the beasts that we met in Chapter 13. Verse 8’s reminder of the beast coming out of the Abyss brings the events of Chapter 9 back to mind. It is Satan’s power at work in human affairs. The woman, Rome, has attained her position by allying herself with the beast, Satan. But it is a shaky alliance, because neither the woman nor the beast have any sense of loyalty to each other. They’re both in it for themselves, and the only reason they’re working with the other one is to advance their own goals. Once the partner has outlived his or her usefulness, they turn on each other like the robbers in the Batman movie. That’s why verse 12 says that the kings of Rome (the horns) will only reign for an hour. Their time for usefulness will pass quickly.

The beast, the prostitute, and the peoples who ally themselves with them will be defeated by the Lamb, Jesus Christ. We’ll see that victory in Chapters 18 and 19. But the downfall of the beast and the prostitute is practically inevitable, because of their character and because of their reasons for being together in the first place. As Psalm 7 and other passages of Scripture point out, evil leads to its own downfall. Much of what we consider to be God’s judgment or punishment is simply God allowing evil to proceed to its own natural consequences. You dig a pit, and you’re going to fall into it. You lead a destructive lifestyle, and you’re going to destroy yourself. It’s a concept that the cliché, “give him enough rope to hang himself with,” is based upon.

So, in order to win his victory over evil, Christ first allows the forces of evil to proceed to their own logical consequences. The beast turns against the prostitute. The kings and the peoples turn against each other as they seek to advance themselves on the backs of each other. The legions of Satan end up looking like the army of Midian after Gideon’s soldiers sounded their horns (Judges 7:19-25). The easiest way to defeat an enemy is to let them destroy themselves.

The unity that we share is not simply a good way to protect each other from danger, like musk oxen forming a protective circle for their calves when the wolves come howling, or like pioneers circling the wagons to fend of Indian attacks. It’s part of our very nature as the people of God. We don’t abandon the weak or turn against each other for our own advantage. The reason we don’t do these things, what sets us apart from those under Satan’s influence, is because we have renounced our own ambitions. We happily place our lives under the care of the Lamb, the true King of the kings, because we know that he will never turn on us, forget us, abandon us, or reject us.

Revelation 17:1-6 – Power Is Seductive

2009-10-10T10:33:00.001-04:00

This passage is nothing new. Or, to word it better, it’s a closer look at what’s already been introduced in 14:8 and 16:19. Babylon, the great city, is destroyed. We need to remember that this is not the literal city of Babylon. Even though that city was still in existence at the time that John had his vision, it had nowhere near the political, economic, and military importance that it had in centuries past. But Babylon had become a symbol for the hubris and oppression that comes from overreaching human power. It was a power, and represented other powers, that dominated and oppressed. In particular, “Babylons” persecute believers. But they also put a price on everyone and everything, and destroy lives in the process. In John’s day, “Babylon” was the Roman Empire. I Peter 5:13, for example, uses the name “Babylon” to refer to Rome.

John’s description of Babylon relies upon other themes, from the Old Testament, that describe evil political power that attacks the people of God. We’ve already seen multiple references to Moses and the plagues of Egypt, particularly in Chapter 16. Here, we also see some of the images of Jezebel, King Ahab’s foreign queen who promoted paganism and repressed worship of the Lord in Israel.

John is taken to the desert, normally a place of security, where he sees the woman on a beast. Don’t confuse this woman in the desert for the one of 12:6, 14, who represents the people God! She has world-wide influence (sitting on the many waters, and intoxicating the kings and inhabitants of the earth). The two strongest images about this woman are drunkenness and prostitution or adultery. Of the two, the second is the strongest of all.

Anyone from the first century would have recognized all sorts of images related to Rome that are attached to this woman and the beast upon which she sits. The blasphemous names are the emperor’s claims of divinity. The seven heads are either (or both) the seven hills of Rome or the emperors. The ten horns would be the local officials who did the Romans’ bidding. Even the name on the woman’s forehead is a connection with Rome; Roman prostitutes wrote their names on their foreheads (perhaps a creative form of advertising).

But we miss the point if we recognize the woman on the beast simply as an imaginative way to represent the Roman Empire. Rome was simply an example in John’s time of the prostitute’s influence in the world all the time. It was there for the original Babylon, and for every generation from John’s day to ours. And it will still be there until the end of history, when God will destroy it forever. This passage, however, doesn’t describe the punishment and destruction of the “Whore of Babylon,” as she’s often called. First, we need to understand that it is, and how it affects our lives.

The woman is power. And power can be a dangerous thing. Lord Acton put it famously: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Presbyterians recognize the danger of power, and so our form of government is set up in a way that ensures that no single person ever has very much power. And those who do have authority and power only have it for a limited period of time. Lord Acton and the Presbyterians recognize the danger of this woman. Power is seductive and addictive. It lures you in, and once you’re in its grips, its all but impossible to break out.

Describing the seductive nature of power as a prostitute is consistent with a theme that is prevalent in the Old Testament. Prostitution was a common theme to condemn pagan religions, for two reasons. First, many of these religions were fertility cults that focused upon the birth of many healthy babies and upon successful harvests. As part of their rituals, some of these religions would have shrine prostitutes, with whom worshipers would, well, relate as a symbolic action of fertility. Others would promote “group activity” to celebrate fertility. It wasn’t much of a leap for the prophets to identify pagan religions with sexual promiscuity. But there was a second, perhaps more profound, reason why idol worship was described as illicit sex: whether it was prostitution or adultery. God had call his people to be faithful to him, and to him alone. The relationship between God and his people is compared to that of a husband and wife. Hosea lived out this metaphor in a powerful and probably heartbreaking way. It continues in the New Testament; Paul’s description of the marriage ideal in Ephesians 5 is directly related to the church’s relationship with Christ. And as we go on in Revelation, we’ll see the church portrayed as a bride. Any time a believer steps out on God and puts their hope and trust in someone or something else, or allows someone or something else to become the most important thing in their lives, it’s like committing adultery. And if we go from one thing to another, seeking fulfillment in all the wrong places, we’re like a prostitute with many partners.

The main issue of the prostitute of Babylon in Revelation 17 isn’t sexual sin, although that can certainly be a feature of the problem. The prostitute symbolizes power. The close association of the prostitute with the Roman Empire, the most powerful force in John’s time, makes this clear. All the powerful people of the earth want her: they want power and influence

And it fits everyday life well. It’s practically second nature for people to want influence, control, and power. We want to be in charge. That doesn’t mean that we all want to be up front, telling everyone what to do and having them follow our orders. Some of us would rather have a quieter, more background power. But we still want people to do it our way. In our church, for example, who has more power: the fund-raising committee that promotes an activity and asks for everyone’s help, or the people who sit back quietly and grumbles to other people that they don’t like the activities or think that we’re having too many of them? They are both quests for control and influence. We want people to do things our way. And we get the credit and praise for it, we’re not going to complain about it!

We all seek power in certain ways. Some of them are obvious and direct, and others are more subtle and quiet. Here’s just a few examples:
• force: military might, or the bully on the playground
• money: everything has a price, and with money you can get what you want and avoid what you don’t.
• knowledge: education opens doors for you, and equips you to use people, ideas, and materials to advance your goals
• personal charm: if you can win people over with a smile and a well-placed word, you can get them to do what you want, and maybe not even realize it. Taken to the extreme, this can even include seductive “charm” that’s similar to the woman of this passage. Many women know how to turn on their charm and turn men into babbling fools who will do whatever she wants.
• relationships: people who have influential friends and relatives can call upon them to help their plans succeed. And if you don’t have any of them, but if you have a lot of “regular” people that will be there for you, you’ve got the ability to make things happen.
These are just a few examples, but you probably get the point.

We seek power because it promises all sorts of good things that come our way. The woman of this passage is draped in all the trappings of luxury: expensive fabric, gold and precious jewels, and intoxicating drink that just pulls you into it more and more. We want power because it offers us the things that, we think, make for a good and happy life. Ultimately, however, they are disappointing, cheap, gawdy, and ultimately enslaving, especially when compared to the heavenly vision we’ve already seen. Who would want to trade the majesty and glory of heaven for the Vegas showgirl gaudiness of this woman? Well, we would if we lose sight of what true beauty and blessing really looks like. The allure of power isn’t necessarily financial or material prosperity. You may want power in order for people to think more highly of you or to achieve your goals. Ultimately, however, power is its own promise. We want power not just for what it can give us, but because it, in itself, is seductive. It plays up to the inherent selfishness and pride that marks our fallen human nature.

It’s easy for us to get sucked into the quest for power in our lives. It is seductive and addictive. We can let our lives begin to revolve around the things that we think we have power over, or will give us more power. Sometimes, we will do it at any price. We become like the person who is caught up in an affair and is so hypnotized by it that he or she can’t see the damage that it is causing themselves and other people. This description and warning about the nature of power, and how seductive it can be, is a splash of cold water on the face to break its grip on us. The struggle of faith is to escape the temptations of power, to realize the doom of those who chase after it, and to dedicate ourselves to the One with true power and honor and glory.

Revelation 16:12-21 – The Battle Belongs to the Lord

2009-10-01T17:41:00.001-04:00

If you play word association and say “Revelation,” I wouldn’t be surprised if many people respond “Armageddon.” It’s sort of like the mark of the beast; everyone knows that Armageddon is the epic battle between good and evil that devastates the world. There’s just one question: is that really what Armageddon is?

This passage describes the events that happen as the sixth and seventh bowls are poured out to wreak God’s wrath upon creation as he purges it of evil and sin. The sixth bowl is poured out on the Euphrates River, which dries up to prepare the way for the kings of the east. That one sentence should spark several Scriptural allusions in your mind. The drying up of the Euphrates River to make way for an invading army is similar to how the flow of the Jordan River was stopped so that Joshua and the Israelites could enter the Promised Land and fight the battle of Jericho. “Preparing the way” for a king sounds a lot like Isaiah 40, a passage frequently used to describe Christ’s coming into the world. And the “kings of the east” may make you think of the magi of the Christmas story. I don’t know if John wanted to remind us of these things, but if he did, he turns the positive images inside out. The river is dried up, not to make way for God’s army, but for an army led by evil spirits. The way is prepared not for the Messiah, but for Satan’s minions. The kings of the east don’t bear gifts but bring warfare. They lead the armies of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Scythia, and the other eastern empires and hordes that swept into the Holy Land. The army is led by the unholy trinity of the dragon, sea beast, and land beast that we met in Chapters 12 and 13. Evil spirits that look like frogs pop out of the dragon and beasts; they are reminders of yet another of the plagues of Egypt that these bowls echo. I understand these frog-spirits to be the epitome of the evil that the dragon and beasts carry. Verse 14 reminds us of the miracle-working abilities of evil that we saw in Chapter 13. Remember: just because someone performs a miracle doesn’t mean that they’re from God. The frog-spirits gather all the armies of the earth together to fight against God. The battle they’re itching for is a repeat on earth of the battle in heaven that we read about in Revelation 12:7-8. Satan lost that battle against Michael. Apparently he thought he could wind this one. Or, it may just be his desperate last-ditch effort.

Verse 15 is an interesting insertion. It’s the admonition that Jesus gave in Matthew 24:43, which Paul develops further in 1 Thessalonians 5:2. Jesus’ coming will be unexpected, just as the robber who breaks into your house doesn’t give an advance notice. We are admonished to be alert and ready for action. Keep your clothes on and don’t fall asleep. After the plagues of Egypt, the Israelites were told to be ready to move out on a moment’s notice: eat food prepared quickly, don’t sit down to eat, and be packed up and ready to leave. It’s also a reminder of how John failed Jesus, together with Peter and James, as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane when the forces of evil were gathering to confront him. John fell asleep and didn’t stay awake.

The next verse is a simple but evocative statement: the evil spirits gathered the armies of the earth at Armageddon. We can probably assume that this is the same gathering of armies that we’ll meet again at the end of Chapter 19. This is the only place where the name “Armageddon” shows up in the entire Bible. But if we take the hint and read it in Hebrew, it makes perfect sense. “Armageddon” = “har Meggido” in Hebrew, which is “the hill or mountain of Meggido” in English. And Meggido is a strategically and historically significant place in Israel. To understand it, we first need a geography lesson, and then a history lesson. Here’s the geography: the land of Israel is a long strip between the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Jordan River valley to the east. Running north and south in between is a big mountain ridge. However, there’s a gap in the mountains about a third of the way down. It’s large flat plain called the Valley of Jezreel. And Meggido is a town perched on a hilltop just at the edge of the plain. The Valley of Jezreel was strategically important, because it was the best way to get from the Mediterranean side of the mountains to the Jordan River side, and to the lands to the east beyond it. It was a heavily traveled trade route, and armies used it as well. A number of significant battles were fought in the Jezreel Valley, in the shadow of Meggido. But the most significant happened in the days of Josiah, king of Judah. And that’s our history lesson.

Josiah was the most devout and faithful king the nation had ever known, and is credited for doing amazing things to root out pagan practices and revive the worship of the Lord after generations of neglect. Under Josiah, the kingdom began to regain some of its lost glory and appeared to be on the way to becoming as powerful and prosperous as it had been during the Golden Age of David and Solomon. But Josiah made a tragic and devastating miscalculation of international relations. His kingdom stood in between three great empires: Egypt to the south, Assyria to the north, and Babylon to the east. Josiah learned that Egypt’s army was going to march through the Jezreel Valley to link up with the Assyrian army, so that together they could attack Babylon. The Egyptians didn’t have a beef with Josiah and the kingdom of Judah; they were just passing through. It’s the same thing that US troops are doing when they land in Tajikistan to get into Afghanistan. We’re not fighting the Tajiks; we just go through their land to get to our enemies. Now, the kingdom of Judah had suffered under the heel of the Assyrians for decades, so Josiah didn’t really think to kindly of them. He didn’t like the idea of Egypt helping the Assyrians take on the new upstart kingdom of Babylon. So he attacked the Egyptian army as they passed through the valley near Meggido. It was a devastating loss for Josiah and his army. In fact, Josiah was mortally wounded and died shortly after being taken off the battle field. His gambit did succeed in a way, however. His attack against the Egyptians slowed them down enough that they couldn’t join the Assyrians in the battle against the Babylonians, and the Assyrians lost. But the news wasn’t really all that good. Yes, the Assyrians used to be a powerful and cruel empire. But they were fading away. The Babylonians’ victory helped them to become the next great superpower. And soon, the Babylonians would be the ones laying siege to Jerusalem. Even worse, of course, was the death of Josiah. Judah lost its dynamic reformer-king at the time when it needed a strong king the most. The nation slid back into paganism, and eventually the Babylonians wiped it from the face of the map. The tragedy of Josiah’s battle is that it was unnecessary. He could have kept out of the way and let the big nasty foreign armies tackle each other and save his strength, and life, for another day. We get no indication that God wanted Josiah to fight the Egyptians. He fought and died for nothing.

That’s the sad story of the first battle of Armageddon. Now, in John’s vision, we see the armies of the nations gathering for a repeat performance. The first battle reversed the fortunes of a godly king. Now, Satan wants to take on God himself. It’s another battle of international super-heavyweights. So what happens? Well, it seems as though John’s vision leaves us hanging. The armies gather together, but there’s no description of a battle. Or at the very least, we have to wait until Chapter 19 to see it.

Or, is something else going on? The seventh bowl gets poured out, and the angel tells us that the work is done: it’s finished! The earth convulses like it never has before. There’s an unbelievable hailstorm, with the hail measured not by inches in diameter but by the hundreds of pounds of weight (by the way, a reminder of yet another of the plagues of Egypt). It is absolute, total destruction that removes even the mountains and the islands. Once more, however, the mountains and islands are symbols. Mountaintops were the sites of pagan worship in the Old Testament, and for John’s readers they may have represented the seven hills of Rome, the mighty empire of their time. The islands could remind us of Patmos, the prison island where John had been exiled.

Most important of all is the collapse of “the great city.” This isn’t Jerusalem, but Babylon. Yes, the same Babylon that the Assyrians and Egyptians were fighting. The same Babylon that came to represent the worst of human oppressive power. We’re going to learn more in the next chapter about the doom of Babylon.

And what does this have to do with us? Hopefully, we can learn a lesson from Josiah’s fate at the first battle of Meggido and not repeat it. He got involved in a fight that wasn’t his. Yes, we are to be God’s agents at work to fight evil and make the world a better place. But we need to exercise discretion and learn to pick our battles. Who knows how history would have been different, and the fate of Judah could have changed, Josiah didn’t die in battle and Babylon had been defeated? The armies gathering at Armageddon are destroyed, but not by some mighty Christian army that faces them across the battle line. They are destroyed by earthquake, lightning, and hail. They are destroyed by God’s wrath and power. We don’t need to get involved sometimes: just sit back and watch what God will do.

Revelation 16:1-11 – It's Time to Get Your Vaccine

2009-09-22T12:12:00.000-04:00

Everyone’s talking about vaccines for the H1N1 or “swine” flu. This is the latest pandemic that our world is facing. Widespread diseases like this are so frightening that they’re sometimes called the plague. Plagues are horrible and devastating afflictions that terrify us. So if you could get a vaccine to protect you from such a plague, wouldn’t that be great? This passage describes the worst kinds of plagues that the world will ever face. But the good news is that the vaccine for them is already out.

If the effects of the first four bowls sounds familiar, it should. In Chapter 8, when the first four angels blew their trumpets, it led to the ruin of a third of the land, sea, fresh water, and sky. Now, we see all four major elements of creation affected by what happenes, but this time it is complete. There’s no preservation of part of the earth this time. The calamity in Chapter 8 was to lead people to repentance. By now, the chance for repentance is gone. The trumpets sounded out the message for people to come to God. The bowls wipe the earth clean.

It’s worth noting, by the way, that these bowls do not lead to the destruction of creation. We’ll see that in Chapter 20. These bowls remove the goodness of creation and turn it into an agent of God’s retribution against the wicked. The story of creation in Genesis describes creation as good, and as a source of blessing for God’s beloved people. That goodness became tarnished as part of God’s punishment in Genesis 3, as people would endure toil to survive and pain in childbirth. That which was good became a source of chastisement. That conditions reaches an extreme here, as creation loses all of its goodness and becomes an instrument of agony.

The effect of the bowls upon the earth evoke the memory of other plagues that God brought upon the earth, when he worked against the Egyptians for holding the Israelites as slaves. The order is somewhat different, but the connection is still pretty strong. When the first bowl is poured out upon the earth, it causes painful and disfiguring sores. This is the same thing that happened to the Egyptians during the sixth plague (Exodus 9:8-12). It’s a bit different from the devastation from the first trumpet, which burned up a third of the earth. We’ll see that sort of havoc with the fourth bowl.

When the second and third bowls are poured out upon the sea and fresh water respectively, the water turns to blood, just like what happened in Egypt with the first plague (Exodus 7:14-21). Again, this is slightly different from the trumpets, when only the sea was turned to blood and the fresh water became bitter. Here, the association of the bowl-plagues and the Egypt-plagues becomes stronger. The song of the third angel helps us understand more fully what is symbolized by the water turning to blood. (Just a quick note: calling things “symbols” doesn’t mean that they’re not real. In language theory, a symbol isn’t a pretend feature, or a simple representative of what is real. Technically, that’s a sign. A symbol is something which is real and has importance of its own, but which also focuses our attention upon a deeper reality. Maybe two examples will help: the US flag, and our military. The flag is a sign; in and of itself, it’s nothing much. Just some cloth. But it is a sign, or represents, our nation and what our nation stands for. The US military, however, can be a symbol. As a symbol instead of a sign, it is real and significant. Just ask anyone on the receiving end of what our military can do! But the military is also a symbol of the United States’ power and dominance of the world. OK, so maybe this note wasn’t all that short.) The blood-water symbolizes the blood of God’s servants who suffered and died at the hands of the wicked. They shed blood, so now they have to drink blood. Think of it as a logical consequence of their violence and rejection of God. The angel’s song receives an “amen” from the altar, which agrees that God’s actions upon the wicked are just. In Revelation 6:9-11, we heard from the souls of the martyrs who had been killed for the faith. They were under the altar (the same one that we’re talking about here), and they demanded God’s vengeance upon those who shed their blood. And it’s not just them. When Cain killed his brother Abel in Genesis 4, God told him “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” God’s justice demands that murderers pay for the blood that they shed. I don’t know about you, but I’m sure glad that Jesus shed his blood on my behalf so that I don’t have to face the business end of God’s justice!

The fourth bowl affects the sun. But the sun does something different from what happened with the fourth trumpet. Instead of going dark, it blazes to an intense heat and scorches everyone left on earth. The Old Testament often speaks of God’s judgment as fire from heaven (Numbers 11:1-3, 1 Kings 18:38, for example). It also reminds us of the fire reserved for those who reject God (John 15:6, Matthew 13:30, Luke 3:7-9). As we’ve already seen, the time for repentance is over. That doesn’t mean that God no longer allows for repentance to do any good, but he knows that everyone who is going to repent has already done so. I’ve avoided the “Left Behind” series like the plague (no pun intended), partly for Biblical errors like this. As I understand, the series is about a group of people who are left behind after the believers have been taken to heaven. They turn to Christ and have to deal with all the nasty people around them. If my understanding is correct, then the whole “Left Behind” trademark is Biblically inaccurate. God won’t remove his saints from the earth until all of the saints have been identified. If you’re “left behind,” it’s because God knows that you will never repent and turn to him.

By the time the fourth bowl has been poured out, all the major features of creation have been transformed. Their created goodness has become sources of torment for the wicked. The fifth bowl is now poured out on the throne of the beast. This is the sea beast of Chapter 13, who came upon the earth with Satan’s power enabling him to dominate human affairs. God now directs his punishment directly upon the source of the rebellion. The plague of darkness evokes the ninth plague of Egypt (Exodus 10:21-26), the last one before the terrible plague upon the firstborn. There are a few other reasons why darkness is an appropriate plague to come upon the seat of unholy domination of the earth. First, Satan is often referred to as the prince of darkness. As 2 Corinthians 11:14 tells us, he masquerades as an “angel of light.” This bowl strips Satan of his disguise and shows him to be the heart of darkness that he really is. Once people are exposed to Satan’s true identity, he causes them such agony that they “gnaw on their tongues:” there’s a pretty gruesome and painful image! The torture comes now not from the transformation of creation but from the unveiling of the evil in the midst of the world that people accepted and followed. Second, the darkness of this plague stands in direct contrast to the light that Christ brings into the world (John 1:1-14). By the time we reach Chapters 21 and 22 we learn that Christ’s light is so glorious that there’s no need for any other light source. Satan is revealed to be the opposite of that. Finally, this association of darkness with the false worship of the beast is a not-so-subtle dig against some of the pagan practices that John and his flock witnessed. Apollo, the sun god, was one of the favorites to be worshiped. And about the same time that John had this vision, the worship of “Sol Invictus,” or the unconquered sun, was beginning. It was closely associated with emperor worship. John’s vision sends the message “You think your god is the source of light and goodness. Well, God can strip that away from him as easily as a bowl getting spilled.”

Now, about that vaccine for these plagues that I mentioned earlier. Fortunately for us, the time hasn’t come yet. We still have a chance to gain immunity from these plagues. And we have Jesus to thank for that.

Revelation 15:1-8 – Bowled Over

2009-09-18T11:03:00.000-04:00

Throughout this study of Revelation I’ve emphasized that John’s vision is not merely about what will happen in the future, at the end times. It is also a description of that the world is like right now, seen from a different point of view. Chapter 12 tells us the Christmas story, and Chapter 5 describes the power of Easter. If we look at the other things and think that they’re only about the end times, we miss out on some powerful lessons to learn about what it means to be a Christian today. The devastation of the four horsemen is happening now. The dragon and the beasts are active today. And on the other hand, God is surrounded with the praise of the heavenly beings, and the saints are already gathering in a festival of praise. I emphasize this because most popular interpretations of Revelation present it as being about something from a world so terrifying and distant in the future that it seems to have nothing to do with Christian life today, other than “Get ready for the horrible future!” The truth is that the world is a terrifying place already, but also that God is in control and that the forces of evil aren’t nearly as powerful as they think they are, and that they try to make us believe.

Having said all that, I don’t want to go too far in the other direction and say that Revelation is only about the present and that it doesn’t tell us anything about the future. It does. It is the Bible’s most detailed description of the hope that we’re waiting for. (It’s not the only one, by the way. Mark 13 and the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke get into as well, as does 1 Thessalonians. Just a few examples.) At this point in Revelation, the focus begins to turn more fully upon what is truly the “end times.” To word it according to what we saw at the end of Chapter 14, we now learn more about what the “harvest of the earth” will be like, as God gathers the faithful and destroys the wicked. In this passage we still find a mixture of “now” and “future,” but the emphasis is shifting. As we continue through to the glorious conclusion of the book, the future focus gets more and more prominent.

Chapter 15 introduces the events of Chapter 16, as God dispatches seven angels to pour out seven bowls upon the earth. We’ll learn more about the bowls in Chapter 16, but for now let’s just say that it’s pretty nasty. This series of seven should remind you of two other similar series that we already considered: the seals of Chapter 6 and the trumpets of Chapter 8 and 9. The bowls are significantly different from the seals and the trumpets, but I’ll leave you in suspense about what the difference is. For now, I draw your attention to how John describes these plagues in v. 1: they are the last plagues which complete God’s wrath upon the wicked.

The vision begins with a description of what they look like from the perspective of heaven. This is an aspect of John’s vision that we’ve seen repeatedly, beginning in Chapter 4. His description of the events of heaven and earth are punctuated regularly with episodes from the throne room of heaven, as God sits encircled by the praise of the four living creatures, the twenty-four elders, and the angels and saints. Each episode reminds us of the first and most complete description, but each time we pick up a few changes in the details. For example, in Chapter 7 the redeemed were able to join in the praise because of the saving work of Christ. Here, we notice that the sea in front of the throne is now mixed with fire. Like other symbols, the sea represents a number of things. It is the view from the top of the waters over the earth (remember that from Genesis 1:6-8?). It is the heavenly version of the “sea” that stood in front of Solomon’s temple. It is the water of baptism that purifies us and enables us to gather in God’s presence without fault and with great joy. Now, the sea is mixed with fire. Again, we can understand this fire to be a number of things. It is the fire that purifies us (Malachi 3:2-4), so that we are able to stand in God’s presence. It is the fires of the trials which the martyrs have endured (sometimes literally). It is the fire of God’s wrath against his enemies.

But God’s wrath is not against everyone. Gathered around the sea are the people who were victorious over the foes on the earth: Satan and his agents. They are the martyrs who were under the altar in Chapter 6, the multitude wearing white robes and waving palm branches in Chapter 7, and the ones singing the unknowable song in Chapter 14. All of this is possible, of course, not because of their own strength and their own merits, but because of the redeeming work of Christ in their lives. Here, John describes them as the victors. Their victory over the beast and its associated image and number/name (Chapter 13) is not a military victory or one in which they “defeat” him (apart from their role in Christ’s conquest of him). They are victorious because they didn’t succumb to the temptations and the deceptions of Satan. Satan killed them, but all that did was bring them closer to God as they take their place in the circle around the throne. I’m reminded of a story that Tony Campollo tells about a Christian who is going to spread the gospel to a godless nation (I think it was in the days of communism). Someone tries to scare him out of his mission by saying, “They’ll take everything you have away from you,” to which the believer replies, “They can’t. I don’t own anything. It all belongs to God.” So the person tries again: “They’ll torture you,” and the Christian responds, “That’s fine. I’m told to rejoice in my suffering.” Finally, the person warns him by saying, “They’ll kill you.” At this the Christian explains, “If they kill me, that means I get to see Jesus face to face in glory.” So what can anyone do against people who don’t own anything, who are happy when they’re tortured, and who look forward to what will happen when they die? The beast can kill the believers, but that certainly doesn’t mean that he wins. We are victorious when we resist the demonic distractions and unmask the Satanic lies.

When John tells us that the victorious redeemed are standing at the side of the sea, he does more than merely describe their location in the throne room. He evokes the image of the Israelites standing on the shores of the Red Sea after they passed through, and the waters collapsed on Pharaoh’s army. It’s the joyful scene that Exodus 15 recounts, as Miriam leads the women in a song of praise and celebration at their escape from slavery and their journey into freedom. That’s the “song of Moses:” when God rescues us from the burdens and chains that we struggle under, just as the Israelites did in Egypt. It’s a song of anticipation and gratitude for the freedom of the Promised Land that we are entering. (Unfortunately for the Israelites, their doubts and fears meant that they had to take a forty-year detour, but that’s another story.) God gives them the harps that they need to worship God. So worship and praise they do!

This “song of Moses and of the Lamb” is a composite of many different parts of the Old Testament, especially the Psalms, which proclaim God’s goodness and greatness. It relies a lot on Deuteronomy 32 and of course on Exodus 15. There are two aspects of the song in particular to notice. First, it describes the wonderful acts of God, and his glory. But by now, we know what those acts are. This isn’t just touchy-feely stuff “He made rainbows and flowers and the warm summer rain.’ Sure, God does all of that that. But when you remember what just happened (the bloody harvest of the earth) and what’s coming next (the bowls which bring about utter destruction), God’s great and marvelous deeds are fierce and mighty. He is the God who saves his beloved by destroying the destroyers. Second, we see that people from all nations will come to join in the worship of God. That’s a reminder of the “people from every nation, tribe, people, and language” that we met in Chapter 8. God’s love is universal, and we are anticipating a worldwide worship of God. This is a dramatic change from the original “song of Moses,” which celebrated the destruction of Egypt so that Israel could be set free. There’s no more nationalism included in our worship of God. When we ask God to bless America, we should also be asking him to bless every other nation on the face of the earth.

Unfortunately, however, this doesn’t mean that every individual will be saved: what is typically called “universalism.” Everyone is eligible, and everyone is given a chance. People from everywhere will respond with faith. But others will reject God’s invitation and fight against him. That’s why God dispatches the angels from his tabernacle (or temple), carrying the bowls of destruction to be poured out on everyone who isn’t already standing by the sea. The angels are dressed like the priests of the Old Testament because they are acting on God’s behalf. We may wonder, by the way, if these are the same bowls that were used in Chapter 5:8 to scoop up our prayers. God’s wrath that is poured out upon the earth is his response to our calls for justice.

Revelation 14:14-20 – Sour Grapes

2009-09-10T17:13:00.000-04:00

When people become members at our church, I emphasize one truth above every other Christian belief or principle: God loves us. Our entire relationship with God, and our entire existence, develops from this essential truth. God loves us. He always has. He always will. And nothing we can do can stop him from loving us. So what are we supposed to make of this passage? God dispatches an angel to slaughter the people of the earth as an expression of his wrath against them. Even Hollywood horror flicks and shoot ‘em up action movies don’t convey the level of carnage that we find in this passage: the blood flows deep and wide for miles and miles, like juice from a massive winepress. How can the God of love be the source of such angry vengeance?

This question would be impossible to answer if we looked at this particular passage completely on its own, without taking into account what’s brought us to this point. Taken out of context, this passage is a wonderfully gruesome example for people to use if they want to “put the fear of God” into you. Do what God wants, or you’ll have your own Nightmare on Elm Street! But, when we keep in mind the images that came earlier in John’s vision, it all makes sense. So let’s review briefly. Ever since Chapter 6, we’ve seen the devastation and calamity that is pervasive in our world. All of this suffering comes from many sources. At times it’s the result of our sinfully motivated actions. Our greed, pride, selfishness, willfulness, and ignorance damage creation, other people, and even ourselves. At other times, we suffer because of God’s discipline. If the “carrot” of his love doesn’t move us in the direction that he desires, sometimes he uses the “stick.” And the more we resist God’s discipline, the tougher it gets. As Hebrews tells us, no one likes to be disciplined, and while it’s happening it seems awful. But it’s for our own good, even when we can’t understand that it is. At still other times, however, we suffer because of the demonic forces at work on the earth, twisting and corrupting God’s good intentions toward their own ends. As Satan rails against God, he frequently directs his nastiness upon the people of God.

So what should a loving God do in a situation like this? Just sit back and wish the best for his people? That doesn’t sound like a God we can trust and rely upon. Good wishes will only get you so far. As Revelation portrays it, God does everything he can to save people from the suffering we endure. When we engage in activities that harm ourselves, releases us from their power through the redeeming work of Christ, and he sends his Holy Spirit to transform us. Do we stupidly resist his goodness to be at work in us? He coaxes us along, at first gently and then with more urgency and insistence. Are we under attack by his enemies? He wages war against them and he marks us with his seal of protection. What more could we ask a loving God to do for us than that? I suppose we could ask him to change the rules of logic or the way the world operates, so that we all have no choice but to do what is good for us and each other. Even if that were possible (and some philosophers of religion argue that it isn’t), I don’t feel like being turned into a robot who has not choice but to do God’s bidding. God doesn’t want Stepford wives in heaven.

By this time in Revelation, the people of the earth have all been identified as belonging to two different groups. The first group are the people of God, who have received his seal of protection. Chapter 7 gives us the best description of this, but we saw it again at the beginning of this chapter. The other group of people are the ones who follow the “beast,” a demonic presence at work on the world to oppose God. They also have the mark of the one they follow; we read about it first in Chapter 13 and again in the middle part of this chapter. Certain privileges come with the different marks, according to the power of the one who gives it. God’s seal opens the way to eternal blessedness, and the beast’s mark gives you the ability to buy and sell. This isn’t to say that economic activity is inherently demonic. But we’re all bracing ourselves for the swarms of people who will descend upon the G20 summit in Pittsburgh to protest the injustices and evils of world finance. Even if we abhor their practices, some of them will have a point. Every form of financial or economic system causes hardship and suffering for at least some people, even when the system operates with the best of intentions. But unfortunately, economics are often used as a way to push down some people while elevating others. If you don’t believe me, listen to the political arguments about taxes and entitlement programs. But I digress….

Eventually the time will come when God has to act definitively, once and for all. In his time and according to his infinite wisdom, he will recognize that there is no longer any point to hope for repentance and for more people to turn to him. Everyone will have picked their sides. God’s love for those who call upon him is utter and complete and without any qualification. And for those who have rejected him and refuse to change their ways? God takes no delight in attacking or destroying them. He has demonstrated his love by seeking for them to accept his blessings. But if he would just let them keep going along in their destructive patterns, he would watch them undermine and ruin all the good that he has planned. The European leaders of the 1930’s have been castigated for “appeasement:” be nice to the evil guy and maybe we can all get along. It just doesn’t work. So God rouses his powers to destroy evil and all associated with it.

And yes, God gets angry about it. That anger isn’t a contradiction of his loving nature, but flows directly from it. If you love someone, and you find out that someone is hurting the one you love, you’re going to furious with them. If you abuse one of my family members, I’m going to want to take a baseball bat to you. If your family, like mine, has fallen under the scourge of cancer, your reaction to that cancer will be fury. It’s an anger that comes from directly from your love. What kind of love would God have for us if, when he sees us under attack, he just smiles and says, “Here. Let me give you a hug.” His anger stirs him up to act to save and protect the ones he loves.

To understand this passage in Revelation, it’s good to recall the parable of the weeds (sometimes called the parable of the wheat and tares) of Matthew 13. Jesus tells the story of a farmer who plants his crop, but one night his enemy scatters weed seed across the field. As the plants start to grow, everyone sees that there are thistles among the corn. The field hands go up to the farmer and ask him if he wants them to pull out the weeds. The farmer tells them not to, because they might damage some of the corn in the process. He tells them to wait until harvest time, and they can sort out the good crop from the bad weeds then. The disciples asked Jesus to explain the story, so he told them that the corn stood for the people of God, and the weeds were the people who followed Satan. We’re all on this earth together. God allows the nasty folks to continue in their lives untouched because any attempt to get rid of them would also hurt the people he loves. Wait until the end, he says. That’s when good and evil will be sorted out from each other.

This passage tells the story of what happens when its finally time for the harvest. It begins with John seeing “one like a son of man” coming out with a sharp sickle to harvest the earth. There’s no doubt that the “son of man” is Jesus Christ. It’s time for harvest, so Jesus brings in the good crop. It’s like Mark 13:27, telling us how he will send the angels out to gather in the elect from the ends of the earth. Jesus begins by bringing his beloved people into his home. If you believe in the rapture, this the point where the believers are taken up in to heaven and the only ones left on the earth are the unrepentant: the thistles ready to be burned (as the parable puts it). I hate to break it to Kirk Cameron and the whole “Left Behind” trademark, but this only happens after the time for repentance has passed. God won’t take in the harvest until he’s sure that every last ear of corn is ready. I don’t get the sense that a lot of time passes until the weeds are also harvested for their own miserable doom.

A second harvest takes place as an angel is dispatched from heaven with a terrible sickle of his own. The popular image of the “Grim Reaper” comes from this angel. By the way, this passage is also the inspiration for the first verse of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It’s a nice piece of Northern propaganda to associate themselves with the harvest of the redeemed, while those horrid Southerners embody the evil of this second harvest. The Union army is an agent of God, bringing about the bloody harvest of God’s enemies. That’s an easy error for us to slip into: assuming that we are the holy people of God and our enemies are God’s enemies. History is full of people who acted in this self-deceptive attitude of righteousness. We can avoid the error if we remember the words of the farmer in the parable: don’t start pulling out the weeds until the very end. There may be some good corn in the midst of it. Don’t assume that you know better than God who is “weed” and who is “wheat.” Appearances deceive.

In John’s vision, the wicked are represented as grapes instead of the weeds of the parable. We shouldn’t let that switch derail us too easily. First, the harvest of grapes can appear much more like bloodshed than cutting down weeds; think of the dark red juice. Second, it helps us to associate this passage with ones like Isaiah 63 and Joel 3, which describe God crushing his enemies like grapes.

So does this mean that God is not loving? Not at all. In fact, the most loving thing God can do is eliminate the danger facing his beloved.

Revelation 14:6-13 – First Time’s a Charm

2009-09-03T17:07:00.000-04:00

They say that good things come in threes. Apparently, so do some things that aren’t quite as good. This passage introduces us to three angels and the messages they bring to the world. As their proclamations go on, they get more and more ominous. So it would be great to respond to the first angel and not have to deal with messages of the second two!

These angels appear in John’s vision after he has described the demonic forces at work in the world and God’s glorious and powerful presence in the midst of it. The final conflict between these two forces is shaping up. The angels are like the sports commentators before the big game, telling us all what to expect. Except in this case, we’re not spectators sitting on the sidelines or in our living rooms; we’re out on the field and have some choices to make.

The first angel brings good news. After all, that’s literally what the word “gospel” means (“gospel” is a variant of the Old English “god spell,” or good tale or story. It’s an apt translation of the Greek “evangelion,” which means “good message”). The good news, or gospel, is available for everyone: all the peoples across the entire globe. That was a radical notion for John’s Jewish readers (or Christians with Jewish roots), because Judaism like many other ancient religions was national. Each nation had its own God. The Lord was the god of the Jews. If you weren’t a Jew, tough luck. It was a major change for the early church (which considered itself to be a form of Judaism) to recognize that its message wasn’t limited to any particular nationality but was for all people. This is still a relevant issue for us today, for two reasons. First, as Christians we need to break out of the parochialism of thinking that God’s family only includes people just like us. We sometimes confuse Christianity with our culture or our nationality. That was a big issue for missionaries of the 19th century to deal with, as they confused the gospel with their culture. As they shared the love of Jesus with people of other lands, they also tried to turn them into Europeans or Americans. And even today, we may be tempted to think of Christians from other cultural backgrounds as somehow not being, well, as “normal” of a Christian as we are. That’s one of the important aspects of mission work today: not only to share the love of God in places and to people who haven’t learned it yet, but to experience the trans-national aspect of our faith. We learn more about our faith when we see that it’s not confined to our version of it. There’s a second important aspect of the universal claim of the gospel: God’s love includes “them.” “They” are the people that really don’t deserve any consideration, the ones that we do our best to avoid. And when we actually do have to associate with them, we hold our nose and do our best not to sneer. Sometimes “they” include the monsters of the world: men who kidnap adolescent girls and hold them captive for 18 years, terrorists who devote their lives to killing as many innocent people as possible, and drug bosses who live large and flash lots of bling at the expense of lives ruined by cocaine, heroine, or crystal meth. How can the gospel be available for horrible people like that? At other times, “they” include people that we meet everyday, or that we avoid every day. It may be the loudmouthed and obnoxious co-worker, or the other student in our class who is just plain weird. It may be the neighbor with the junk in the yard and the loud parties night, or the people with different lifestyles or objectionable viewpoints. We want to believe that they have to become like us before the good news of the gospel applies to them. Not true, says the first angel. The message of Christ’s redeeming work is for everyone.

Of course, there’s more to the angel’s message than that. The gospel calls for us response from us. We normally consider our response to God’s message of love and redemption as the process of discipleship: opening our lives to the transforming work of the Spirit to turn us into the people that God wants us to be. It is, but the angel’s message focuses on a different aspect of the gospel call. It is a call to worship: to give glory to God. In a utilitarian, practically-oriented society like ours, worship almost seems like a waste of time. To understand this, think not only of the worship of God, but other celebrations that we have. There are plenty of them: birthday parties, holiday gatherings (like the ones we’ll have this weekend), and cheering for sports teams (like we’ll do Thursday night for the Steelers). These are things we enjoy and sometimes put a lot of effort into. But they are the icing on the cake of life. They are fun distractions from what really matters, from what life is all about. We have to get things done, even if what we’re accomplishing is something fun or enjoyable. We have to switch gears in our minds if we want to recognize the power of worship. Bringing glory to God isn’t something that pulls us away from the important things of life; it is the most important thing of all. We acknowledge his place in our lives and we recognize his majestic, sometimes frightening, power. This is the first and foremost call of God in our lives. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism reminds us, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Unfortunately, however, not all of us listen to the invitation of the first angel. If we did, then things would be so much easier for us, and for the entire world. And even those of us who do fear God and worship him have our moments – or longer – when our devotion is weak and fades away. For those times and those people who ignore the first angel’s message, a second angel brings his proclamation. He predicts the doom of those who oppose God’s good work. If you’re not following God, you’re following something or someone else. So the second angel brings in the bad news of what happens to them. God is glorified, but “Babylon the Great” has fallen. So what or who is “Babylon the Great”? It’s obviously not the Babylonian Empire itself; it had collapsed centuries before John had his vision. However, Babylon continued to evoke the imagination of God’s people as a symbol or representative of those who are opposed to God. So in essence, the second angel’s message is something like this: “Alright, you’ve already heard the call to worship and serve God. If you don’t, then you’re in cahoots with God’s enemies. Those who aren’t with God are against God. And that other leader that you’ve chosen to follow is doomed.”

That still begs the question: what does “Babylon the Great” refer to? It’s an important question, because we meet it again in Chapter 17, a pivotal chapter that describes the evil and corruption of the world. One idea is that “Babylon” is a reference the Roman Empire. The association of Babylon with Rome is one that Peter made in his first letter (5:13), and it makes sense. Like the ancient Babylonian Empire, Rome is a pagan empire that oppresses the people of God and demands an abandonment of true religion. It’s an oppressive power. A second idea builds upon this first one. References to Babylon aren’t just secret code language for Rome, but refer to any human power that functions as Babylon did. We continue to encounter human institutions and forces that demand total allegiance and actively disrupt devotion to God. Take a moment and I’ll bet you can come up with a list of candidates for Babylon today. There’s a third option: “Babylon the Great” refers to the demonic forces at work in the world: the dragon, sea beast, and land beast. But that isn’t really a different option; just a different way of looking at the same one. As we saw in our examination of Chapter 13, Satan works through human social, political, cultural, economic, and military institutions. It is the human as it is influenced by the demonic. The second angel provides a warning. If you’re giving your allegiance to one of these other forces in your life, be prepared to watch it crumble before your eyes. Every mighty human empire that ever ruled over the world has faded away. Institutions that seemed impregnable are mere historical curiosities. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the institutions or ideals that you’re following now will be any different.

The third angel pounds the final nail in the coffin. The first angel gives a positive call to worship and serve God. The second angel gives a warning: don’t follow or serve Babylon, whatever form it takes today. If you don’t accept the first angel’s invitation, and if you don’t heed the second angel’s warning, you’re left to deal with the doom that the third angel announces. If you’re following Babylon, it apparently means the same thing as worshiping the beast and receiving his mark. Those who receive the mark of the beast will face eternal torment. And John gets pretty gruesomely graphic in his description of that torment. Now, this leads to a serious conundrum. According to Revelation 13:15-16, you need the mark of the beast to buy or sell (this is part of what leads me to believe that the beast needs to be understood primarily as economics). But here, we read that if you have the mark of the beast, you go to eternal torment. On the one hand, that’s a pretty easy choice: do you want to go to heaven for all eternity, or be able to shop at Wal-Mart this afternoon? On the other hand, it is a tough decision. If you can’t buy or sell, how are you going to survive? Life is tough when you live a in a world dominated by demonic powers, and you give your allegiance to God.

And that’s exactly what John tells us. As he puts it, “this calls for patient endurance.” Or, you need to have a long-term perspective. Put up with today’s struggles, as hard as they may be. Don’t give up, or you’ll regret it. There’s blessing waiting for those who hang on to God until the end of their lives.

Revelation 14:1-5 – Singing for Jesus

2009-08-20T11:34:00.001-04:00

It’s that time of year: choir directors all across the nation are gearing up for a new season. Along with ordering new music and making sure the robes are clean, they’re also beating the bushes to recruit new choir members. One of the typical responses to these invitations is something like, “Oh, I don’t know how to sing.” To that I say, poppycock! Everyone knows how to sing. The only question is, how good is your singing voice? I wonder if perhaps our culture’s dependence upon recorded music, which features only top-notch vocalists who are made to sound even better by audio-electronic wizardry, heightens our sense of musical inadequacy. Call the musical version of the body-image problems that many women face because of the ubiquitous images of pencil-thin air-brushed models.

Let me say it again, everyone knows how to sing. And that’s a good thing, because there’s a place for all of us in the heavenly choir (even if you decide to pass on the invitation to sing in your church choir). As one of our somewhat silly children’s songs puts it, “Some say my singing’s bad, some say it’s just plain terrible. I don’t really care ‘cause I’m not singing for them. I’m going to pass my time away singing for Jesus.” So whether you’re in the choir or holding a hymnal in a pew or singing words on a screen, belt it out! It doesn’t matter what you think of your singing, or what other people think. The only audience for your music is Jesus. And unlike Simon Cowell, he delights in every note. My father has told me the story of what happened to him once when he was a boy and one of his aunts was visiting. She sat next to him in church and noticed that his singing was a bit off pitch. So she told him that he really shouldn’t sing in church because he didn’t sing well. On the one hand, I can vouch for what my dad’s aunt said; he really doesn’t sing that well. But what she said was about the worst thing any Christian could tell another believer. Do you really think that God cares if we’re on pitch or in rhythm?

This passage describes John’s glimpse of the choir of the saints – the people redeemed by Christ – as they sing praises to our Lord. It’s a good reminder, because we’ve just gone through two chapters that describe demonic power and deception. Sure, we learned that Satan’s minions can be resisted and unmasked. But it makes us feel as though discipleship is a gritty struggle to hang on and endure. That’s certainly an element of our Christian faith, but it by no means defines it. Joy and glory are the true marks of our faith. So after hearing about the dragon and the two beasts, it’s refreshing to come to this description of God’s majesty and the praise that surrounds him. This brief passage reminds us of what we’ve learned about earlier. By evoking these images briefly, they can bring to mind the truth that John’s vision has already revealed: God is glorious and powerful, and he is surrounded by the praise of all creation. This is a chance for us to remember the truth in the midst of the demonic lies. After hearing about the infernal “mark of the Beast,” we are reminded that Christ has sealed us with the mark of the God, which we read about in Chapter 7. We see again the throne of heaven surrounded by the praises of the four living creatures, the twenty-four elders, just as we saw in Chapters 4 and 5. Nothing has changed. Despite Satan’s best efforts, God is still surrounded by glory, and Christ, the Lamb, receives praise for his transformational work.

There are, however, a few changes. And they’re changes which reveal that God’s plan is continuing to develop. Not only has Satan failed to detract from Christ, but God’s power and glory is increasing and expanding. In Chapter 5, the Lamb appeared on the throne of heaven. We saw him there again in 7:10. Now, however, the Lamb (Christ) is no longer in heaven but has come to Mt. Zion. That’s mountain (more like a glorified hill) in Jerusalem where the temple is (or was). Back in Chapter 12 we saw a separation between heaven, the dominion of God, and earth, the kingdom of Satan. Satan raged on earth because he had been cast out of heaven, and he tried unsuccessfully to ward off Christ’s invasion of earth. In Chapter 12 Christ, as the newborn man-child, was whisked off to heaven so that the dragon, or Satan, couldn’t devour him. But now Christ, as the Lamb, is standing upon Mt. Zion. The temple of Jerusalem is equated with God’s throne in heaven. For Jews of the first century (and I think even today), Mt. Zion is the center of the earth: its “navel,” as some rabbis put it. Christ is now present in the earth as well as in heaven. And we don’t just find him on the fringes or periphery of the world. He has made the very center of the world his throne. The separation between heaven and earth has broken down. Our petition in the Lord’s Prayer has been fulfilled: Christ’s kingdom has come to earth, just as it is in heaven.

As second difference in this passage from what we’ve seen in Chapters 4 and 5 is the inclusion of the saints, the people made holy by Christ’s work, in the song of praise to the Lamb. This is the same group that we saw gathered in praise around the throne in Chapter 7, and perhaps in 11:15. God’s praise grows stronger because of what he has done. He’s not taking control in a way that means he must expend energy to keep everyone else under him so that he can stay on top; his victories make his work easier and his power greater.

We can notice something else that’s different in this scene of praise from the other ones: the Lamb is glorified with a new song. That in itself isn’t all that different, because the elders and living creatures began a new song in 5:9, after the Lamb showed that he was able to open the scroll of God’s will. And new songs erupt every now and then in the praise. The point to this isn’t just that we need to update our songs of worship every now and then. I’ll leave that for church musicians and liturgist experts to discuss. The reason for the new songs is that God continues to do new things. And the effects of what he has done continue to unfold in new ways. Our worship of God is dynamic and ever-changing, not because God changes, but because we continue to discover new ways that he changes our lives. There is certainly value in tradition and ritual. But as Christians we must always be alert for how God continues to be at work in innovative and often surprising ways.

However, there’s something different about this new song. Unlike the other songs that John describes in this book, this is a song that he can’t record. In that sense, it’s a bit like the voice of the seven thunders of 10:3-4. John tells us that this is a song which can only be learned by the people whom Christ has redeemed from the earth; the 144,000 isn’t a literal number but as we saw in Chapter 7 represents the fullness and enormity of God’s people. You can only sing praise to Christ after you’ve experienced his redemption. This is a bit like what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:3: you can only call Jesus Lord through the Holy Spirit. But it’s a bit more, and it’s a sort of a catch-22. You aren’t able to understand and celebrate what Christ has done for us until you’ve experienced it. But you can’t experience it until you claim it and accept it. How can you accept Christ’s gift before you understand what it is? It’s the problem that Thomas experienced after the resurrection. As John 20:24-29 tells us, Thomas wouldn’t believe that Jesus had risen from the dead until he saw it. When Jesus appeared to him, he told Thomas that the true blessing awaits those who believe without seeing. The medieval theologian Anselm expressed this with his slogan, “Credo ut intelligans,” or “I believe in order to understand.” It’s the leap of faith: to trust in God without really knowing all the answers and ins and outs. As I look at it, it’s a reminder of how our salvation really depends upon God, and not upon any decision or choice of our own. On our own human merits, we could never reach a point of faith because we don’t know what it is that we’re believing. But as the Holy Spirit works within us, we are able to believe and accept. And once we do, we’re able to call Jesus Lord, and we learn the song of praise of the saints.

One thing’s for sure: it’s a powerful and beautiful song. John can’t tell us the words for the song, but he can describe it anyway. It’s as powerful as the sound of a raging river, as tremendous as a thunderclap. But at the same time, it’s a sweet and evocative as gentle harp music. That’s quite a contrast! In his own way, John tells us that the song of the saints encompasses all styles and qualities of music.

There’s just one last thing we need to address in this passage: the description of the redeemed in verses 4-5. Some of this description is very understandable and straightforward. They are saints, or holy ones, because Christ has ransomed them and presented them to the heavenly Father. They are disciples: those who follow Christ wherever he leads them. But the description also includes some ethical points. Being a saint means that you’re going to lead your life in a different way. Verse 5 tells us that no lie is found in them. This extends beyond a summons for honesty, in keeping with the Ten Commandments, although it does include that as well. But it also means that they have rejected the lies of the land-beast and of the other enemies of God. There’s one last element of this description that’s a bit more troublesome; John tells us that the saints “did not defile themselves with women.” There is an unfortunate misogynist streak in Christian tradition which uses passages like this, and Eve’s temptation in the Garden of Eden, to argue that women are inferior to men. Even more: some claim that women are evil and more sin-stained than men. These arguments have been used to abuse and oppress women in God’s name for centuries. However, this isn’t the point of this verse. John is not saying that heaven is a “He-Man Woman Haters Club,” like the Little Rascals. Granted, John was probably assuming that his readers were men. There are ways for men to “be with” women that will defile both the man and woman, and in the letters to the churches in Chapters 2 and 3 we heard about that. But sexuality is a blessing from God and can also be used and enjoyed in purity.

Revelation 13:11-18 – Your Number’s Up

2009-08-05T12:27:00.000-04:00

This passage contains probably the best-known prophecy in Revelation, and the best-known thing that isn’t in Revelation. I mean, people think it’s in Revelation but it’s not. I’m talking about the anti-Christ and the “number of the beast.”

First, the book of Revelation never uses the term “anti-Christ;” it only appears in the Bible in the books of 1 and 2 John. And incidentally, when it’s used there, it doesn’t speak of a single demonic super-figure. People can be anti-Christs, and there are more than one of them. Put simply, an anti-Christ is someone who denies Jesus’ divinity and that he came as a person to save us. More broadly, an anti-Christ is someone who rejects Christ and sets up some rival belief in his place. It’s often associated with the “abomination of desolation” that we read about in Daniel and in Mark 13/Matthew 24/Luke 21. And, it’s associated with the beast that comes from the earth, which our passage describes. In other words, Bible interpreters wrap up all these descriptions of figures who deny Christ and try to undermine his work, and they use the label “anti-Christ” to name them. Finally, in general we assume that there’s just one of these nasty critters floating around, and that believers in the end times will have to deal with it/him.

I’ll agree for the most part, but not entirely. Yes, the beast that comes from the land, who joins the dragon and the sea-beast to form the unholy Trinity, opposes and works against Christ. In fact, the land-beast sets himself up as a competitor with Christ; more on that in a moment. But I don’t believe that we have to wait until the end-times to encounter this beast. It’s been at work from the very beginning, and every Christian generation has had to deal with it.

The land-beast is false religion: a deceptive spiritual leader who calls for people to worship the sea-beast. We’ve seen in the last section that the sea-beast is dominant human power that appears to be invincible. The land-beast tries to make all of us worship it. By extension, it tries to get us to worship power in general. Not just those who have it, but a desire for the rest of us to get it for ourselves. As we’ve said already, in John’s day the sea-beast was evident most clearly in the Roman Empire that came from “overseas.” For John’s churches, the land-beast would be the local leaders who tried to get everyone to follow and cheer on Rome.

John’s description of the sea-beast helps us understand it as a demonic perversion of Christ. It looks like Christ, and people may think that it’s him. But it’s not. He looks like a lamb (the Lamb of Chapter 5), but he speaks like the dragon. It’s the original sheep in wolf’s clothing, or the book that you can’t judge by its color. And the Christian faith has been damaged over and over by the land-beast. There have been many religious leaders over the ages, and are still around today, who claim to be Christians, expositing the Bible and leading people to God. But they’re doing the exact opposite. Some of them may be intentionally trying to undermine the church, but I think most of them are deceived. After all, the best deception is one that you believe yourself. Cult leaders are an easy example to notice: anyone who sets themselves up as Christ returned, or someone who has new and special knowledge about God. However, the land-beast is more pernicious than just that. There are main-line, orthodox, “normal” Christian leaders who twist the truth and lead people astray. Again, they may believe fully that what they’re teaching is consistent with Christ. But it’s not. Their words come from the dragon-devil, not from our Lord. That’s why Paul told the Corinthians to “test the spirits:” never blindly assume that you can believe what someone tells you because they have the right pedigree or education or credentials, or because other people that you trust vouch for them. The voice of the dragon will come from all sorts of sources and try to lead us in a million different directions: any path but the one Christ has in mind for us.

The sea-beast is a sad imitation of Christ’s glory, just like all of Satan’s schemes are. He displays wonders in front of people, and inspires worship of just about anything by Jesus himself. The best lie is the one that looks a lot like the truth. Satan’s plots are most dangerous when they have religious trappings on them. It’s not the horror-movie stuff that’s most threatening; it’s the pleasant and “wholesome” stuff that causes the most damage. The sea-beast intimidated people with its power. But the land-beast leads people astray with its deception.

Perhaps the best-known prophecy of Revelation is the prediction of verses 16-18: people will receive the mark of the beast, which is its name or number. And the number of the beast is 666. There are all sorts of theories about what this number means. Here are three of my favorites. First, in the ancient world, letters were assigned numeric values. If you take Emperor Nero’s full name, all the letters add up to 666. Or they add up to 616, depending on how you do it. So, Nero was the beast. Second, some people claimed that President Reagan was the anti-Christ. His first, middle, and last names all have six letters in them (Ronald Wilson Reagan). There you have 666, right? There’s one more that’s had a lot of people up in a tizzy: UPC price codes. You can’t buy or sell anything without that little sticker with the funny lines on it, right? The check-out clerks just don’t know what to do without it. And Revelation tells us that no one can buy or sell without the mark of the beast. If you look at the codes carefully, you’ll notice that most of them start with two narrowish lines, have two more narrowish lines, and end with two more. Those lines, the alarmists tell us, are the same code as the number 6. So all UPC codes have 666 in them. Oh no! Well, not so fast. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had a UPC label try to lead me away from Christ, and I can’t imagine how it would. Plus, this isn’t really true. Not all UPC codes have these three sets of lines.

I go for a different understanding of 666. As we’ve seen before, 7 is the number that Revelation uses to represent divine perfection. The number 6 is human striving for the divine. Think of the story of the tower of Babel: people tried to set themselves up in the place of God. Their plan didn’t work, but that hasn’t stopped us from doing all sorts of things to replace God with ourselves. These plans always come to grief, but we keep doing it anyway. This is being an anti-Christ in the purest sense: setting ourselves up in the place of Christ. The number 6 is repeated three times to express fullness and completeness. If you remember your grammar, adjectives come to us in English in the regular, comparative, and superlative. Good, better, best. Big, bigger, biggest. And so on. Hebrew doesn’t have those handy little endings to stick onto words. So you if you wanted to say that a dog is bigger than a mouse, you’d repeat the adjective a second time: “The dog is big big to the mouse.” And if you want to say that an elephant is biggest of all, you say it three times: “The elephant is big big big.” That, by the way, is why the four living creatures of Chapter 4 sing “holy, holy, holy:” God is the holiest of all. So here, 666 means that human striving for divinity fails utterly and fully.

There’s something else to notice about the mark of the beast: people need it in order to buy and sell. In John’s day, this may have been a reference to the fact that the emperor’s image was on all the coins. For devout Jews, these coins were graven images. And because the emperor claimed to be divine, that makes a lot of sense even if you’re not a devout Jews. And of course, you can’t buy or sell without using those blasphemous coins. I think the economic aspect of the mark of the beast runs even deeper than that, however. The land-beast tries to get people to worship the sea-beast. We’ve already seen how the sea-beast represents human powers. And I’ve claimed that economics or money is the human force that seems most powerful to us. So it makes sense that the land-beast would deny access to the economic system for everyone who doesn’t want to play by its rules.

It’s crazy to see how well-known this concept of the “mark of the beast” has become. It’s so pervasive that people resist anything that seems to be a universal marking system, from Social Security numbers to microchip implants. If we’re being marked, it must be the mark of the beast. That’s the way the thinking seems to go. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Remember: Satan’s best plans are simply cheap knock-offs of God’s wonderful creativity. Satan didn’t invent the idea of marking people; he just took what God did and spun it on its head. To this day, devout Jews wear phylacteries on their foreheads and right wrists, in obedience to Deuteronomy 6:8’s injunction to write God’s law on your forehead and hands. The original “mark” is the word of God. And in Revelation 7:2-3, God marks the elect with his seal of blessing and protection. Marks can be used for both good and evil.

Notice the difference, however. God’s mark leads to everlasting blessing and protects you from the destruction of creation. The beast’s mark means that you can’t go shopping. Put in perspective like that, it seems pretty silly!

The passage calls for wisdom. We are called to see through the beast’s deception, and recognize God’s truth instead. And that’s the good news. The sea beast seems to be invincible, but he can be resisted. The land-beast tries to trick us, but we can figure him out.

Revelation 13:1-10 – So You Think You’re a Big Shot?

2009-07-30T16:29:00.001-04:00

We Presbyterians recognize that idolatry is the root of sinfulness. At times, we make idols out of ourselves and believe that anything is permissible, so long as we benefit from it. Other times, we sin by serving other causes or institutions; they may be good things in themselves, but when we over-emphasize them our lives get out of whack. These days, it seems as though we’ve become polytheists when it comes to idolatry. There are so many different gods that we’re trying to serve that we never get a moment’s rest. And that, of course, leads to a violation of the Fourth Commandment for rest.

This passage deals with idolatry at the next level. Not only are tempted to give our primary allegiance and devotion to things and people other than God, but there are forces in the world that believe that they deserve it. This isn’t always the case. I think of an otherwise-devout grandmother who didn’t bring her grandson to Vacation Bible School because he had baseball practice, and “of course baseball is more important.” This is a case in which baseball had become an idol, but I don’t think anyone associated with baseball would say that it’s the most powerful or important thing in the world (although maybe I’m wrong!). I’m thinking instead of institutions that are so important that we’re tempted to place Christianity in their service. Take family, for example. The famous saying goes “The family that prays together, stays together.” While that may be true, do you notice where the emphasis is placed in that proverb? The most important thing is to keep the family together. So let’s worship God in order to keep our family strong. Priority should be given to God, not the family. A better slogan would be something that tells us that it’s good to have strong families because this enables everyone to serve and praise God better. Our nation is another example. Some people argue that it’s in our nation’s best interest to have faith play a larger role in social discourse. The USA will be better and stronger if we as a nation acknowledge God’s lordship. That may be, but it misses the point entirely. Our focus should be upon how to live faithfully for God, and not upon the nation.

Here, we find a demonic force at work in the world that believes it’s the most powerful and important thing around. And the people of the world (except for those redeemed by Christ) buy into the lie. This beast is like Goliath, the champion of the Philistines who taunted the Israelite army. He was big and strong and boastful. He taunted the Israelites for being to weak to stand up against him. Goliath’s impudence was one thing; what was even worse was the fact that the Israelite soldiers believed him. When he told that he’d wup them, they believed him and ran and hid. The only person on the Israelite side of the battle lines who saw the truth was David, who couldn’t believe that everyone was letting Goliath talk like that. And when he protested, his big brother told him to shut up.

Chapters 12 and 13 of Revelation present what I call the Unholy Trinity: three demonic beings or forces who are at work to oppose God and deceive the people of the earth. We met the first in Chapter 12: the dragon who tried to keep Jesus out of the world and who was thwarted in his attempts to destroy the people of God. In the first half of Chapter 13, we meet the second being: the beast who came out of the sea. This sea-beast wasn’t in opposition with the dragon, but actually worked together with him. Verse 2 says that the dragon gave the sea-beast the power and authority that it wielded. We’ve already identified the dragon as Satan; the sea-beast is the social-political-military-economic powers of the world, the human forces that drive history. The way the sea-beast appears in John’s vision gives us some hints about it. First, the fact that it emerges from the sea brings up two points. First, the sea was understood by the Israelites (who were not a sea-faring people) as an uncertain, evil, forboding presence. Second, the Roman Empire came from “overseas.” This is the first of several hints in the description that help us recognize that for John and his churches, the Roman Empire was the form that demonic social evil took in their day. The beast was a crazy combination of a leopard, bear, and lion: three animals that appear in Daniel’s visions to represent different human empires. This is a political-military beast. Of course the fact that these are three pretty scary animals also lets us know how dangerous and terrible it is; this is the first-century version of “Lions, and Tigers, and Bears… oh my!” It represents tyrannical power on the earth, and the Romans for John’s people were tyranny incarnate. It’s up to us to watch for such tyrannical powers in our own day and age. There are all sorts of candidates for it, and we could have a rousing debate about what the sea-beast looks like today. In fact, there are some Christians around the world who would argue that the United States’ military and economic might make us the sea-beast of today. However, the sea-beast is not just any powerful force or nation that happens to be around; it is a powerful human institution which opposes God and seeks to destroy His blessings. As citizens of a powerful nation, it’s up to us to ensure that our country never becomes a sea-beast, and to do everything we can to get things turned around if we get off track.

OK, back to the Romans. (But remember: the sea-beast isn’t just Rome It’s also Egypt, and Babylon, and any other human power or institution which attacks God’s people. Whether intentionally or not, it’s the dangerous human forces that are in league with the devil.) The sea-beast’s seven blasphemous heads represent the seven Roman emperors (the “heads of state”) who claimed to be divine. The head that appeared to be mortally wounded by recovered is a demonic parody of Christ’s resurrection. This is one more example of how Satan’s best ideas are ones that he steals from God and corrupts to his own purposes. It is also a reference to Nero, because there was a belief in John’s day that Nero would come back to life. Whether by ruse or by Satanic power, the beast gains awe and respect by appearing to recover from a fatal injury. God isn’t the only one who can perform miracles (or at least, what appear to be miracles. It would be a whole other discussion to define what makes something a miracle). Satanic wonder-working is another form of deceit. Even if it doesn’t trick you into thinking that it’s God, it at least gets you to believe that it’s powerful and irresistible.

In verse 2, we hear that the dragon (Satan) gives power and authority to the sea-beast. The sea-beast does what Satan tempted Jesus to do: worship me, and I’ll give you power and authority over the world. Of course, I’ve always wondered what kind of power and authority it really is if you can only do what Satan commands, and you’re just a pawn to advance his purposes. The other thing that I have to wonder about here is who exactly gave power to the sea-beast (we see another reference to this in verse 5). It seems as though Satan is giving the beast the power to do whatever it does. And Satan probably thought the power was his to give. But it’s not. We’ve already seen in Chapter 12 that Satan can’t do anything without God say-so. The fact that the sea-beast had authority for 42 months (half of seven years, which is God’s perfect number), is a hint that its time of glory is all part of God’s plan. So when you’re caught in the midst of the beast’s power, don’t get freaked out. It’s all part of how God is working things out.

But the beast’s supposed power deceives many people. They see its show of force and its wonder-working abilities, and can’t imagine how anything could be more powerful or awesome than the beast. And by extension, the dragon who gives it power. I’m thinking at this point of the massive military parades that the old Soviet Union used to put on, and which North Korea still has. The purpose is to inspire the nation’s citizens into thinking that foreign invaders don’t stand a chance against them. And so everyone (except God’s people, of course) exclaim “Who is like the beast?! Who could ever stand up against him, and against the dragon who gives it power?” This, by the way, is blasphemy. The question “Who is like…” appears repeatedly in the Old Testament as an exclamation of praise for God, whose power and authority truly is beyond all comprehension (Exodus 15:11, Psalm 35:10, 89:6-8, 113:5). The beast’s activity is nothing but prideful boasting and defiance of God. It is establishing itself as an idol for people to worship instead of the Lord.

So, what does this sea-beast look like today? My first thought is money and the economic system. Plenty of people, even church people, think that you can’t accomplish anything without money. We’ve seen how the world has come crashing down when our byzantine economic system fell apart. “People’s lives have been ruined!” the pundits exclaim. Actually, what they mean to say is that people have lost their money, and the stuff money can buy. What a shame to think that one’s entire life is nothing but finances. That’s not at all what God says.

The passage ends with an admonition for “patient endurance and faithfulness.” These are our marching orders. Don’t fall for the deceit of Satan and his human minions. When they appear to be invincible, don’t take the bait and fall in step behind them. Hang on to the Lord whom you know truly is invincible. Be patient for when the 42 months come to an end and God continues his plan. Endure what you may have to put up with in the meantime. And never lose your faith in the One who truly is Lord; don’t give in to the temptation of worshiping an idol.

Revelation 12:7-17: A Yen for the Yin

2009-07-16T16:30:00.001-04:00

C.S. Lewis, the twentieth century’s most influential Christian author, once wrote that Christians often make the error of either giving Satan too much credit, or not enough (sorry; I don’t remember exactly which book he said this in). Sometimes we ignore Satan and don’t recognize that he really can harm us in all sorts of ways. But at other times we become so afraid of him that we forget that Christ has already defeated him.

Popular spirituality in America over the last few decades has been influenced by an emphasis in eastern religions on harmony and balance. In its proper place and with a correct understanding, that’s fine. I’m all for moderation and keeping things even. However, if we take this a step too far when it comes to our understanding of spiritual matters, we risk falling into one of the oldest and most pervasive Christian heresies. It’s usually summed up with the term “dualism.” The most common expression of it these days is the widespread use of the Chinese “yin-yang” symbol. It has risen the rank of coolness and PC’ness. When it comes to symbols, it’s right up there with the peace symbol and the smiley face. The “yin” is light, activity, male, and height; the “yang” is darkness, passiveness, female, and depths. The way most of us think about it, however, yin is good and yang is bad. The world is a balance between good and bad: two opposite forces struggling against each other. In some ways of looking at it, it’s a balance kind of like the “circle of life.” In others, it’s a never-ending conflict between two opposite forces.

Throughout Christian history, the idea of a conflict between the forces of good and evil has led many people to see it as a dualism struggle between opposite but equally powerful forces. Dualism can be found in many different Christian heretical movements through the ages: the Gnostics, the Manichees, the Cathars, and so on. Even among orthodox-evangelical American Christians today, it’s easy to see signs of dualism. In our case, we think that God ultimately has more power than Satan, but only barely. It’s an epic struggle between God and Satan, and it takes everything that God has to defeat his ancient adversary. And somehow Satan always rises back up for another round of fighting.

This, however, has nothing to do with the Bible’s presentation of Satan’s power in comparison to God’s. C. S. Lewis’ advice would do us well. Yes, we need to be aware of what Satan is doing; more on that in a moment. But he is already a defeated enemy. His abilities and strength are laughably puny in the face of God’s infinite majesty. Or to use the yin-yang scheme, the yin is immensely more powerful and prevalent than the yang. Today’s passage gives us a poignant image of this truth.

In verses 1-6, we read about Christ’s successful invasion into Satan’s domain, the world. Despite Satan’s best efforts, he came into the world and won his victory. His people (us, the church) are still in the wreckage of Satan’s world (or, the first budding of Christ’s kingdom on earth), but God gives us refuge from Satan’s attacks. Now, in three short verses, we read of Satan’s counterassault on God’s heavenly stronghold. John begins this passage with the sentence, “There was war in heaven.” Ah! we may think. This is the final confrontation between God and Satan: the forces of good and the forces of evil. But if we do, we are sorely mistaken. God doesn’t even bother lifting a finger. He leans over to Michael, one of his archangels, and says, “Michael, would you please go out and take care of that mess outside?” This is only one of three places in Scripture where Michael is mentioned (the other two are Daniel 10 and Jude). In the common Jewish understanding of the time, however, Michael was the guardian angel of the Jewish nation. So he’s not exactly a minor angel. Nonetheless, he’s an angel; a servant of God. There’s no dualist tension between God and Satan. Michael, one God’s peons, can handle Satan and his crowd without any help from God.

However, we keep losing sight of this fact. We keep thinking that Satan is powerful. Well, he’s dangerous. And we need to be aware of him. But if we are resting secure in the grace of God, we don’t need to lose any sleep over him. The reason why we may give the devil more than his due is, well, because we fall for his tricks. In this passage, we read two descriptions of Satan and what he does.

Let’s start with the second one: Satan as the accuser, which we read about in v. 10. This is actually what the name “Satan” means: the accuser. In the original Old Testament understandings of Satan, this is how he was first understood. He was the one who brought accusations to God about the sins of the people. It may be easiest for us to think of Satan as the prosecuting attorney, presenting a case against the people before God, the judge. But over time, he wasn’t content merely to accuse people for what they had done wrong. He began to create situations so that he would have something to accuse us of. That’s a bit more sinister than simply presenting a case; it’s as though the DA’s office starting making people commit crimes so that they could prosecute them. And this brings us to Satan’s second description (which we find in verse 9. He is the one who leads the world astray. Satan is the deceiver. And he does it in order to undermine God’s authority (well, to try to undermine it). He began his work of deception all the way back in the Garden of Eden (read Genesis 3 again, and notice carefully how he twists things to get Eve to believe what isn’t true, so that she will sin). He’s call the deceiver frequently in the New Testament, and deception is one of the greatest threats in the early church (and in the church today, I’d say). In order to have something to accuse us of, to rip us away from God’s loving friendship, he leads us astray so that we think what we’re doing is OK. Then, after we’ve gone down too far, Satan springs up and yells “Surprise! God, look at what he’s done! You’ve got to punish him!” And then he chuckles to himself because he’s managed to trick one of God’s followers to fall away. Like it or not, Satan’s accusations were accurate. He may have been acting in bad faith and stacking the deck against us. But our sins were real, and led to punishment.

That plan worked pretty well for Satan for a long time, until God put a stop to it. Once Christ entered the world to take charge of what is rightfully his, he created a way for us to escape from Satan’s accusations and still be in a loving relationship with our Lord. Through Christ’s atoning work, we have been set free from all accusation. Our sin has been redeemed and there’s nothing we can do, or ever could do, that will undo the salvation that Christ has brought to us. Satan can accuse us all he wants, but God has an answer for it all. “Yes, they have sinned. But payment has already been made for that sin, and for any and all sin that will ever happen. My relationship with my people no longer depends upon them living sinless lives. It only depends upon the victory that Christ has won on the cross and in the tomb. Satan’s career as an accuser was over. Our sin is overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and there no longer any accusation.

However, Satan didn’t stop his work at deception. All he did was change his tactics. He now tries to trick us into believing that there’s something we can be accused of. Just as he tricked Eve into believing something about God’s commands about Garden of Eden that wasn’t true, he know tries to trick us into believing that maybe Christ’s work of redemption wasn’t so powerful after all. And who knows? Satan may believe that himself. He may be a dualist and still think that he has as much power as God does. He can try to make us believe that we are still under the threat of accusation. If he can get us to doubt that Christ has saved us, then he can get us to deny his salvation and not accept it. And sadly, he’s pretty effective at this. It may be something along the lines of “If you want God to forgive you, here’s something hard that you have to do to earn it.” As if we could ever earn God’s love, or would ever have to! Or, his deception could be something more like “Yeah, Christ died for your sins. But what you just did, and the person that you are, is so horrible that not even God can love.” He can try to get you to deny the greatest truth of all creation: God loves us, and there is nothing that can ever stop or interfere with that love. We are not capable of doing something so big that God cannot forgive it.

So, how do we resist Satan? We hear the answer in verse 11 of the song of victory. We can be like our “brothers,” who resist and overcome Satan with two things. First, the blood of the Lamb: an acceptance of Christ’s self-giving sacrifice for us. Through his death and resurrection, Satan’s accusations no longer have any hold over us. Second, they resist and overcome Satan “by the word of the testimony.” It’s so simple and obvious that it’s easy for us to overlook. The best way to combat deception and lies is with the truth. We silence accusation and we expose deception by proclaiming the truth of Christ’s atonement.

Now, Satan isn’t going to like that. He’ll try to shut us up. And his attacks against some of our fellow believers has killed them. Well, at least their bodies and their lives on this earth. But if we love God above all else, even life, Satan can never win. But even at this, we need to remember that God’s power to protect and save us is infinitely greater than any attack Satan can throw at us. The worst thing that we can do is to forget his love and his power, and begin to believe the Satanic lie that we are caught in an epic battle between good and evil. It’s all good.

Revelation 12:1-6 – The Invasion of Christmas

2009-07-02T17:13:00.001-04:00

The “D Day” invasion of Normandy in World War II was one of the greatest military operations in history and marked a dramatic change in the course of the war. There are many factors that led to the success of the Allies against the Nazi occupiers, but the lack of Nazi preparation wasn’t one of them. The Germans didn’t know exactly when and where the invasion would take place, but they knew it was coming. The beaches of Normandy were heavily fortified and fiercely defended.

This isn’t a history lesson or a paean of praise for the courageous veterans and victims of D Day, but the image of that horrific and momentous event can help us understand what Christmas is all about. Because yes, this is about Christmas. You won’t find any shepherds or mangers or wise men in this passage, but it tells the story of Christ’s coming into the world just as well as the familiar story from the second chapter of Luke. What makes it different is that it doesn’t tell the story from an earthly, human perspective. This passage tells us what happened on Christmas on the spiritual plane. When we see it this way, we can recognize it as a cosmic battle that puts the invasion of Normandy to shame. Christmas was an invasion by the forces of good into territory occupied by an evil enemy, in order to liberate its inhabitants.

We only heard about the forces of evil that opposed God for the first time in Chapter 11. Beginning in this passage and extending on until Chapter 20, we will see the confrontation between God’s servants and Satan and his minions over and over again. This passage is “round one.”

First, let’s make sure that we know who’s who in the story. It begins with the description of a woman who represents the people of Israel. She’s clothed in glory, which is exactly how God treats his people. You may recognize a reference to Joseph’s dreams when he foresaw the honor he would receive from his family. John’s vision recycles the images of Genesis 37:9-10: Joseph’s brothers and father knew that the images of the sun and moon were his parents, and the eleven stars were the brothers. Add in the twelfth star of Joseph himself, and the sun, moon, and twelve stars of this woman help us see that she is the people of Israel. Is she also Mary? Yes. Is she also the church, whom Satan attacks? Yes. All of the above.

The woman is pregnant and about to give birth. The late stages of pregnancy certainly evoke the same kind message that the mighty angel of 11:6: there will be no more delay! The awaited time has come. The woman’s child is, of course, Jesus Christ. God himself comes into the world through his people. He comes to take over the world, just like the Allied forces landed in Normandy to take over Europe. Or, to word it more accurately for both events, Christ came to retake the world from an enemy who had tried to steal it, and the Allies came to liberate the countries that had been overrun by the Nazi death machine. In both cases, the invaders were coming to kick

Next, we meet a tremendous and fearful dragon. The dragon is, of course, Satan or the devil, the supreme spiritual being or force that opposes God. Representing Satan as a dragon taps into the typical symbolism of the ancient world that portrayed dragon-type creatures as the primordial enemy of God. Dragons are associated with serpents, like the one that we meet in the Garden of Eden story. They are also connected with sea monsters, like we find in Isaiah 27:1. The stars that the dragon swept out of the skies are the fallen angels who joined him in his rebellion against God; stars and other celestial bodies were considered to be spiritual beings. Satan, the dragon, had come down from heaven and had invaded the earth. He considered it to be “his” territory. Remember how Satan tempted Jesus by offering him power over the earth if he would just worship him? Satan truly does consider the earth to belong to him. I suppose in some ways we can’t really blame him. Look at the violence, immorality, greed, bitterness, suffering, and nastiness that fills our world. Read the newspaper or watch the evening news, and it sure looks like Satan owns the earth.

And that’s why the prospect of God coming into the world was something that Satan would not tolerate. Again, think of the Nazis on mainland Europe. There was no way they were going to let the Allies get a toehold on the beaches! They did everything they could to protect “their” turf. Never mind that they had no rightful claim to the countries that fell to their blitzkrieg. As far as Hitler and his lackeys were concerned, it all belonged to them. Satan’s pride and greed convinced him that he had to defend his world from God’s invasion. It was all Satan could do to tolerate the presence of God’s people in his world. Well, tolerate is hardly the right word. He did his best to root them out, but for some reason he could never finish the job. God’s righteous remnant kept springing back up like weeds in a flower garden. Unbeknownst to Satan, of course, he couldn’t get rid of them because God was protecting and preserving them. They had the seal of protection upon them. Not to stretch the analogy too far, but God’s people in a world run by Satan was a bit like the underground resistance fighters in occupied countries like France, the Netherlands, and Norway. Now, Satan got wind of the possibility that God was going to invade, and that he was going to use his people as a beachhead (OK, so the analogy with World War II kind of breaks down here: the underground resistance wasn’t how the Allies came into Europe, but the beaches of Normandy and the boot of Italy).

The image of the dragon crouched in front of the woman, ready to devour her baby as soon as he was born, is strikingly similar to King Herod’s plot to kill the infant Jesus (Matthew 2). We need to be careful, however, not to think that Herod was the embodiment of Satan. The relationship between the spiritual and the earthly is a bit more complex than that. Think of Satan as the spiritual central command, commanding all of his agents, both demonic and human. Herod’s actions were a reflection or an expression of Satan’s dominance of the world. You might not care much about Herod, but you may encounter people or social forces through whom Satan is wielding his nefarious power. That person or force is an agent, willing or not, of a larger demonic influence.

You’ve got to hand it to Satan: the best way to deal with an invading enemy is to grab him when he’s still a helpless little baby. You don’t wait until he’s full grown and has a band of loyal followers and a base of operations. Just like the Nazis didn’t wait until the Allies had an established foothold on French soil.

But this was no ordinary baby. When verse 5 describes him as one who rules the nations with an iron scepter, that’s a direct reference to Psalm 2, which describes God’s authority over the rulers of the world who resist him and think that they can stand up to him. In the psalm, God laughs at their schemes. “Don’t you know who you’re dealing with? I’ve got the power to crush you. All of the power that you think you have is a joke, an illusion.” And this, again, is where the comparison with D Day breaks down. The Allied invasion could have failed. But there’s no way in the world that Satan would ever be able to stand up to Christ’s invasion. If we think again about the threat of Herod killing all the Bethlehem babies, Jesus didn’t just escape by the skin of his teeth. It may have looked that way. But God was in control of the whole situation.

After the baby’s birth, John’s vision moves along on a pretty fast timeline. Verse 5 covers everything from Jesus’ birth to his ascension into heaven. His baptism, ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection. John just glosses over it all. Not because it’s not important, but to get to the particular point that he’s dealing with here. The child, the invader, is safe. There’s nothing Satan can do about him. But what about the mother: us, God’s people who are still here in enemy occupied land? Satan can still make things pretty nasty for us. Let’s stick with World War II for an example, but go over to the eastern front. In 1989 I was in what was then the Soviet Union, and we toured a cemetery of villages. It’s a memorial unlike any other you can imagine. As the Russians slowly pushed the Germans out of their land, the Germans had a cruel response. Every time they lost a battle, they would target a random village that was still in their control. They surrounded it, killed all of its residents, and burned it to the ground. To honor their memory, the Russians selected one of these villages to serve as a memorial for all of them, and erected monuments in it for each of the destroyed villages. As memory serves me, there were at least a couple hundred monuments there, each testifying to a brutal event. The Nazis were losing the war, but they did what they could to exact revenge and terror. We are like those poor Russian villages still under Nazi control. Satan is enraged that Christ is reclaiming his territory, territory that Satan thinks is his. He can’t get at Christ, so he does the next best thing and attacks his people: us. The Nazis couldn’t beat the Russians, but they could terrorize the Russian people under their heel. If you ever wonder why horrible things happen, and continue to happen, they are partly the result of Satan’s frustrated lashing out over Christ’s invasion. And the more closely associated you are to Christ, the more likely he is to target you.

But there’s good news. The woman may not have been lifted up to heaven to escape the dragon, but God brought her into a wilderness place where she could find refuge for a while. We aren’t in heaven yet, but God offers us protection, at least for a while. In Scripture, the wilderness is often a place where people encounter God (think especially of the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea and Jesus after his baptism). We’ve got an enemy prowling about, but God is sending us protection in the midst of it.

Revelation 11:15-19 – Last Call

2009-06-25T19:59:00.001-04:00

The book of Revelation could almost end at this point. The seven trumpets have brought God’s will into the world, first to urge repentance, then to punish evil and sin. God’s word went out into the world and prevailed over his enemies, who were confounded and destroyed. There’s more to come, of course. But in a sense, the rest of the book fills in the details for the overall scheme that we’ve seen up to this point. These five verses summarize the glory that will be more fully described in Chapters 21 and 22.

The seventh angel sounded the last trumpet, and in response all of heaven erupts in a proclamation of God’s final victory. If you’re a music buff, you’ll recognize the words of the song in verse 7; Händel used them for his great triumphant “Hallelujah” chorus of the Messiah oratorio. And for good reason. In two simple lines, we hear a summary of Christ’s victory. The world has become God’s kingdom, and he will reign over it forever. It’s the fulfillment of our petition in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Up to this point we’ve been looking a dichotomy between God’s kingdom and the powers of the world that oppose him. Good and evil, God and Satan, light and dark. The celebration here isn’t that God has won a final victory over his enemies and defeated them. His victory runs even deeper. God didn’t just destroy his enemies: he converted them into his servants! God co-opts the world and bends it to his purposes. Maybe you’ve seen it in your own life: a horrible tragedy strikes, or an awful sin cuts an ugly mark across life. But God is able to take the suffering and evil and actually make it part of his plan. I’ve seen it happen in my own life (sorry, but I don’t feel like sharing the juicy details here. Just trust me on it). I guess you could say that God is the ultimate recycler. He takes trash and turns it into treasure. Or, as the 1970’s contemporary Christian singer Keith Green put it, “He brought me here, where things are clear, and trials turn to gold.” Notice carefully what the “loud voices in heaven” declare. They don’t say “The kingdom of the world has been defeated by the kingdom of our Lord.” They say “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord.” God has transformed his enemies and the broken world they have ravaged into part of his kingdom.

This is what God has been doing for centuries, as the gospel has spread across the world (that same gospel which John was told to proclaim in Revelation 10:11, and which the two witnesses prophesied in verses 3-6). Diogenes Allen wrote about this masterfully in his book Christian Belief in a Postmodern World. As the gospel spreads and encounters rival faiths and ideologies, it does not simply roll over top of them and eliminate them. It co-opts them, and makes them part of the Christian witness. (Don’t try this at home, kids. It can easily turn into syncretism. But that’s exactly not what I’m talking about here.) Let me give you a few examples. The first is one that Dr. Allen offered himself. Stoicism was probably the most influential and widespread philosophical schools of the first century Roman world. Never heard of it? That’s because it was incorporated into the Christian witness. Or, to put it more carefully (to show that it wasn’t simple syncretism), Stoicism had something to offer which strengthened Christian theology. It wasn’t a case of “these two are pretty much the same thing, so let’s slap them together” (which would be syncretism), but more like “hey, here’s a good tool we can use to understand the gospel better.” Another example is one which occurred over the last 150 years or so in Africa, which the Christian world is still benefitting from. When the first European missionaries came, they were appalled by the drumming and dancing that was part of the African culture. because it was closely associated with the African traditional religions, the missionaries forbade their converts from engaging in it. That was a real struggle for early African Christians, because drumming and dancing was an integral part of life for them. They had to give up part of who they were in order to become Christian. Over time, wiser heads recognized that there is nothing inherently sinful with traditional African drumming and dancing. Why couldn’t it be used for Christian worship as well? Practices which had originally been devoted to pagan or pantheistic religion are now used to offer praise to Jesus Christ. Christ has taken over what used to belong to another. Here’s one more example. Christian purists point out that the name “Easter” is derived from Ishtar, a Babylonian fertility goddess and festival. They refuse to celebrate Easter (or at least, to call day of Christ’s resurrection by that name) because of this pagan association. And to some extent, they have a point. Easter bunnies and eggs are symbols of fertility. But I see this as one more example of how the gospel has co-opted and taken over elements of the world that used to be opposed to Christ. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met a devotee of Ishtar, and I see no devious conspiracy to undermine Christian faith in the resurrection by subverting it into a fertility cult. In fact, the exact opposite has happened. The celebration of new life that Ishtar-worshipers used to observe has now become part of our celebration of the new life that Jesus brings. We Christians have changed and taken over the Babylonian practice, not the other way around. (If the name “Easter” leaves you feeling hinky, then do what Eastern Orthodox Christians do and call it the Paschal Festival.” Does the name really matter all that much?) These are just a few examples, and there are so many more: neo-Platonism, Christmas trees, guitars and drums in worship (and yes, even organs. Time was that good church-going people were offended that such a profane instrument would be used in worship. “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is set to the tune of an old German drinking song.)

This is all good news for us, because it’s exactly what God has done in our lives. If God would say something like “anything or anyone that is opposed to me or is directed to some other form of worship or way of life and thought must be destroyed,” we’d all be toast. Instead, he has taken us, enemies of his that we are because of our sin, selfishness, desires, and pride, and transformed us into his friends. Romans 5:10 expresses this beautifully. Those who are God’s enemies have become part of his kingdom. Hallelujah, indeed.

John then directs our attention back to the 24 elders who surround God’s heavenly throne (we first met them in Chapter 4). They now offer a new song to God. In a sense, these elders are like the chorus in ancient Greek dramas, commenting on the plot development and explaining to us, the audience, the significance of what’s going on. God is now exercising the full extent of his power, which up until now had been held back a bit. The “nations,” or the human and spiritual powers of the world which resisted God, have been angry at God and have resisted him, but now God takes on his role as their judge. “The time for judging has come.” We’ll see this expressed in more detail in Revelation 20:11-15. There will be reward and blessing for those whose worship of God (or reverence of his name) reveals them to be citizens of his kingdom. Notice that: it is our worship and reverence of God that demonstrates our saving relationship with him. Not the intensity of our faith, nor the precision of our theology, nor the merit of our conduct. It is our worship, praise, gratitude, honor – whatever words you want to use – of God that demonstrate that we are his people. So, what’s your worship life like (both personal and corporate)? It’s actually very simple. If you claim Christ as your king, then he will be your king and rule over you. If not, well, it’s another story. Those who get the nasty side of judgment are labeled destroyers: “those who destroy the earth.” That, in essence, is what rebellion against God and sin is all about. You are destroying the goodness of God’s creation and his perfect will for the world. Again, it’s very simple. If you destroy, you will be destroyed. In a sense, we select our own fate. If we seek God as our king, we will be part of his kingdom. If we devote ourselves to destruction, then we’ll get what we’ve been seeking and be destroyed ourselves.

The scene ends with God’s temple and the Holy of Holies being opened and revealed. This is a reminder of what happened during the crucifixion, when the temple curtain that shrouded the Holy of Holies was ripped apart. God is no longer caged up, and we are no longer protected from his glory and power, for good or bad. The lightning, thunder, earthquake, and hail are symbols of God’s power that we’ve encountered elsewhere (such as 8:1-5) and which we find repeatedly in the Bible (such as Exodus 19). It’s a symbolic expression of verse 16: God has taken up his power.

Revelation 11:1-14 – It Pays to Increase Your Word Power

2009-06-19T16:31:00.000-04:00

This passage begins with an echo of Ezekiel 40-42, when the prophet observes someone measuring the temple. Not the “real” temple in Jerusalem, but God’s ideal temple that it was based on. I won’t take the time to look at why Ezekiel saw the temple being measured, but the purpose for John measuring the temple is pretty clear here: it’s not to fit the temple with new curtains, but for its preservation and protection. This protection isn’t just for the building itself, but for the people in it. It’s an action very similar to what happen in Revelation 7:3, when God marked his people with a seal of protection before the trumpets sounded. The outer court of the temple isn’t included in the protection. It may be that it’s because this was the court of the Gentiles: people who didn’t really belong to begin with. Or, it may represent people on the fringes of faith: those whose names are on the roles but don’t really know Jesus. Or people who think they’re Christian because they come from a Christian family. That’s not good enough.

The reason for the protection is clear in the rest of this passage: the “Gentiles” (for Jews, the same thing as “the nations”) or the godless people, will rise up against God, his temple, his people, and his message. But God offers sanctuary in his sanctuary. John was told (we don’t know by whom) that these forces of opposition to God would run rampant for 42 months. That’s three and a half years, by the way. In a book such as Revelation, where numbers carry symbolic importance, three and a half years means more than that particular span of time. It’s half of 7, which is the perfect or divine number. So this is part of, or half of, God’s plan. It may look like the enemies are in control, but they’re not. First of all, God has marked a limit to how far they can go. And second, their time of power is part of God’s bigger plan.

Then, after God’s enemies have had their time to destroy and cause harm, God brings in two witnesses. They do their work for 1,260 days. If you get out your calculator, you’ll see that 1260 days = 42 months = 3 ½ years. So the perfect time of seven years is divided in half. Think of it as a courtroom trial. First the prosecution has a chance to present its case, then the defense has a turn. Or, think of Presidential debates, where the moderator works hard to ensure that everyone gets equal time. The work of the destroyers and desecrators is limited. They can’t get to the sanctuary where the numbered worshipers are. (Being counted means being protected. That’s what Jesus meant about the hairs of head being counted by God.)

These two witnesses are interesting for several reasons. First, of course, is the incredible powers that they have to breathe fire and to cause drought, and then of course is their resuscitation after being killed. But the identity of exactly who (or what!) these witnesses are is where it gets really interesting, and where their powers give us some understanding.

The witnesses were dressed in sackcloth, the traditional clothing for mourning and lamentation. They came with a message of woe and doom. They were mourning because of all the bad stuff that was going to happen. No wonder the people didn’t like them! Their association with olive trees and lampstands is also instructive. First, it brings to mind Zechariah 4, where God shows the prophet a lampstand with two olive trees. He’s told that they are “the two who are anointed to serve the Lord,” and that they declare God’s power and blessing. OK, maybe that’s not as helpful as we’d like. But they can point us in the right direction. We’ve already seen some lampstands in Revelation, which indicated God’s presence. And olive trees are a sign of life and prosperity. So, despite the sackcloth and the negative response of the people, these witnesses are good and positive.

So who exactly are the witnesses? There are bunch of possible answers to that question. And, since this is symbolic language, the real answer may be “all of the above.” The first theory about the two witnesses is that they are Enoch and Elijah: the two people in the Old Testament who were taken into heaven without dying (Genesis 5:21-24 and 2 Kings 2:11-12). The problem with this is that these two men have very little in common with each other apart from that, and Enoch is (at least for us) a pretty obscure figure. (By the way, the Roman Catholics believe that the same thing happened to Mary; they call it the Assumption. But we don’t find any hint of it in Scripture, which is why Protestants don’t share this belief.) The second theory is based on the description of the witnesses with images from Zechariah: they are Joshua and Zerubbabel, the high priest and the king in Zechariah’s time that he spoke well of. This could direct our attention to Jesus, who is our high priest and king. The fact that the witnesses were killed by their enemies but came to life after three and a half days sounds pretty similar to what happened to Jesus. The third idea, which is the one that I like the best, is that the two witnesses are Moses and Elijah. Elijah was given the power to cause a three year drought. Moses was given the power to bring plagues upon Egypt, like turning water to blood. As for the fire of destruction, we find both of those in the lives of Moses (Numbers 11:1-3 and Numbers 16:35) and of Elijah (1 Kings 18:38). And what’s so significant about Moses and Elijah? Well, Moses is known as the law-giver, and Elijah is the greatest of the Old Testament prophets (even though we don’t have a book of the Bible named after him). The law and the prophets is the full sum of the Old Testament, and is often how the Hebrew Bible is referred to (Matthew 5:17, Matthew 7:12, Matthew 22:40, Luke 16:16. Romans 3:21, and so on). Perhaps the most powerful reference is John 1:45, written by the same John who recorded this Revelation. After Philip met Jesus, he went to his friend Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth.” And that’s the whole point: the law and the prophets witness to Jesus. So these two witnesses are the law and the prophets, witnessing and testifying to Jesus. And why do we need two witnesses, instead of just one? Simple: the Old Testament law required the testimony of two witnesses in order for anything to be accepted or judged to be true (Deuteronomy 17:6).

So the two witnesses are the testimony of Scripture to the identity and authority of Jesus Christ. It’s a powerful witness: one that can destroy its opposition. At the same time, however, we need to avoid the danger of “Bible-idolatry.” The Bible is a reliable and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ, but it’s not the center of our faith. I always feel uncomfortable when someone describes themselves as a “Bible-believing” Christian. I suspect what they mean is that they believe the witness of the Bible, and that’s great. But when we elevate the Bible to the point where it is what matters the most to us, then we’ve replaced our Lord with the thing that testifies to him. It’s always important to remember that the only reason the Bible matters is because of the way that it connects us to God.

The power of the witnesses’ testimony only lasts so long. The power of evil (introduced for the first time here in Revelation), embodied in the beast that rises up out of the Abyss (the same one that the locust army came from) attacks and kills them. Satan does his best to destroy the power of God’s word. And this is something that we find echoed throughout history. A few centuries before the time of Christ, Antiochus Epiphanes burned the Jewish Torah scrolls. Hitler burned Bibles. When Romania was under Communist rule, there were two items of contraband that they looked for at the borders: pornography and Bibles. Evil does its best to shut up the testimony of Scripture.

For a limited period of time, God’s enemies appeared to have won. They gloated and celebrated their apparent victory. Leaving bodies unburied is a form of disgrace. And it’s one that our nation has grieved to see a couple times in the past. After the “Blackhawk Down” tragedy in Mogadishu, we were outraged to see the bodies of the fallen Marines dragged through the streets. And when the Blackwater contracted security guards were killed in Fallujah, the insurgents strung their bodies up on a bridge to belittle them.

However, their celebration was short-lived. In a clear echo of Easter, God brought life back to the slain witnesses. And like the Ascension, he brought them up into heaven. The earthquake may be a reminder of the earthquake that Matthew tells us about at the crucifixion and resurrection.

Telling the truth with get you in trouble, and God’s enemies will try to shut you down. But in the end, God protects and vindicates his own. Are you doing your best to be a witness testifying to God? If so, not all of the problems you’re facing are simply a clash of personalities or bad luck. Evil may be attacking you as well. And for a while, they may appear to win. But God has the final victory.

Revelation 10:1-11 – A Spoonful of Sugar

2009-06-09T17:15:00.001-04:00

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that we’re almost at the end of another series of seven in Revelation. First was the letters to the churches, then the seals being opened on the scroll, and now the trumpets being sounded by the angels. Before the seventh seal was opened, there was an interlude to make sure that God’s people were preserved, as they were given God’s protecting mark and gathered before the throne of heaven. In the same way, we have another pause before the seventh angel sounds off. But this time, it’s God’s witness and not his people who are being preserved in the face of evil.

There’s something about scrolls and mighty angels in Revelation. This is the second time that we see a mighty angel holding a scroll (the third mighty angel shows up in Chapter 18, but that’s another story). The first mighty angel and scroll came in the beginning of Chapter 5, when the angel asked if anyone was able to open the scroll that was sealed up and contained God’s plan for the world. This scroll is a bit different. It’s not God’s designs for the world, but his message to the people. Maybe that’s why it’s a “little scroll:” not the entire overall plan, but a particular part of it.

(By the way, there’s another possibility: it’s the same mighty angel each time, performing a different task. And there’s a chance that the scroll was little only in comparison to the angel.)

The might of the angel is a reflection of God’s might because the angel acts as his representative. Roll that thought around in your brain for a moment: when you act as God’s representative, you reflect him as well. It’s an awesome responsibility, but even more importantly, it’s a reminder that what you do does not depend upon your power but upon the One who is acting through you. Your role is to be the best representative of God as you can. Get yourself out of the way as much as you can, and let as much of God flow through you as you’re able. The angel is a reflection of God; are you?

As God’s agent, the attributes of this angel echo his majesty. The cloud and fire associated with him remind us of how God led the Israelites through the wilderness with a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night. It is a symbol of God’s divine presence. The rainbow over him evokes the divine mercy demonstrated by God’s promise to Noah after the flood never to destroy the world by water again. His feet on the land and on the sea and the fact that he came down from heaven show that the angel’s message is universal: for all people.

At the sound of the angel’s lion-like roar (another demonstration of his power; remember that the lion is the symbol of Judah), the seven-fold thunders speak in reply. I’m not exactly sure what the seven thunders are, but I suspect that it’s the seven-fold Spirit of God that we encountered in Chapter 1. But at this point, we run into an interesting mystery. John is about to record what the thunders say, but God orders him to seal it up: that is, to keep it under lock and key. He’s forbidden to write it down so that others (like us, who are reading John’s record) will know what the thunders have spoken.

Why the mystery? If the whole purpose of Revelation is to reveal, to show us what God’s doing in the world and what the future will hold, why is this message so different? I have a couple of theories. First, even in the midst of God’s revealing of himself to us, there are things that he holds back from us. Job never really got an answer for why he suffered so much. According to Mark’s gospel, the people who encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry never really quite understood him. Moses never made it into the Promised Land. There is always mystery when it comes to God, always something that we don’t know or understand. Perhaps it’s because we would never be able to grasp the whole picture because it’s incomprehensible to our little pee wee human brains. It may be that so much knowledge, a full exposure to God’s glory, would undo us. Or it may be a reminder to us that we worship and serve an undomesticated God. If we fully understood him, we could predict him. And that’s just one step away from controlling or manipulating him. Then we’d be the masters and God would be the servant. And wasn’t that the original sin: eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? It’s denied us for our own protection. There are times when we run into this situation when it infuriates or confuses us. We see God’s hand at work in the world around us, in the circumstances that our loved ones face, and we don’t understand why God would do such things. One of my favorite fantasies about heaven is that the time will come when God will explain it all to me and I’ll recognize how his plan was at work in ways that I couldn’t comprehend. This passage makes me wonder, however, if I’ll ever get to live out my fantasy. I hate to admit it, but I suspect that even in heaven God will be a mystery to us. We’ll see him face to face and revel in his glory, but there will still be things that are sealed up.

(There is another theory about what the seven thunders spoke which was sealed up. By sealing up their words, God prevented them from taking place. Perhaps the thunders spoke words of judgment that will not happen, maybe because it’s the voice of accusation against those whom Christ has redeemed.)

In my reflections on the sixth trumpet, I wondered how much longer God would inflict agony upon the people of the earth before he would start to bring things to a final end. It appears that now is the time. The mighty angel declares that the delay of God’s plans in order to woe or warn people away from their sin is over. The final plan of God was going to come to pass. It’s an answer to the martyrs’ demands in Chapter 6 for their suffering to be avenged. If you want to spoil the surprise, look ahead and you’ll see that the final consummation of God’s plans on the scroll is for his universal authority and worship. It’s about God, not us.

While it may be about God, we are privileged to play a role in the cosmic drama. It’s an honor and a humbling prospect, both at the same time. John is pulled away from his role of observer and recorder to become an active participant in God’s plans. Up until now, John has been detached from the action, apart from the comfort that an elder gave him in Chapter 5 and a question that an elder (the same elder?) asked him in Chapter 7. A voice from heaven (obviously the voice of God himself) instructs John to go and take the scroll from the hand of the mighty angel, who is beaming with the glory of God and straddling the foundations of creation. We, like John, are not passive observers of what God is doing. We are instructed to play our role in God’s plans. Like Moses and so many of the Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles, we may feel utterly unworthy for the role God has for us. But it’s a false, even demonic, humility that prevents us from taking on those roles. Remember the mighty angel? His majesty and glory and might were not features of his own attributes, but refections of the majesty and glory of God. We, like the angel, are to allow God to work through us. In the process, we are transformed. There’s no place for us to sit back and let God or someone else take care of things. We all have our tasks to perform.

When John approached the angel and asked him for the scroll (imagine the courage it would take to do that!), the angel gave it to him and told him to eat it. The angel told him that it would be sweet going down, but would give him an upset stomach once he swallowed it. No; this doesn’t mean that the scroll was like too much Halloween candy. The scroll was God’s word to be proclaimed to the world. It’s sweet because it is the word of God, but it is bitter because of the judgment contained in it. Here’s another way to put it: the only way to the sweet victory of the resurrection is through the bitterness of the cross. On one wall in my office I have a picture of Christ seated in the glory of heaven. But on the other wall is a picture of his agony on the cross, surrounded by people from the past, present, and future. You can’t get to glory without agony.

The best way to understand the meaning of John eating the scroll is to look at the story of Ezekiel’s call to become a prophet, which this passage strongly echoes. God gave Ezekiel a scroll, upon which was written his message of “lament and mourning and woe” for the “obstinate and stubborn” people who had rebelled against him. Ezekiel, like John, was told to eat the scroll. Eating the scroll represents “internalizing” God’s message; really taking it to heart and letting it become part of you. but it also means that you must speak the word of God to others. Ezekiel’s scroll was sweet to the taste, like John’s was. But for Ezekiel, the words that he swallowed were difficult ones. Not only would they be harsh for the people he would speak them to, but their reaction would make Ezekiel’s life difficult. He would need God’s blessing to strengthen him so that he could withstand it.

When we are like Ezekiel and John, we receive God’s word and take it into our very selves. It is sweet and wholesome for us, but it’s not easy. It’s a harsh, bitter message that we receive and share. The gospel is literally “good news,” but it won’t always win you friends. Nonetheless, we share Ezekiel and John’s commission to share it with the world.

Revelation 9:13-21 - “Turning up the Heat”

2009-06-08T12:39:00.000-04:00

The sixth trumpet intensifies the distress caused by the first five. In fact, it almost seems like overkill, after the events heralded by the first trumpets. How much more distress and calamity can God rain down upon the earth? And why does he want to?

First, a quick review. The trumpets began to sound after the scroll containing God’s will had been opened. We’ve seen that each of the trumpets announces another part of God’s plan taking place. But so far, the plan has been pretty gruesome. The first four trumpets destroyed a third of the major elements of the world: the land, fresh water, ocean, and sky. The fifth trumpet unleashed tortuous suffering upon the people who hadn’t been sealed by God. Everything that the trumpets brought about has been suffering and destruction.

The sixth trumpet announces even worse devastation. After it sounds, a voice from the altar issues a command. This altar, by the way, is the one that is before the throne of God in heaven. We’ve seen it a couple of times earlier. In Chapter 6, the souls of the martyrs were under the altar, demanding retribution for their suffering. In Chapter 8, the prayers of the faithful were presented to God on the altar, and were mixed with fire from the altar so that they could return to earth with the power of God. So the altar appears to be a connection between God and his people. And it’s where God’s power issues forth upon the world. The voice from the altar is the voice of God, announcing his will to be done.

The voice from the altar commands that God’s four avenging angels be released to attack the sinful people of the world. The number of angels indicates that they go about the entire world (to the four corners). Their location by the Euphrates River can indicate several things. And since this is symbolic language, it probably means all of them! First, Genesis 2:14 tells us the that the Euphrates was one of four rivers that flowed from the Garden of Eden. And Genesis 3:24 describes an armed angel who guarded the entrance to the garden after Adam and Eve were kicked out. Perhaps this angel, the first indication in the Bible of God’s wrath against sin, is one of the four that now travels throughout the earth to attack that sin. Second, the most devastating military blow to people of God was the attack of the Babylonians against Jerusalem. Babylon was along the banks of the Euphrates. And according to Old Testament books like 2 Chronicles and Habakkuk, the Babylonian army was sent by God to punish a sinful and rebellious nation. The angels here are continuing the work that the Babylonians began. It was bad enough before; it’s going to be even worse now. Third, in the days of John and his first readers, the Euphrates River marked the eastern boundary of the Roman Empire, beyond which was fearful lawlessness and violence. In particular, the Parthians would stage raids from across the river into the Roman territory. The Parthian raiders were known particularly for their mounted archers, who would shoot arrows at you as they approached, and then could turn around and shoot again from behind as they left. This may be part of the inspiration for verse 19’s comment about the horses who attacked with both their mouths and their tails. Put all three of these images together, and you get the sense of terrifying destruction coming from God to punish the sin of the world.

Verse 15 is very specific. God had the angels’ release planned to the very hour, day, month, and year to begin their dreadful work. History is in God’s hands, as he controls the events that take place when and how he plans them.

The army of 200 million is not something different from the angels; it is the same deadly force perceived in a different way. The four angels are a universal spiritual force, and the massive army is an earthly reflection of that force. Even by today’s standards, an army with 200 million soldiers is inconceivable by human standards. Imagine what it would have meant in John’s day; historians estimate that entire population of the world at that time was about 200 to 300 million! The population of the entire Roman Empire at the time was about 55 to 60 million. So this is no ordinary army; it can only come as a component of spiritual activity. 200 million is also a symbolic number: 4 (all of creation) X 5 (not total) X 1,000 X 1,000 (a vast number). Put these numbers together and you get a description of the army: a vast force unleashed upon the entire world, but not one that will cause total destruction.

John provides some interestingly specific details about the horses and their riders. Their uniforms were red, blue, and yellow. Sorry, but I don’t know what these colors mean! The best I can do is look at the three “plagues” that the army produces: fire, smoke, and sulfur. Fire is red, smoke can sort of be blue, and sulfur is yellow. Maybe it’s nothing more than that. The horses have elements of lions and of snakes: fierce and dangerous animals, to be sure. Some commentators wonder if the snake-tails are meant to evoke images of Satan the serpent.

The locust army we saw in verses 3-10 was bad enough. But there was a limit to what it could do. The locusts could torment but not kill. That restriction is lifted for the army of the four angels. They slaughter a third of the human population, a number that echoes the one-third destruction of creation caused by the first four trumpets.

We’ve seen the previous destruction caused by the trumpets to be a summons for repentance from sin and the consequences of not leaving it. That summons is intensified here. But the response of the survivors of the army’s attack is not one that leads them to God. Rather than being “scared straight,” they continue in their sin. And unfortunately, this is a common feature of the human condition. Even when we see the nasty consequences of what we’re doing, we do it anyway. Everyone in our country knows that smoking kills, and that it’s a hard habit to break. And the “sin taxes” on cigarettes make them more and more expensive. And yet, people continue to start smoking. We know that fatty, greasy food will clog our arteries. For the first time in human history, life expectancy has dropped because people are eating too much food. We know that eating too much food, and the wrong kinds of food, is bad for us. But we do it anyway. And here’s the craziest statistic of all: violent crimes are higher in states that have capital punishment than in states with no death penalty. You’d think that people would be less likely to commit crimes when they know they could be executed for them. But that’s not the case. The Dutch have a great word for this human characteristic: eigewiest (I’m sure that this is totally misspelled, since I never learned to read or write the language of my forebears). The closest we get to it in English is “stubborn.” Or maybe “contrary.” A refusal to get with the program, for no other reason than that you don’t want to. Even if it will cause grief for yourself. Something like biting your nose to spite your face is part of it all. It’s part of our sinful human nature. Even when we see the deadly results of sin, we continue in it.

Why? Well, there can be all sorts of reasons, just as there are all sorts of sins and sinners. The description in verses 20-21 of the sins that people continue in suggests a few of the reasons. In the face of calamity and destruction, people don’t turn to the Lord who can save them, but all sorts of other things (demons, idols, etc) that they think can help them. And it’s still true today. Don’t get me wrong: technology is great. But do we put our trust in electronics, medical breakthroughs, and engineering marvels when they really can’t give us the help we need? We murder to get rid of people who anger us or who stand in the way of what we want. Sexual immorality and theft are two expressions of self gratification: getting what you want, and what makes you feel good. Even if it’s wrong and others may suffer as a result.

So what brings about repentance? Ultimately, it’s God’s work in the person’s soul. The survivors of the army of 200 million had hardened hearts, just Pharaoh after the plagues devastated Egypt but he continued to defy God. This is where we Presbyterians see predestination at work. If God touches a person, nothing can ever get in the way of their faithful devotion to him. But unless God calls that person by name, nothing will ever bring them into the fold.

Which person are you?

Revelation 9:1-11 - Control Issues

2009-05-29T14:17:00.001-04:00

The first issue to address here is the identity of the star that fell from the sky and opened the Abyss. The ancients often understood celestial beings to be spiritual beings, so this fallen star is probably the “angel of the Abyss” of verse 11. The names given to the angel. both of which mean “Destroyer” give us some insight into exactly what the star/angel is all about. Is it Satan? Perhaps. But as we’ve seen already, God is doing plenty of destroying of his own. So this isn’t necessarily an angel who is rebelling against God. In fact, as we go along I think that’s the whole point. God’s in control even of what appears to be his opposition.

The understanding of Satan that many of us have doesn’t come from the Bible but from the Elizabethan poet John Milton, whose epic poem “Paradise Lost” portrays Satan as a powerful angel who rebelled against God, was thrown out of heaven, and nursed a grudge. This is one of the few passages in the Bible that seems to support Milton’s version. But there’s an important piece missing: nowhere here does it appear as though the angel is doing anything other than what God wanted.

The second issue is the notion of the Abyss. Arguably the greatest theologian of the twentieth century was Karl Barth, whose massive thirty-one volume “Church Dogmatics” has made students’ eyes glaze over if their spirits weren’t caught up in it. I only had the “pleasure” of reading one of the thirty-one volumes. In it, Barth describes “nothingness:” that which had not been created by God but which opposes God. It’s Barth’s way of dealing with the problem of evil, and I’m not sure if I completely buy it. But he makes the very interesting point that the opposition which confronts God is literally nothing. And yet it has power and causes evil. It could be that the Abyss (a deep pit of nothing) is something like Barth’s “nothingness.”

The third issue is this terrifying and tormenting army of locusts that swarms up out of the Abyss and tortures humanity. The Old Testament often used locusts as an image of destruction, and rightly so. The documented stories of how an unbelievably massive swarm of locusts can wipe out all vegetation for miles is enough to make the stoutest heart tremble. But this is no ordinary locust swarm. Instead of going after plants, like normal locusts, they go after people. I’ve never been stung by a scorpion, but from what I’ve been told, I have no desire to do so. These locusts are a weird hybrid creature that flies and swarms like locusts, but inflicts horrible pain like scorpions. Again, if you want to describe something about as nasty as they come, these locusts do it.

The description of these locusts tells a little bit about why God sent them. (And yes, they come from God. We’ll get to that in a moment.) They come like an army. Horses, chariots, and iron breastplates were the Abrams tanks, Predator drones, and ballistic missiles of the time. It’s a devastating army coming to inflict God’s wrath. Their crowns indicate the ultimate doom of those who grasp for glory. The flowing women’s hair represents, at least for the culture that John was part of, the temptation of earthly pleasure. Only “loose” women showed their long flowing hair in public. So the torment that comes upon the people is a consequence or a result of our own sin. Can we really blame anyone but ourselves for some of the nasty stuff that we have to deal with?

The fourth issue is the most important of all. I’ve hinted at it a few times already. God is in control of it all: the destroying fallen angel, the Abyss, the locusts that come out of it, and what the locusts do. Read the passage carefully, and you’ll see it. The angel was “given” the key to open the Abyss. The locusts were “given” the ability to sting like scorpions. Who do you think was doing all this giving? God, of course. But God also set “rules of engagement” upon the locust army. He instructed them only to attack people and nothing else. He did not permit them to kill anyone, but only to torture them. Of course, that may not have been doing anyone any favors. It’s common for people going through extreme torture to wish for death so that their agony would end. No such luck here. Perhaps the most important of all the “rules of engagement” that were given to the locusts was the prohibition to do anything to the people who had the seal of God. Remember that from Chapter 7? God paused in the unfolding of his plan to mark the people who had been saved by Christ’s redeeming work. We hear so much about
“the mark of the Beast” which comes up in Chapter 14. But God’s mark is the one that really matters.

What does the mark mean here? On the one hand, it means that the people who have received grace through the acceptance of Christ’s gift do not have to fear God’s wrath, which comes upon everyone else. But even more, if we understand the locusts to be the personification of the destructive consequences of our sin, we can see that God spares us from the damage that we do to ourselves. There’s really no limit to what God will do for us! He even protects us from ourselves.

It’s an issue of control. Satan and his minions aren’t in control. They only do what God allows them to do. And when we commit ourselves to God, we’re not in control of ourselves. It’s a good thing, because we’d make a royal mess of our lives and everything else around us. Accepting Christ’s lordship doesn’t just mean that we have to obey him and live the way he wants. It means that he takes control of our lives so that we don’t wreck ourselves.

Revelation 8:6-13 – The Plagues of Repentance

2009-05-21T18:32:00.001-04:00

I don’t know if this is where the expression “saved by a hair” comes from, but this passage evokes an interesting episode in Ezekiel’s career. According to Chapter 5 of his book, Ezekiel was instructed by the Lord to shave off all his hair and divide it into thirds. He was instructed to burn a third of his hair, strike a third of it with a sword (that would have been an interesting sight!), and scatter a third of it to the wind. This was God’s way of describing the doom of the nation of Judah for rejecting him. They would perish in destruction and in warfare, and those who remained would be scattered and forgotten. It’s a pretty depressing or frightening prediction, but there was a glimmer of hope in the midst of it all. Before burning, slashing, and scattering his hair, Ezekiel was instructed to take a few strands of hair and tuck them safely away in his pocket (well, actually “in the folds of his garment,” since pockets apparently hadn’t been invented yet). Even in the midst of terrible destruction, God would redeem and rescue a righteous remnant who hadn’t abandoned him. Perhaps Jesus had this episode in mind when he assured his followers that God has numbered the hairs on our head (Matthew 10:30). He carefully watches over and protects the faithful, just as Ezekiel tucked away those few strands of his hair.

All of this relates to this passage from Revelation. The angels have received their trumpets to enact God’s will that had been hidden in the scroll that is now opened. And with each of the first four trumpet blasts, destruction comes upon the earth. In order, a third of the land, the sea (or salt water), the rivers and springs (or fresh water), and the sky are destroyed. The first and most obvious connection between Ezekiel and Revelation is the “thirds:” Ezekiel’s hair was divided into thirds to be destroyed, and a third of each element of creation is destroyed as the trumpets sound. But this connection is a bit sketchy, since almost all of Ezekiel’s hair is destroyed, but only a third of creation is destroyed with the sounding of the trumpets. The relationship between these two episodes comes out when we recall the few strands of hair that Ezekiel tucked away for safe keeping. Destruction in both situations was not total, but was limited, and limited quite a bit in the case of this passage. There’s a point to the destruction, beyond God destroying a world that had rebelled against him. The point to it all is repentance: those who turn away from their rebellion or self-indulgence and direct their lives to God. In Ezekiel’s case, the strands of hair in his pocket represented the righteous remnant of Israel: those few who heeded God’s message and abandoned their idolatry, immorality, greed, and pride. In the case of this passage, the destruction of a third of creation was meant to be instructive. As people see it, they are hopefully inspired to leave their sinful ways and accept Christ’s lordship. This is a dramatic example of what we read about in Hebrews 12:4-13: God brings hardship into the lives of his people as a form of discipline, to enable them to “produce a harvest of righteousness and peace.”

Not all of creation is destroyed by the first four trumpets. It happens in order to draw people to God. It’s the same approach that we use with our criminal justice system, and with capital punishment in particular. The theory is that if we see people being sent to jail or executed for committing certain crimes, the rest of us are less likely to commit those crimes ourselves, out of fear of the consequences that we’ll face. When we are confronted with the awesome and destructive power of God, we’re more likely to turn our lives over to him. I personally prefer to draw people to God with an invitation of love and grace: come to God who loves you and will recreate your life into something wonderful. And there is Scriptural support for this kind of an approach. Others, however, prefer what is pejoratively called a “fire and brimstone” approach. Turn your life over to God, or face dire consequences. One of the most powerful sermons in colonial America, preached by Jonathan Edwards and called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” is an excellent example of this approach. Is one approach better than the other? Not really. Because God has created us all in different ways, an approach that reaches one person will not work on someone else. It’s the same reason why we have such a wide variety of churches. Some people are able to worship God best in a highly liturgical setting, while others worship better in a contemporary setting. Some prefer intimate settings while others are inspired by huge gatherings. Music touches some, while sacraments are meaningful for others. Whatever it takes to bring people to God (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)! This passage is God’s attempt to reach those who respond better to threats and warnings than to invitations and promises.

The order of events heralded by the trumpets represents an undoing of creation: first the land, then the water, then the sky. According to Genesis 1, God first created the sky (on the second day), then gathered the water together, and finally created the land (on the third day). This isn’t a random order of events. The trumpets give us the message that God can un-create what he made.

The calamities caused by at least three of the trumpets also brings to mind the plagues that God sent to Egypt in order to convince them to free the Hebrew slaves. The order is somewhat different, but the plagues of Egypt included a plague of blood, of hail, and of darkness, which we find here in the first, third, and fourth trumpets. Later in Revelation, we’ll encounter echoes of the plagues of frogs, boils, and locusts.

Our passage provides one more allusion to Old Testament events: the strange reference to a star named Wormwood, who poisons the waters. Wormwood is a bitter-tasting plant that is referred to by several prophets (such as Jeremiah and Amos) to represent the bitterness of God’s judgment and the bitterness that comes from perverting God’s justice. Here, it is personified as a star (understood by the ancients to be spiritual beings) who brings God’s punishing bitterness to the fresh waters of the world. It is a reversal of the miracle at the waters of Marah during the Exodus (15:22-25). The thirsty Israelites came upon a spring of water in the desert, only to discover that the water was undrinkable. In response to their complaints, God had Moses throw a piece of wood into the water to make it drinkable. Just as the trumpets signal the undoing of creation, they also signal the reversal of God’s blessings.

There are two points to notice here. First, the destruction is under God’s control. The events that come from the four trumpets are not a rebellion or an attack against God’s good will. They are God’s will! Sometimes, God does bring about calamity. We don’t always understand how tragedy and destruction fit in with his plans, but they do. I have seen times when people have experienced terrible things, and it has brought them closer to God. We can only hope, with God, that these kinds of experiences happen more often.

Second, we would be foolish to assume that the events of these four trumpets will only happen at the end of time. By the time we get to Chapter 16 and the first four of seven bowls, then we will learn about the final and total destruction. Here, however, we gain insight into the destruction and calamity that goes on all around us, and has for centuries. It too can play a part in God’s plan.

After the fourth trumpet, an eagle proclaims woe upon the inhabitants of the earth. It is a declaration of God’s judgment that they have already experienced, and a warning of worse things yet to come.

Earth is not our home, as the old gospel song proclaims. We are only passing through. Living here is full of woe. And that woe isn’t necessarily contrary to God’s will. So often we assume that a world under the control of a good and loving God won’t have any suffering in it. But that’s not the case. There is evil in this world which God attacks, punishes, and destroys. Before destroying it, he provides us the opportunity to move from the “destroy” to the “redeem” column, by accepting his offer to cleanse us of our sin through the saving work of Christ. Then we can become one of those precious strands of hair in the fold of Ezekiel’s robe.

Of course, none of us want to be told that we’re suffering because God is chastising us. But when the destruction of the trumpets comes close to our lives, it’s time for us to recognize God’s wrath and discipline, while there’s still time to make the change.

Revelation 8:1-5 – Reversed Thunder

2009-05-08T16:22:00.000-04:00

Revelation provides an ongoing plot. The images may be confusing, but it’s well-organized story that develops clearly. It’s also a story with some surprises.

Let’s review what’s gotten us to this point. John’s experience began with a vision of Jesus Christ, who commanded him to give specific messages to the seven churches he oversaw. Then John was given the privilege of seeing the world’s events from a heavenly perspective. He saw God on his throne, surrounded by the praise of heavenly beings. God held a scroll upon which was written his plan for the world, but only Christ, the Lamb who had been slain, was able to open its seven seals to reveal the contents. Fantastic and terrible things happened as the first six were opened: the four horsemen of the apocalypse revealed the horrors of life on earth, the martyrs demanded that God settle their accounts, and calamity fell upon the earth. Before the seventh seal was broken, John saw how the faithful were cared for by receiving the seal of protection and taking part in the universal praise of God.

So now we’re ready for the seventh and final seal to be broken. It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for ever since Chapter 5, when the Lamb brought joy into heaven by stepping forward as the one qualified to open the scroll, revealing and enacting God’s will for creation. It’s taken more than two chapters to reach this point. As each of the first six seals were opened, fantastic and terrible things took place. It was so bad that before the seventh seal could be opened, God made special provisions for his people. As bad as everything else was, you know that it’s going to be even worse with the seventh seal. You want to close your eyes, plug up your ears, and hide behind something solid to protect yourself.

So when Christ opens the seventh seal, what happens? Nothing! Like a dud firecracker. All this hype and build-up, for nothing. To put it mildly, it’s a surprising development, maybe even a let-down. It’s hard to believe that’s it.

But appearances are deceiving. Just because it looks like nothing is happening doesn’t mean that it’s not. There are plenty of examples where inactivity, latency, or dormancy is significant. For instance:
• Humans go mad without sleep. Even though it seems like we’re just laying there, it apparently serves some important purpose.
• When we planted grass seed at the church’s construction site last October, I was convinced that the seed was bad or that the birds ate it all, because nothing happened. Now it’s growing in fine.
• The most important part of wine making is the time that it sits and ages in those fancy casks.
• Therapy sometimes goes through phases where the client doesn’t seem to be making any progress. But when the breakthrough takes place, it’s only possible because of the “nothing” that led up to it.
And here’s the best example of all. After six days of amazing creation, what did God do? He rested. He spent a day of doing nothing. How crazy is that?

The seventh seal is broken. God’s plan is ready to be revealed and to take place. But first, there’s a half hour of silence. Nothing. The calm before the storm? No. An important part of the plan. At least in our culture, that’s hard for us to understand. For us to accomplish something, we need to be busy, doing things. Rest and inactivity is wasteful, we think. We need to be active in order to be productive. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves. But it’s certainly not what God tells us. He has told us regularly to spend time in rest. To pause, focus our attention upon him, and purposefully do nothing. It’s so important that he made it one of the Ten Commandments. But of all the commandments, it’s one that we seem to take perverse pleasure in breaking. When we complain about being too busy, it’s almost like we’re bragging. One of the greatest curses, or moral failures, is to waste time doing “nothing.” I’ve known more than one person who was forced into inactivity because of health reasons, and not being able to do anything was actually harder on them than their physical ailment. It’s hard for us to be silent and to do nothing. But there’s value to it.

In this case, we learn what the value of the half-hour time-out is. And once again, it’s a reminder of the incredible way that God includes us in his plans. We’re not just spectators; we’re his teammates. I’ll keep you in suspense for just a moment, but it will all make sense before I’m done.

The breaking of seals meant that God’s plans are now able to be accomplished. To herald them, seven angels are given trumpets to sound. The trumpets are both a way to get everyone’s attention for what’s happening (like an alarm or attention signal), and they’re a way to get things in motion (like a bugle blast to get the troops to charge). And it will take all the way until the end of Chapter 11 for all seven trumpets to be blown. The angels are ready to fulfill God’s will. But first….

In verse three, we learn what the silence was all about, and we find out the important role that it played. During that half hour of inactivity, God was listening. He was listening to his people. He was paying attention to our prayers. It’s a marvel to realize that God takes time to listen to us. In the din of a loud world, God shuts everyone up so that he can hear us. In the middle of huge and important events, he makes us the center of attention. Far too many people beg off of praying about an issue in their lives because “God has more important things to worry about.” Not true! Even if we set aside the fact that God has a limitless ability to pay attention to everything, we should never dismiss how important even the most petty parts of our lives are to him. He counts the number of hairs on our head. He knows our every thought before it comes to our mind. His plans for the world are not as important to him as our prayers are.

So before the seven trumpet-angels set to their work, another angel has a more important task. He takes a giant bowl of incense and offers it on the altar to God. Incense is more than just a pretty aroma, sometimes used to cover up other odors. It was used in the Old Testament to symbolize prayer (see Psalm 141, for example). And that’s what we see here. The incense that the angel offers up is associated with the prayers of the saints (that is, everyone made holy by the work of Christ). Our prayers aren’t merely our requests that we make of God. They are an offering, presented to God as part of our devotion to him.

God receives our prayers, like sacrifices on the altar. But he doesn’t just hoard them away in heaven. He acts on them. The angel is given fire from the altar—God’s very power—to mix with the prayers that we, his people, offer up. Our prayers and God’s power. The angel mixes the two together, and hurls it to the earth. It causes thunder, lightning, and earthquakes.

Thunder is usually something that comes down from the sky to the earth. This is reversed thunder: our earthly concerns go up to heaven, where God adds his power to them and then shakes the world with it.

We have two lessons to learn from this. First, silence and inactivity are powerful. God uses them, and so should we. Second, recognize the significance that God attaches to our prayers. They are the grist for his saving work in the world.

Revelation 7:9-17 – Song of the Saved

2009-05-01T11:18:00.000-04:00

The second half of Chapter 7 continues to describe the interlude between the sixth and seventh seals being opened on the scroll of God’s plan, which Christ (the Lamb) received in Chapter 5. And it describes, from a different perspective, what’s going on for the people of God in the midst of the calamities that are, and will, strike the earth. In the first half of the chapter, John described them (us) from an earthly perspective: God brought his plans to a halt to “seal” us, so that we’d be protected. Think of a construction crew that has to quit its work because they’ve stumbled upon an important archaeological site. Now, we see these same people, but from a heavenly perspective. To so do, we revisit the scene that we first saw in Chapters 4 and 5.

The first thing to notice about these people is how many of them there are, and how diverse they are. In the first half, John gave them a number (144,000) to indicate that it is a vast assembly of God’s people. Now, he doesn’t even pretend to know how many they are. It’s huge crowd that can’t even be counted. And it comes from every nationality and language group of the world. This crowd is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the night sky (Genesis 15). By the way, astronomers are still counting the stars today and haven’t come close to knowing how many there are. God also promised Abraham that people from every nation on earth would be blessed through him (Genesis 12). There are plenty of citations in the New Testament to help us understand that being a child of Abraham isn’t about genetics, but about faith (Romans 4, Matthew 3:7-10, Galatians 3:6-9, 26-29). As the children’s song explains, Father Abraham really does have many sons (and daughters). This vast multitude from all ethnic and language groups is possible because of the promise of Mark 13:10 that the gospel will be proclaimed to every nation.

In the past century, the Church has started to look more and more like this throng that John saw in front of God’s throne. For more than a thousand years, Christianity was a predominantly white religion, practiced almost exclusively in Europe. But for a number of reasons, it has exploded across the globe and can now be found in virtually every country (although there are still many ethnic groups that have yet to be reached. At some point in the 1980’s, whites were no longer the majority of Christians. God’s family is the ultimate rainbow coalition. When Malcolm X when on his Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, he was struck by the unity across national and ethnic lines that he found among his fellow pilgrims. It affected the “black power” philosophy that had driven him up to that point. And if he hadn’t been assassinated soon after his pilgrimage (perhaps because some of his followers didn’t like the change they saw in him), his legacy may have been very different. Imagine how different our perspective on people from other ethnic groups and nations would be if we had a similar realization: the citizenship of the kingdom of God includes people from every conceivable background. How dare we presume to limit it to people “like us”!

Verses 13-14 explain exactly who this crowd is. One of the twenty-four elders quizzed John about them, asking him who they were. (Is this the same elder who comforted him in Revelation 5:5?) When John said he didn’t know who they were, the elder told him that they are the people who have been saved: saved from the world, and saved from themselves. First, they are saved from the world because they have come out of the great tribulation that rages across the earth. It’s unfortunate that many interpreters of Revelation read this and similar passages and conclude that there is a single tribulation, or time of distress, which will come at the end times. Doing so blinds us to the tribulation/distress/calamity that is going on all around us, which has and which continues to burden the world. It’s the distress of Adam and Eve’s curse of Genesis 3. It’s the bondage and frustration of creation that Paul describes in Romans 8:18-21. It’s the human condition which the four horsemen of Chapter 6 reveal. These are the people who received the seal to protect them and deliver them out of such great suffering. But second, these are the people who have been saved from themselves. Their robes were washed white in the blood of Christ, the Lamb. This is an allusion to Isaiah 1:18 and Zechariah 3: filthy and dirty clothing represents our sinful and shameful condition before God. But through the grace made possible to us through Christ’s atoning death, we become pure and honored before God. We are released from our sin and our brokenness.

Now that we know who these people are, we can look at what they’re doing. Their white robes and palm branches of verse 9 indicate that worship of God is what they’re all about (the palm branches are a reminder of Palm Sunday, and also of Psalm 118:27). They are able to take their place in the great circle of praise that surrounds God, which we saw in Chapters 4 and 5. Our salvation isn’t about us: it’s about God receiving the worship and praise that he deserves. It’s not a self-focused song, about what God did for them. It’s praise for God, based on an awareness of God that comes from personal experience. They shout with joy to the Lamb who saved them. Whatever we’re facing, whether trouble from the world and people around us, or turmoil, brokenness, and confusion within, we find our salvation in God. and when we do, we life up our praise to him.

The song of the saved sparks renewed praise among the heavenly beings: the angels, elders, and four living creatures. Remember Jesus’ comment about the rejoicing in heaven over the repentance of one lost sinner (Luke 15:3-10)? That’s what John experiences and describes here. The rejoicing focuses upon God, who did the saving. And praise lifts up seven attributes of God. In Revelation 5:12, we heard a similar seven-fold praise of God. This time, it’s very similar but with a couple of differences. First, “riches” has been replaced with “thanks.” Second, the order of attributes has been re-arranged. Perhaps we could gain some interesting insights from a comparison of these two lists, but we can save that for another time.

We can skip over verses 13-14, since we’ve already looked at them when considering who the multitude is. So we can move on to verses 15-17: the poetic description of God’s people by the elder who spoke to John. He describes them as the people who have received God’s blessings. First, they are in God’s presence, to serve him and to receive his protection. Second, they are spared from any of the distress or difficulty that is common to ordinary human life. Third, they will be guided by Christ, as a shepherd guides his flock. In these three short verses, and whole host of Biblical promises come together: Psalm 23, Psalm 91, Isaiah 25, John 10, and so on. And it anticipates the description of the New Jerusalem we find in Revelation 21.

To sum it all up: God gathers people of every description, and saves them from their own sin and from the troubled world we live in. In response to God’s activity in their lives, they lift up their praise to him and acknowledge him as the provider of their salvation: the source of everything good that they experience. Their praise in turn ignites praise by the heavenly beings, renewing and intensifying the worship they had already been giving. Those who have been saved are granted the privilege of serving God (how often do we think of service as a privilege?), they are rescued from the troubles of the world, and God leads them to blessing. It’s a cycle of blessing and praise that feeds on itself: salvation leads to praise, which leads to blessing, and so on. But it all begins with and is focused on God.

Revelation 7:1-8 – Becoming a Marked Man

2009-04-18T08:22:00.001-04:00

First, we need to remember where this passage is in the broader scheme of Revelation. Back in Chapter 5, Christ (the Lamb) received the scroll of God’s will, or plan for history. Only he was able to open it and enact it. The scroll had seven seals: each seal had to be broken before the scroll could be opened. The first four seals revealed the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who make us aware of the suffering and evil of the world: how it affects us, and how we may participate in it. The fifth seal revealed the desire for retribution by the people who had suffered so much for the faith, and God gave them the assurance that he would vindicate their faith in him to settle matters. The sixth seal is a sort of down-payment of how God will do that, as creation convulsed before the Lord and the inhabitants of the earth cringed in terror. So now we’re all set: the seventh seal is ready to be broken, and God’s will is going to be revealed.

But before the last seal is opened, there’s an interlude. By the way, there are three sets of “seven” in Revelation like this: the seals, the trumpets of Chapters 8-11, and the bowls of Chapter 16. There’s a similar interlude before the seventh trumpet is blown. Both of these interludes are a pause to reveal how God is caring for his people in the midst of the unfolding of his plan.

Because of his love for us, God brings everything to a halt to ensure that his people are cared for. Think of how a department store will shut down if there’s a lost child: everything stops so that they can make sure that that the child is OK. Bargain-hunting and commission-earning doesn’t matter as much as that child. In the same way, God shows that care for his people is what matters most. He even assigns angels to stop the wind from blowing (Four winds = the four corners of the earth. This is something that affects the entire world.)

Apparently there are four other angels at work as well: God’s agents to bring punishment and destruction upon an evil and rebellious world. But before they can start their work, yet another angel appears. This final angel commands the angels of destruction to stand down until he has seal the people of God. Later, in Chapter 9:4, we’ll see that this mark or seal is a sign of protection, so that God’s people don’t have to endure the terrors that will come.

Something rather odd has happened when it comes to the popular understanding of Revelation. Even non-Christians have heard of the “mark of the Beast,” which we’ll come to in Chapter 13. A Satanic or demonic being will force people to receive his mark upon their hand or forehead. Those who refuse to receive the mark will be excluded from the economic life of society. This “mark of the Beast” has led to all sorts of speculation and concern about everything from ID badges to UPC codes. Anything that is a “mark” is suspect, because it may be the mark of the Beast. Never mind if the moral or ethical aspects of the “mark” are positive or neutral. Any “marking” is bad.

What’s really crazy is that the “mark of the Beast” is a sad imitation and perversion of the seal that God places upon his people. God’s “mark” is what saves people from destruction and opens the glories of his grace for them. That’s powerful and significant. The best that the Beast/Satan can do is keep you from going shopping.

Revelation frequently uses images and descriptions of things that are more fully explained elsewhere in Scripture. The seal of God is one of those things. There’s lots of powerful examples of God’s mark or seal which provides protection and blessing for the people who belong to God. Some of them are a bit obscure, such as Ezekiel 9 (which is actually a pretty close parallel to this passage), when God is preparing to bring destruction upon Jerusalem for all of the “detestable” things going on in the city. But before he sent in the men with deadly weapons to make the blood flow, he sent a clerk ahead of them to put a mark on the forehead of everyone who “grieves and laments” over the injustice and unfaithfulness around them. Others are a bit better known. In Deuteronomy 6, God commands the Israelites to remember who he is, and what his commands are. He told them to put them as symbols on their foreheads and hands, and on the doorposts of their houses. Did he mean this literally, or was this hyperbole to express that God and his commands should be prominent in our lives? Some Jews have taken it seriously; they wear little boxes called phylacteries on their foreheads and hands, and they put other little boxes called mezuzahs in their doorways. God’s word, and God’s identity, is our mark or seal.

There are at least two other much better known examples of God’s seal upon his people. The first comes from the Passover, the defining historical event for the Jewish faith. In order to convince the Egyptians finally to free the Israelites from their slavery, God sent an angel of death over the land to kill the firstborn child of every family. But to make sure that the Israelites were spared from this calamity, he instructed them to kill a lamb and paint their doorways with its blood. Then, as the angel of death went about his terrible destruction, he would see these marks and “pass over” the houses that had them. Once again, God’s mark protects his people from destruction and opens a wonderful future for them (escape from slavery and a journey to the Promised Land). The similarities between the Passover event and our understanding of Christ’s atoning death are powerful. Christ, our sacrificial lamb, has marked us with the blood that he shed on the cross, so that we may be spared from God’s wrath against a sinful world and so that we may escape from our slavery to sin and begin our journey to the Promised Land of the kingdom of God.

The second example of receiving God’s seal is an important aspect of our Christian faith which is expressing the sacrament of baptism. While there are variations in how it is administered and who is eligible to receive it, baptism is a universal ceremony among all Christians to mark an individual’s entrance into the church and into the life of faith. Baptism means a number of things. When I counsel an individual (or parents, if it’s a baby that’s being baptized), I point out four meanings of baptism. The central meaning is that our sins are washed away. Following closely with that is our acceptance into God’s family, and our receiving the new life of Christ. The fourth meaning that I point out is that when we are baptized, we receive the Holy Spirit. Receiving the Spirit means a number of things: an intimate and constant connection with God, power to do what we could never do on our own strength, comfort in troubled times, and guidance for our life. But the reception of the Holy Spirit also means that we have been marked as belonging to Christ. It’s like the name tags you put on your luggage when you travel, or on your valuables to make sure they’re not stolen. It’s like writing your name inside the front cover of a book you own, or putting your name on your underwear before you go to camp. In all these situations, the mark means “Property of Peter de Vries” (or whoever). In baptism, we receive the Spirit, the seal of God that marks us as being the property of Jesus Christ. We belong to him.

Here’s another example: I have a student ID card for Pitt. I am “marked” as a Pitt student. Having this “mark” provides me with all sorts of opportunities. I can check out books from the library, get free or reduced-price software, use the gym, and even ride a city bus for free. In the case of my student ID, my tuition and student fees pay for all these benefits. In the case of baptism, it’s been paid for by Jesus Christ. And one more example: when I travel internationally, I have a US passport. It is a “mark” that says I am a citizen of the US. With that passport, I receive the protections and privileges that my citizenship provides.

So, who gets this mark or seal of God? John heard that 144,000 people get the seal. That’s not very many. There are probably that many Christians in Butler County alone. The Jehovah’s Witnesses take this number literally and call these 144,000 the “little flock” of ultra-special people of God. The bad news is that all 144,000 spots have already been taken. So the best that all the other Jehovah Witnesses can hope for is to be part of the “big flock” that is still pretty good, but not as great. Not only is this the wrong way to understand the number, but it turns its real meaning upside down. In Revelation, numbers are usually symbolic: 4 = all of creation, 7 = divinity, and so on. Twelve is the number of God’s people: the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles. And 1,000 is, well, a really big number. So 144,000 = 12 X 12 X 1,000. The total people of God, squared to emphasize that it includes all of them. Then multiplied by 1,000 to show that it’s really big number. If you feel that being a Christian means that you’re an obscure minority in a chaotic and troubled world, 144,000 tells us that there’s lots of us out there. Think of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, thinking he was the only one still faithful to the Lord. God told him that there were still thousands of other believers out there.

John reports a tally of the people of God who are sealed: 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. At first glance, this seems like a bit of symbolic overkill. OK, 12 = the people of God, because of the 12 tribes of Israel. We get it, John. You don’t have to spell it out for us. But there’s actually more than that going on here. The twelve tribes that John lists includes what are known as the “ten lost tribes of Israel.” To understand this, we need to review some Old Testament history. After the days of David and Solomon, the nation of Israel split in two: the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south, which came to be called Judah, and the other ten tribes in the north, continued to be called Israel. The northern kingdom fell into idolatry, injustice, and immorality. Because of their disobedience, God sicked the Assyrian Empire on them. The ten tribes of Israel were dispersed and forgotten or “lost” because of their faithlessness. And yet, in God’s grace and mercy, even the faithless who had been forgotten and lost are brought back into his kingdom. So, if you’re ever wondering about whether or not you’re marked with God’s seal, hold onto that promise. It comes to us through the saving work of Christ, not our own efforts or goodness. And it’s something that is always available to you, even if you’ve abandoned God and feel as though he’s rejected you.

Revelation 6:1-8 - The Final Four

2009-03-26T15:15:00.000-04:00

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is probably one of the most familiar images of Revelation, second perhaps only to the pearly gates and streets of gold of the heavenly New Jerusalem. But they’re not quite what we think that they are.

As this study moves into Chapter 6, we get into the “real stuff’ of Revelation, at least the way we may typically view this book. After all this preliminary stuff (description of Jesus, letters to churches, description of heaven), we get into what most people think Revelation is really about: a description of what will happen at the end times. These four riders are so horrific that we’re certain that they must represent what will happen when the world comes to an end. Not so fast.

First of all, we need to get rid of the idea that the “real” message of Revelation is to tell us what will happen during the end times. Sure, there are definitely parts of the book that do so; Chapter 19 and 20, for example. But that’s not the only thing that the book is about. And I’m not sure where we get that idea from. Look back at 1:19. At the beginning of John’s vision, he sees Jesus and he describes Jesus to us. Then Jesus tells John, “Write what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.” That’s the way Jesus himself describes John’s vision: what is now, and what will be. It’s a description of both the present and the future. “What is now” is a disclosure of how spiritual forces and beings are affecting human life. The vision tells us where history is heading, but it also helps us understand where we are now.

Chapter 5 ended with the Lamb (Christ) taking the sealed scroll of God’s plan for creation, and he prepared to break open the seals to reveal and enact that will. As the Lamb opens each of the first four seals, a horseman rides out from heaven into the earth. That’s right: the Lamb releases the horsemen as He fulfills God’s plan for the world. So the horsemen are not demonic forces causing havoc and tribulation as they challenge God’s authority and blessedness. They are actually part of God’s plan! Jesus is in charge of it all. If that makes you feel uncomfortable, you’re in good company. How can God, the good, holy, loving One, be the one who brings horror to the earth?

One of the toughest nuts to crack in Christian philosophy (and other religious philosophy as well) is called the “problem of evil.” The problem is this: we believe three things that contradict each other. They are:
1. God is good and loving.
2. God is all-powerful.
3. There is evil and suffering in the world.
If God can do anything, and if he’s good, then why does he let bad stuff happen? As I’ve studied this dilemma, nearly all answers are some version of fudging on one of the three beliefs. Some people say that God isn’t really all that good and loving, or that our understanding of goodness and love is different from God’s. Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner, went this direction. Others say that God means well, but that he just can’t quite pull it off. Harold Kushner (author of “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”) and process theologians play this angle. And other people say that what appears to be evil and suffering really isn’t that bad. Or at least, it’s necessary to serve a higher purpose. John Calvin went this way, and the “Free Will Defense” does too. I have yet to find a variation of any of these three approaches that doesn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Revelation unapologetically affirms all three beliefs. God is good and holy: we’ve already seen that in Chapters 4 and 5, and it will be even clearer in Chapters 21 and 22. His goodness is the final word. God is all-powerful. He is in control of what happens. As we see demonic beings and forces of evil later in Revelation, we will see that they are only able to do what God permits, and that he can undo them in a snap. Nobody tells God what to do. And Revelation takes suffering seriously. It’s how John described himself in 1:9, and the horrific descriptions of suffering and calamity that we’ll find as we go on just support it even more. We might not be able to make sense of it, but that’s the message that Revelation gives us. And in this passage, we get the message that whatever the horsemen do is what Christ has permitted them to do. In fact, they play a role in God’s plan. That does not mean that God’s plan is a plan of suffering and calamity. And I don’t think that it means that suffering and calamity are necessary for God’s will to take place; nothing is “necessary” for God. Instead, I think that these horsemen of horror reveal the reality of the world into which God’s plan comes. Think of them as the CT scan that shows where the cancer is. The scan doesn’t cause the cancer. But a scan that reveals the cancer makes the doctor’s treatment plan possible. Evil has to be identified before it can be removed. But it’s all under God’s control.

There’s a progression among the four horsemen. And again, bear in mind that they’re riding in our world right now.

The first rider is a conqueror. This is where it all starts out. Conquest is about winning: proving that you’re the top dog. Competition is good, right? We want to show that we’re Number One. Whether it’s a sports match-up, or a game of cards, or class rank in school, or even international relations. We want to win. But as we’ll see, this prideful desire to be the best, a form of self-idolatry, inevitably causes horror and even death.

This rider is pretentious; he tries to be Christ, the true Conqueror. Compare this rider to how Christ is described in 19:11-16. We get ourselves into trouble when we try to take on for ourselves the position that belongs to Christ, and to Christ alone. We all want the victor’s crown and the white clothing of the winner.

The second rider is warfare, riding on a blood-red horse and wields a mighty sword. Conflict inevitably occurs when you get two people who both think they’re in charge, and they try to impose their will upon each other. That’s the recipe for every fight from a playground shoving match to international war. Sometimes it’s literal physical conflict. But sometimes conflict is more subtle but no less damaging: ruining someone’s reputation, taking away their opportunities and assets, belittling what they hold dear, and so on.

Warfare and conflict leads to injustice. The scales of justice become a farce, as common people are denied the simplest staples of life (like wheat and barley) while the privileged enjoy their luxuries (oil and wine) untouched. The most recent outrage in our country has been the multi-million dollar bonuses for AIG executives, while unprecedented numbers of people are losing their homes and jobs. But the rider of the black horse is more than injustice: it is also famine (remember that metaphorical meaning can be multiple), as the basics for life are being rationed out. In the long run, everyone loses in situations of conflict, because so much is destroyed. The “winner” gets a bigger piece of the pie, but it’s a smaller pie.

And finally, the last rider is Death, with Hades (the dwelling place of the dead) following behind. The shortages and privations of conflict between people and parties who are trying to conquer each other finally kills us all. We’ve played a simple simulation game in our church in which groups of people assume the identities of different nations, and they’ve told that the goal is to survive. What they rarely realize is that there’s plenty of food for everyone. But instead of thinking that way, they try to have their nation “win.” So countries like Australia and Canada and the US, which produce more food than they need, charge more for their extra food than poor and needy countries like India even have. So India “starves,” while the richer countries add more money to their treasuries. Competition and conquest kills.

Conquest. Warfare. Injustice. Famine. Disease. Death. For some reason we want to think that these riders of the apocalypse are a sign of what will happen in the future. But they’re not. It takes a pretty blind person not to notice that these things are going on all around us, and have been for centuries. It’s happening now. And it always has. Well, someone may argue, it’s going to be worse in the future. After all, the fourth rider is going to kill a fourth of the population. That’s huge. Yes, it is. But it’s happening now, and it’s happened in the past.
• By some estimates, up to 95% of the population of the American continents was wiped out by new European diseases that arrived with Columbus and those who came after him. This could represent up to one in every five people on the face of the earth at the time. Even the most conservative estimates say that half of the people on two continents died over the course of just a couple generations at most.
• The Black Death of the 13th century killed at least a third, and perhaps as much as 45%, of the population of Europe.
• In some African nations, the rate of infection for HIV/AIDS is more than 25%. Drug treatments can provide a long and healthy life for people who are infected…if they can afford the drugs. But because of the third horseman, the people who need the help don’t always get it.
And these are just a few examples. Warfare, famine, and disease lead the way for Death to have his way in our world.

It’s easy for us to kid ourselves into thinking that the four riders will disrupt the “normal.” But the represent what is normal, at least in this fallen and broken world of ours. We just don’t recognize it. And that’s not just true for people here in an affluent land that is sheltered from the worst of it. During World War II, people on both sides of the battle line ignored the horrors of the Holocaust that were going on around them. In Africa, the AIDS epidemic was denied by the very people whose villages were being depopulated by it.

When we don’t recognize that the four horsemen represent “normal” in this world, several things happen. First, we get attached to this world and we think it’s marvelous. Second, when troubles hit us, we think that they’re unusual calamities. Third, we fail to recognize that our efforts to get on top, or at least a little bit higher, cause so much suffering. When we get on the white horse, the other three follow us.

Revelation 5:1-14 – Git R Done

2009-03-20T08:07:00.000-04:00

In Chapter 4 we saw John’s description of the ongoing situation in heaven. In this chapter he tells us about the most important event that took place in the most important place in the universe.

God is holding a scroll in his right hand as he sits on the throne. I take this scroll to be God’s plan for the world and for its salvation and redemption. But it’s sealed. Seals can only be broken by those who have the authority to open them. Or to put in another way, the one who opens the seal must be the one who has the ability to implement it. If you aren’t the one to do what the scroll describes, or if you’re not able to do it, you can’t open it. In this sense, the sealed scroll is a bit like a graduation diploma. You don’t get the diploma until you qualify for it. In the same way, you can’t open the scroll describing God’s plan for the world unless you’re able to do it.

But no one in all of creation (all three levels of the three-tier cosmos as John understood it) was able to open the scroll. Since the scroll couldn’t be opened, God’s will could not be consummated. In fact, no one could even know what the plan was! John weeps because of the goodness of God’s plan. Until the scroll is opened, the world will continue to suffer.

The good news is that Someone emerged with the ability and authority to be able to open that scroll. As John describes him, it’s pretty obvious that it’s Jesus, even though he doesn’t name him. But this is also where the Trinity can get tricky for us. Or maybe it’s Jesus’ divine nature that makes it confusing. (Of course, isn’t that the same thing, just from a different direction?) Why can’t the One sitting on the throne open the scroll, since He’s the one who wrote it? And when Jesus appears, John sees him standing in the center of the throne, which is where God is. The identification of Jesus as God is pretty hard to miss. And yet, there’s some sort of a distinction. The Father and Son are one God, but two Persons.

The elder who comforts John by telling him that someone worthy to open the scroll has appeared describes him with a double reference to the Son’s Old Testament identity: the lion of Judah and the root of David. To call Jesus the “root of David” is actually a reversal of the messianic hope of the Old Testament, which looked for the shoot to come from the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11). Jesus as Messiah is not merely the culmination of messianic hope which began with the royal family of David. He is the source of that hope as well. Both the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega. The elder tells John that he can open (that is, reveal and enact) God’s will because of his triumph. But he doesn’t tell John what he did to be triumphant. But it makes sense: he can make God’s will happen because he has already started to do it. The triumph he has won is the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s will that’s written on the scroll.

The elder also describes Jesus as the lion of Judah. He’s the powerful one of the people of God. The name reeks of images of power and strength. So, when John turns to look at him, you’d expect to see a powerful, impressive beast or figure who inspires you with awe and wonder. Instead, John sees the exact opposite. It’s a lamb, one of the weakest and most defenseless of creatures. And as if that wasn’t enough, it’s a lamb that has been slain. If this leaves you scratching your head, then you got the point of it. The symbolism that we find in Revelation is often, and accurately, described as metaphor. But when it comes right down to it, we exchange the depth of metaphor for the flatness of allegory. At the risk of turning this into a literature lesson, let me explain the difference. Metaphor and allegory are both figurative styles of speech and writing. But allegory is a type of substitution; you can replace what the text names with the “real” thing that it’s actually talking about. In this case, if Revelation is allegory, then Lion of Judah = Jesus, throne of heaven = God’s authority, and so one. Allegory is simply a fancy or pleasing way to make your point. (Sometimes people also use allegory to hide what they’re really talking about so that they don’t get in trouble.) But metaphor is different. In metaphor, you can’t simply say that A = X. Metaphor takes things that don’t belong together and calls them the same thing. When it does this, it makes you rethink the entire story. All of the previous ways that you thought about stuff has to change because of the challenge that the metaphor creates. Metaphor is substitutionary; it’s evocative. It prods you into new ways of thought that stand everything on its side.

This is a perfect example of a metaphor, in this way. A lion is a lamb. The one who was slain and defeated is alive and triumphant. The lamb and the One on the throne interact with each other, but they are the same person. (The lamb is at the center of the throne, so he’s apparently sitting on it. So how can he take the scroll from the right hand of the One seated on the throne, if he himself is the One seated on the throne?) This will drive you crazy if you insist on holding on to conventional straightforward thinking. Just like saying God is Three in One, and that Jesus is fully human and fully divine.

And that, in a way, is at the heart of our faith. Like metaphor, our faith reshapes and transforms everything. The most powerful force in the world is the force of love, which offers itself up for the other. Jesus won the greatest victory by being tortured, humiliated, and killed. The adventure of faith is to make sense out of what seems to make no sense at all (like a powerful lion being the same thing as a slaughtered lamb), but which changes our lives and our world at its very core.

When Jesus (the lion/lamb) takes the scroll, the living creatures and the elders fall down in worship. In other words, they do what they had been doing all along. But now, it’s different. As John put it, they began to sing a new song. John also gives us a bit more detail about what exactly they’re doing in their worship. He says that they have harps, and that they have bowls of incense. He tells us that the incense is the prayers of the saints (that is, the people of God). It’s an image that we find elsewhere in the Bible, by the way. And he doesn’t have to tell us what the harps represent: music. I had a choir director once who said that music is the one thing from this world that we’ll take with us to the next. I’m not sure why she thought so, but it sounds good to me. Music is praise. So the incense (prayers) and the harps (praise) are the two things that we have to give to God. (That answers the ultimate question of what you give to someone who has everything.)

The chapter concludes with three songs that are sung in praise of the lion/lamb. The first song (verse 9) comes from the living creatures and the elders around the throne, proclaiming that the lamb is worthy to open the scroll because of what he did: dying to give all people the status of being God’s people. What he did went beyond the traditional notion that God’s people could only come from the Jewish nation. And by becoming God’s people, they (or we) receive more than “just” redemption (although that’s pretty sweet!): we will also rule with God. I know it’s true, but it’s hard to believe. God includes us not just as citizens but as rulers!

The second song comes from the thousands upon thousands of angels in heaven, who also sing that the Lamb is worthy. But for them, he is worthy not just of being able to perform the task of consummating God’s will, but to receive a seven-fold blessing. If we had more time and space, I could reflect on what each of these seven concepts tell us about who Jesus is. But instead, I’d like to think about the fact that the angels offer it to him, instead of him taking them for himself. Hubris and egotism is grabbing for what you don’t deserve. Jesus does the exact opposite. He receives that which is due to him. And that’s what sets him apart from all the boasters of the world.

The third song includes all of creation (and that means us as well). This time, the song is not just for the Lamb, but also for the One who sits on the throne. It’s praise for Christ, and also for the Godhead which includes Christ. Once again, we encounter that metaphoric tension of being distinct but being the same all at once. Creation repeats four of the seven attributes which the angels sang about. But it also adds that this is an eternal blessing; forever and ever. That’s also what makes God different: everyone else who gets praise and glory only has it for a while. The Steelers will have to defend their title in the fall. History is full of powerful empires that crumbled away to memories. The greatest people die just like the rest of us.

The songs end with a return to the inner circle of the living creatures and elders around the throne, who offer their affirmation to all that has been sung, and who continue in their perpetual worship. (By the way, that’s what “Amen” means: a powerful affirmation of what had been said. Basically it means that you agree so much that you want those words to be your own. “Amen” isn’t just a polite way to end your conversation with God.)

Revelation 4:1-11 – The Center of the Universe

2009-03-13T10:36:00.001-04:00

I commented on this passage about four months ago, in December, as part of my series on prayer in the Bible. While I don’t normally like to revisit a Bible text this soon, coming back to it again like this allows me to explore some of the themes in this passage in more depth.

On the remote chance that you don’t remember the December comments or that you didn’t read them, first a quick summary. This description of the “throne room” of heaven reveals the power of praise. In fact, it is at the heart of the entire universe, as God is at the center of concentric circles of praise. Closest to the throne are the four “living creatures,” who represent the created order. Next are the twenty-four elders, who are the leaders of the people of God (the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the twelve apostles). As we’ll see in Chapter 5, the circles around the throne continue to expand to include the angels in heaven and all of creation, including us. When we’re worshiping, we’re taking our place in the circles of praise that surround God at the center of the universe.

Now for some more details in this passage that will help us appreciate its meaning better.

First, we need to consider how John got to see what’s happening at the center of the universe. Up to this point in the book, he’s had a vision of Jesus, who gave him messages for the churches he served. But now Jesus invites him to go up into the heavenly realms to experience the spiritual aspects of the created order. From his vantage point there, John sees what’s going on from a completely different perspective from the one he’s had in the past (and the one we usually have), and it takes up most of the book of Revelation for him to describe it. But the first, most important, thing for him to experience and describe is what goes on in the presence of God. Most readers and commentators on Revelation focus on the frightening and fantastic beings and events that it describes, starting generally at Chapter 6. But in my opinion, Chapters 4 and 5 are the most important part of John’s vision, because they describe what’s happening at the center of it all, in the very presence of God.

John got there by the invitation of Jesus (the one who first spoke to him in 1:10). The only way any of us can come into God’s presence is through the work and the invitation of Jesus (John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.”). And it is the Spirit who carries John there, just as the Spirit draws us to God through means such as Scripture, prayer, and the church. Although John doesn’t name Him explicitly, we can assume that the One seated on the throne is the Father, thus including all three Persons of the Trinity. However, as we’ll see in 5:6 and other places, the identity of the three Persons gets hard to keep separate. That’s appropriate, I’d say.

John’s description of the throne of heaven, and of the One seated on it, gives us seven aspects of God, expressed in symbolic form.
1. The one on the throne has the appearance of precious gems. God is precious and valuable. Too often we value the blessings we receive from God more than we value him, like a greedy child who likes the goodies that his parents give him, but doesn’t care about the parents themselves.
2. The throne is encircled by a rainbow, the first image of God’s grace and of his first covenant with humanity (Genesis 9:12-16). God is gracious. We often think of God as a judge who watches and evaluates our every move. We’ll see God’s role as judge later (20:11-15), but this is something that God does, it’s not something that He is. Grace is more important than judgment.
3. The twenty-four elders surround the throne. As I’ve already mentioned, they are the leaders of the people of God and represent us there. God includes us. We’re not some afterthought, relegated to a far corner of heaven somewhere. He values and includes us. At times we may be tempted to think that God merely tolerates us. But he delights in us. What amazing love!
4. The elders are wearing white robes, are wearing crowns, and are seated on thrones. Through the gracious work of Christ, they are holy and pure, and they are honored. The multitude of God’s people that we’ll meet in Chapter 7 are also wearing white robes, and I’ll go out on a limb and claim that they are also honored. After all, Romans 8:16-17 tells us that we’ll be co-heirs with Christ). The only way we can become pure and holy is for God to give it to us. For him to give it to us, he has to have it himself.
5. Thunder rolls from the throne, and lightning flashes from it. It’s the power of God, as Exodus 19 also describes. Some religious scholars think that Israelite worship of the Lord began with an understanding of Him as the storm god. I certainly won’t go that far, but the fact that these scholars suggest it demonstrates that in the Old Testament, they find a lot of descriptions of God’s power expressed in storm images. For the ancient peoples, thunderstorms were one of the most powerful forces that they encountered. Their power, and all power, comes from God. We’re not worshiping a Lord who is safely cooped up in a church or in a remote place called heaven. He is active and powerful. You’d best pay attention to him!
6. There are seven lampstands surrounding the throne. John tells us that they are spirit of God. Exodus 25 and 2 Chronicles 4 tell us about the golden lampstands that were part of the tabernacle and the temple, where God was present with his people. In fact, the light of the lamps came to be recognized as a symbol of that presence, and tending to the lampstands was a critical aspect of temple worship. That’s the key to the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, by the way. The despotic emperor Antiochus Ephiphanes had desecrated the temple and extinguished the lampstands. After a successful revolt the temple was rededicated and the lamps relight. This is also, by the way, why we light the candles in the front of the church before worship: to represent God’s presence with us as we worship him. So, just as the elders represent our place in God’s presence, the lampstands symbolize God’s presence with us. We are never alone.
7. The throne stands before a clear, crystal-like sea of glass. This should remind us of the story of creation that we find in Genesis 1. When Solomon built his temple, he include a giant basin called the Sea (1 Kings 7:23-25), to remind the worshipers of this as well. In ancient cosmology, the dry earth exists in between two bodies of water. The water below is the ocean, which is visible in the places where the land stops. The water above is in the heavens, and occasionally leaks down on us as rain. The earth can exist in this space between the waters because of the sustaining power of God (Noah’s flood happened when God decided to collapse the waters together). The fact that the heavenly waters are below the throne indicates that God is above the heavenly waters, and in fact controls them. God sustains all of creation. Sometimes we think of creation as something that God did back at the beginning, and now the world is going along its merry course by its own devices. Not true. Creation is a continuing process which allows us to continue to exist. We depend upon God for every moment of our existence.

I touched on a description of the four living creatures before. But just as a reminder, they embody the best of God’s creation (we also see them in Ezekiel’s vision in Ezek. 1). First, they are living. As Jesus said, God is the God of the living (Mark 12:27). What he creates is alive, dynamic, and vital (even if some parts of creation like mountains and the planets are literally alive). The creatures are covered with eyes, to demonstrate their knowledge, insight, perception, and discernment (have you ever noticed how many words that describe knowledge or wisdom are related to vision?). This isn’t a surveillance “Big Brother is watching you” kind of vision, but the kind of insight that sees through deceit and false appearance to perceive what’s real.
The first creature is like a lion: noble, impressive, even regal.
The second creature is like an ox: strong, solid, and useful.
The third is a human: wise and intelligent. Notice that the human isn’t the first or the last creature, but somewhere in the middle. A bit of humility is warranted for us; we’re not the pinnacle of creation, although we are made in God’s image. Given the ambiguous nature of humanity, I think our wisdom and intelligence is a double edged sword: perhaps “cunning” would be a better way to express it. By the way, the Ewe people of Ghana and Togo, whom I work with, call Europeans and Americans “yevu.” From the way the word’s been described to me, I think “cunning” is the best way to translate it. On the one hand, it’s a recognition of the technological savvy of Westerners. But it also recognizes the way that colonialists have stuck it to the Africans.
The fourth creature is like an eagle: swift, keen vision, and able to rise above it all.

The main thing that the living creatures and the elders do around God’s throne is lift up their praise to Him. As John describes it, the praise never lets those poor elders take a break. The living creatures never stop lifting up their praise to God (v. 8). And every time they do, the elders fall down on the ground and lay down their crowns in worship (vv. 9-10). Verse 10, by the way, is the inspiration for that line in the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy:” “Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.”

I was starting to feel bad for these elders who never get a rest. And some people wonder if life in heaven is really going to be all that great, if all we’re going to be doing is worshiping all the time. When we think this, we’re losing sight of what worship is all about. Maybe that’s because our understanding of worship has been clouded by the fact that far too often “worship” means getting up on a Sunday morning when we’d rather sleep in, and listening to a long boring sermon and singing creaky old hymns while wearing uncomfortable dress clothes and sitting on hard wooden pews. Yes: far too often our worship activities fall short of the excitement and wonder that they should have. A better way to think of what life is like for those elders, and what it will be for us, is to think of other activities that get us excited. Here are three examples:
1. Do you remember the line in advertisements for Monster Truck Jams? “We’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge!”
2. Have you ever wondered why they put seats in places like Heinz Field and the Petersen Event Center? The fans are always on their feet! At Pitt basketball games, the student section is always on their feet, hopping up and down.
3. When I think of some of my favorite concerts that I’ve been to, I was on my feet the whole time, enjoying the music. I’ve never been in a mosh pit, but that would be the extreme version of this.
So, in each of these examples, people are on their feet because they’re excited. There may not be as much alcohol and vandalism, but the level of excitement in heaven around God’s throne will be more like Pittsburgh’s celebration of the Superbowl victory than a stodgy Sunday morning service. But even more! Yeah, football’s great. But if we truly understand who God is, as John’s description tries to present it, all of eternity won’t be long enough to contain our excited praise of Him.

3:14-22 – Are You a Kinda Christian?

2009-02-25T15:14:00.000-05:00

I like tea. I usually start my day with a mug of tea with my breakfast. In hot weather, nothing hits the spot like a big glass of good ice tea. But there’s a funny thing about tea: it has to be either hot or cold for me to enjoy it. Room temperature is kind of disgusting: whether it had been hot and cooled down or had been cold and warmed up. Either way, the best thing to do with room temperature tea is to dump it down the drain.

Jesus likes people the way I like my tea. He can do something with us if we’re either “hot,” or on fire with faith, or if we’re “cold,” or have nothing to do with God. But if we’re lukewarm “kinda Christians,” God is disgusted with us. The point to this letter is that it’s better for us either to have a strong relationship with God or to have none at all. When we’re Kinda Christians, it’s a lot harder for God to work his will in our lives.

At first, this message may seem odd to us. Obviously, God’s ideal for us is to be “hot:” to have a faith that motivates our lives, and for our relationship with God to be the guiding influence in all we do. But isn’t a little bit of faith better than none? Perhaps. But the trouble with a little bit of faith, or being lukewarm Christian, is that we think that it’s good enough. We become satisfied with a tame, domestic, safe faith that doesn’t really put much of a demand our lives. We can go along our merry way, satisfying our earthly desires and conforming ourselves to the expectations and goals of the world around us. We can ignore God’s call for repentance and his direction for us to become part of his plan for the world. We can set our own goals for our lives and make decisions based on what makes sense to us. In other words, we can go through life like non-Christians. But if you’re a Kinda Christian, you’ve convinced yourself that there’s nothing you have to do differently in order to be square with God. You may surround yourself with the trappings of faith: go to church occasionally, have a Bible somewhere on your bookshelf, maybe even dangle a cross around your neck and have a WWJD sticker on your car. If that’s you, then you’re a Kinda Christian. God doesn’t have much to do with how you live your life, and you’ve convinced yourself that there isn’t anything you have to do about it.

It’s a lot harder for God to break into the heart of a Kinda Christian than into a non-Christian. If you haven’t placed your faith in Christ, and you’re honest about it, then when God’s message comes into your life one way or another, you know that it’s a challenge to change your life. You may choose to accept or to reject it. But either way, you know what’s going on: God is trying heat up your faith. However, if you’re a Kinda Christian and God’s challenge comes into your life, it’s easier to dismiss it. “Oh, yeah. I know all about being a Christian. I’ve been one for years. Isn’t it great?” You think that where you are is all the farther God wants you to go. You don’t recognize that your faith could be “hotter.” You don’t want to turn into one of those crazy religious fanatics, do you?

Our church, like many churches, has a lot of people on our membership roles who hardly ever participate in the life and worship of our congregation. Some of them are technically identified as “inactive members,” while others are on the active member role but are only minimally involved. It’s dangerous to assume that if someone isn’t involved in the life of the church, they don’t have a “hot” faith. Sometimes it happens. But for the most part, the life of discipleship is a life shared with other Christians. From time to time, someone will suggest that our church leaders need to do a better job of reaching out these members who aren’t doing much in the church and encourage them to get more involved. And that’s a suggestion that’s always worth following up on. However, the reality is that it’s easier to bring someone new into the church than to get a minimally involved member to become more active. Someone once suggested that churches in a community should exchange lists of their inactive members: the Lutheran church has a better chance of reaching out to the inactive Presbyterian than the Presbyterian church does. This is a practical example of Jesus’ message to the Laodiceans: Kinda Christians are harder for God to reach than people who don’t pretend to have any kind of a relationship with him.

Lukewarm Kinda Christians can also be found among the people who attend worship every week. There can be all kinds of reasons for people to come to church that have nothing to do with devotion to God. For some, it’s a family activity. For others, it’s tradition. Some people come to church out of habit, or to see their friends, or because they enjoy the music or the liturgy. There may be people who think that church activities are important but couldn’t describe their relationship with God if their lives depended on it. These are also examples of Kinda Christians. They haven’t responded to God’s claim on their lives and they haven’t committed themselves to serving and honoring him.

This is the last of the seven letters that Jesus told John to write to the churches. The one before this one, to Philadelphia, was notable because it didn’t include any words of correction or criticism. This letter to Laodicea, like the one to Sardis, is remarkable for the exact opposite reason: Jesus had nothing good to say about them. We find no words of praise. Considering the immorality and false teaching that could be found in some of the other churches, this should grab your attention. God would rather you be in error than that you be a Kinda Christian.

Laodicea was a wealthy city. It had a lively trade industry, particularly clothing. Laodicea was also well known for a healing eye salve that it produced. Jesus took each of these traits that Laodicea prided itself in and showed how worthless they really are. Verses 17 and 18 take their claims of being rich, well-clothed, and insightful and explain that they are actually poor, naked, and blind. Their own resources, which they take so much pride in, are getting them nowhere. They desperately need the riches, clothing, and healing which God offers.

That’s a trademark of Kinda Christians: they think that they can get through life on their own abilities and with their own power. They don’t really need God. Anything they do with or for God is more like them doing God a favor than realizing their dependence upon him. And when life is going well, it’s easy for us to fall for this kind of thinking. When we, like the Laodiceans, are affluent or at least comfortable, we can fall into religious indifference. This is a trend that church history demonstrates: faith burns most brightly in societies and in people’s lives when they’re going through a crisis. But when things are easy, we slip into Kinda Christianity

A “hot” Christian is different from a “lukewarm” Christian because she knows that she needs God. Without him, her life is meaningless and her dreams evaporate into despair. The good news, for Christians of all temperatures, is that Christ’s invitation comes to us at all times. He stands at the door of our hearts and knocks to come in. Jesus told his followers, “Knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). The message here is different. Jesus is knocking. And it’s not something you have to wait and hope for. It’s happening right now. As Jesus said elsewhere, he is near, right at the door (Mark 13:29). Will you open the door so that he can come in and change your life?

Revelation 3:7-13 – Everyone Thinks They’re from Philly

2009-02-19T10:07:00.000-05:00

After all those odd-sounding church names, it’s nice to come to one that sounds familiar. This is the original Philadelphia, of course, and not the one at the other end of Pennsylvania. This letter is unique among the seven that Jesus told John to write. Each of the other letters includes a rebuke or a call for repentance. There’s something going on at the church which Jesus wants to change. But when it comes to Philadelphia, there are no harsh words. This is the only church which receives only praise and a promise, with no warning or correction attached to it.

We can learn three things about the Philadelphians from this letter. First, they were weak and suffering. Second, others were attacking them. And third, God approved of them and gave them a promise of blessing. It’s easy for us to put ourselves in the shoes of the Philadelphians. Too easy, in fact. We want to claim Jesus’ description of them for ourselves.
1. We are weak and helpless.
2. Other people are hurting us.
3. God approves of us.
There are times, of course, when we are Philadelphians. But there are many times when we’re not and we think that we are.

Philadelphia was not the only church that was facing persecution. Smyrna and Thyatira had deceptive leaders. Christians in Pergamum and Smyrna were put to death for their faith. But there was something different about Philadelphia. Facing persecution doesn’t exempt us from judgment or correction. It’s not an excuse to be able to get away with things that you shouldn’t. At times we try to use this excuse in our daily lives. I was mean to the clerk because work went bad today. It’s OK for me to get drunk because I got bad news today. But the message to the Philadelphians is not that persecution or hard times are an excuse to waffle in our holy living for God. In fact, as the rest of Revelation demonstrates, it’s during these difficult times that our faith matters most of all.

If we claim too quickly to be Philadelphians, not only will we be tempted to short-change the claims that discipleship makes upon our lives, but we will use it as an excuse for ignoring our own responsibilities. Yes, the Philadelphians were weak and relatively helpless, and were surrounded by strong opposition. It would have been easy for them to say something like “Well, God can’t really expect us to do much in this kind of an atmosphere. The best we can do is just hold on and try to endure.” They could have tried to convince themselves that they were like the seeds scattered among the thorns. If they survived, that was good enough. No one would expect them to produce a crop. But the challenging news is that God doesn’t give us a pass just because things are tough. In fact, it is during the difficult times in our lives that our faith moves us along the most strongly. This is a prevalent theme in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.

There’s another danger to thinking to quickly that we’re Philadelphians. We notice the wrongs that other are perpetrating, but we ignore what we ourselves may be in error over. An overly developed sense of victimization tends to ignore any responsibility that we may have for ourselves and what we do. “How could anyone blame me for what I did, in such a horrible situation?” Or, “You should be worried about what that other person is doing. It’s far worse than anything I did!” While others may be guilty of worse things, we are still responsible for what we do.

One more danger about thinking that you’re a Philadelphian: you may buy into the lie that you’re helpless. When we think we are weak and incapable, we fail to live up to the plans that God has for us in our lives. There’s something very appealing to our earthly nature to go curl up in a corner and lick our wounds when things are difficult. And it’s easy for us to compare ourselves to others who seem so powerful and influential in comparison to us, and assume that there’s nothing we can do. But that’s not the call that God has for us in our lives. Remember the widow in the temple that Jesus and his disciples saw at the end of Mark 12. She was oppressed and had a very difficult life. And compared with the other people who could give so much to the temple, she had practically nothing. We can try to excuse ourselves from faithfulness with all sorts of statements:
• We’re just a little struggling church. We can’t do much to reach out to our community.
• I’m living on a fixed income (or, I’m just a student). I don’t have much to give. Other people should do it instead.
• I don’t have the training to do much of anything helpful.
• I’m a new Christian. Or, I don’t know my Bible very well. Someone else would be better than me to talk about faith.

To review: we’re not always as oppressed and powerless as we think that we are. And when we think that we are (either rightly or wrongly) we may use it as an excuse to fudge on our faithfulness to God, we may overlook our own faults and the problems we cause others, and we think that we are too weak to do anything. All of these are errors to avoid. And it appears that the Philadelphians were able to do so. And that’s why God was able to praise them without any reservations.

With all these qualifications and caveats, it is good to read Jesus’ message for the Philadelphians. It’s a message for us when the world is crashing down on us: when our resources are drained, when the challenges we face overwhelm us, when people around us are attacking us. The good news is that none of these things affect God’s care for us. Nothing we experience can beat down the power, the assurance, the care, and the plan that God has for us. In the times when we’re beaten down, overwhelmed, or overpowered, it’s good to hear that news. God will not let anything interfere with his plan for you. He is in control. As Jesus told the Philadelphians, no one can close the door that God opens for us.

Those who appear to be so powerful, to be in control, to be calling the shots, can’t do a thing about it. God will not just unravel their dastardly plans so that his will succeed. He will make them a part of those plans! The time will come that they will acknowledge God’s power and goodness. And in the process, they will be reconciled with us and acknowledge a healthy relationship with us. The way Jesus describes it, it sure sounds like the reconciliation that happened between Joseph and his brothers. They did everything but kill him (and were seriously considering doing that), but the time came that they honored him and recognized his role in God’s designs for them all.

It’s easy to be disheartened, at times when it seems that everything is stacking against you. We can be tempted to think that the powers of darkness and despair are going to win, and that God’s plans will translate into nothing more than good intentions. (That, by the way, is ultimately the answer that Rabbi Kushner offers in his best seller “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People”). We may think that God really cares for us, but when it really comes down to it, we need to be practical. We have to take care of ourselves. And if we can’t, well, we’re screwed.

Jesus’ message to the Philadelphians is that this version of practicality is poppycock. The most practical thing in the world is to hold onto God’s goodness and promise, despite whatever trials we’re undergoing. It may be scary, because it goes against every common-sense bone in our body. But God’s care for us is not restricted by common sense.

Jesus offers a message of real power and support. If you maintain your faith in the midst of the harsh realities of a difficult world, you’ll become a pillar in his temple. By the way, First Peter also talks about becoming part of God’s temple. This promise was offered after the “real” temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. That was the quintessential catastrophe for Jews, and Jewish Christians. It looked like dastardly powers like the Roman Empire could do whatever they want. The assurance is that something even more powerful and profound is on the way, and that there’s nothing they can do to stop it. When Jesus returns, the faithful will be marked with God’s name, and they will become part of the new holy city.

Revelation 3:1-6 - Skating on Your Reputation

2009-02-12T18:22:00.001-05:00

Poor Michael Phelps. Sure, he still has his gold medals and is still the winningest Olympian ever. But a stupid encounter with a bong has tarnished his reputation. He’s young, so he may still recover and gain back his endorsement deals. It’s another matter for Michael Jackson. The “king of pop” has gone from superstar to creepy weirdo, and there doesn’t seem to be any chance of recovery for him.

Reputations matter. How people view you makes a difference. Over the past few years, a number of people have become celebrities not because of their talents, accomplishments, or even their looks. They’re famous for being famous. What exactly is Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian famous for, other than perhaps really poor impulse control? It doesn’t really matter. Now that they have a reputation for being famous, that’s all that matters.

As our kids were growing up, we taught them about the “halo and horns effect” that my wife learned in her psychology training. Once you’ve been identified as a devil, either because of your own deeds or those of your friends, teachers and other authority figures are going to be harder on you. But if people think you’re a perfect angel, you can get away with more, at least up to a point. Be careful what kind of a reputation you earn for yourself, because it’s going to have at least as much of an influence as what you actually do.

Reputations matter. It’s true for matters of faith as well. We’re told not let our witness to Christ be tarnished by unseemly conduct. Be all people to all things. Don’t let even the hint of impropriety touch you. Create and guard a good reputation so that you’ll be held in high regard by everyone.

Reputations matter. At least, they do when it comes to other people. We care about what people think of us, and we base our evaluation of others on what “they” think of them. It’s almost impossible to live down a bad reputation, and a good reputation must be tended carefully. If not, well… ask Michael Phelps, A-Rod, Michael Jackson, and Eliot Spitzer.

Reputations matter so much to people that it’s easy for us to think that they also matter to God. But they don’t. That’s the constant theme that we find throughout Scripture. The people who think that they matter, because everyone tells them how wonderful they are, get passed over by God. And the people that everyone thinks are scum, not even worthy of consideration, find a place of honor and respect. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Cor. 1:27-29). Consider just a few examples from the Bible. First, a couple of people with big reputations that didn’t get the treatment they thought they deserved.

NAAMAN (2 Kings 5): Naaman was the commander of the Aramean army: second only to the king in one of Israel’s rival nations. When it came to human reputation, he was about as high as anyone could get in that time and place, unless you were born to a royal family. But he put his pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else. His high status couldn’t spare him from contracting the most dreaded disease of the time: leprosy. It was painful, disfiguring, and disgraceful. But Naaman thought his troubles were solved when he heard that a prophet in Israel could heal him. So he showed up with all his pomp and finery at Elisha’s humble little country home. But Elisha, the man of God, didn’t care two figs for Naaman’s reputation. He didn’t even come out of the house to greet the man: a simple act of courtesy for a host to pay to a visitor. Instead, he sent out a servant to tell Naaman to wash in the Jordan River to be cleansed. Naaman’s dignity was insulted: not just by the snub that Elisha wouldn’t come out to greet him, although that was bad enough. After all, he was Naaman! He was used to having people ten time more important than Elisha grovel before him. How dare he treat him this way! But what was even worse was that he was supposed to find healing in the dirty water of the tiny little Jordan River. (I’ve seen the Jordan River, by the way. Naaman was right. The Conequenessing Creek could give the Jordan a run for its money.) It was beneath his dignity to bath in that disgusting river. Fortunately for Naaman, one of his servants suggested that he set aside his concern for his reputation for a moment and give it a try. And he was healed.

THE RICH YOUNG RULER (Luke 18:18-23, with parallels in Matthew and Mark): As Jesus did his preaching thing, he started to develop his own powerful reputation. Celebrated people tend to hang out with each other: do you really think Brad Pitt would have George Clooney as a best friend and Angelina Jolie as a girlfriend if he was a normal guy like the rest of us? So one of the powerful people came up to Jesus and asked what he could do to connect with him. That’s a good networking technique, after all. But this powerful, rich, influential young man wasn’t expecting what Jesus had to say. Perhaps he thought that Jesus would upgrade his group of friends: get rid of some of this embarrassing yokels and include people like himself. He could pull strings with the Jerusalem establishment and open doors to the halls of power for Jesus. Because of his reputation, he could make things happen for Jesus. But Jesus’ response? Sell everything, give it away, and follow me. That was more than the rich young man could handle, and he walked away sadly. Jesus didn’t want what he had to offer! Well, actually Jesus did. But it wasn’t his reputation and his influence that Jesus wanted.

Now, for a couple of other examples: people with not much of a reputation at all that God selected and blessed.

BARTIMAEUS (Mark 10:46-52): Not long after Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler, the city of Jericho opened its arms wide to greet him as he arrived. The streets were packed with people who wanted to see this miracle worker from Galilee who was on tour down south and had come to their town. The scene was probably almost as wild as the Steeler victory parade in Pittsburgh a couple weeks ago. The mayor and all the important people were lined up in the most prominent place to give Jesus the keys to the city and have their photos taken with them. But of everyone in the crowd cheering for Jesus and calling out his name, who does he stop to take notice of? A poor blind beggar squatting in a corner asking for help! (Luke tells us that he also stopped to talk with Zaccheus, the most hated man in town, but that’s another story. Same point, though.) The people of Jericho didn’t even know the beggar’s name: they just called him Timaeus’ son. Talk about the opposite of a good reputation: totally ignored! But he’s the one that Jesus wanted to bless.

JEREMIAH (Jer. 1:4-16): Being a prophet was a hard job, but it was also a very influential one. As prophet, you would be the one to speak God’s word to the entire nation. You would advise the king and the temple leaders. So when God told Jeremiah that he would be a prophet, Jeremiah could hardly believe that it was true. He wasn’t qualified. He didn’t even think that he met the age requirement: he was just a kid, after all. Everyone told him that he didn’t really amount to much. But God thought differently. Today, all the important people of Jerusalem with big reputations have been forgotten. Their names are nothing more than tongue-twisters for Scripture readers. But Jeremiah, the little kid with no credentials, is still someone that we talk about.

Reputations really don’t matter to God. What Peter told Cornelius is really true: God does not show favoritism (Acts 10:34). And that’s the message that Jesus wanted John to share with the Christians of Sardis. They had a great reputation. Everyone thought that they were wonderful people. They were alive and vibrant in the faith. They were good faithful and honorable people. At least, that’s the reputation that they had. But God knew better. He knew that their reputations were empty: like the stars today who can sell movies or songs not because of their talent, but because of reputation. There was nothing to them. People thought they were alive, but they were dead. They were soiled like dirty laundry. Because of that, they were in danger of losing their place in God’s kingdom.

Reputations are like stereotypes. They get started because of some affinity with reality, but that doesn’t mean they’re accurate. When we start to care about reputations, ours or other people’s, more than reality, then we’ve gone off course. People may think that you’re “alive:” that you have a strong faith, that you’re devoted to the Lord, that you’re committed to discipleship and mission. But how accurate is that perception? Is it real, or just a reputation? If you’re active in church or a regular worship participant, does that really reflect the relationship you have with your God? Or is it just a smoke screen that confuses other people, and maybe even you?

Revelation 2:18-29 – Don’t Believe Everything You Believe

2009-02-02T12:27:00.000-05:00

We live in a deceptive world. Things aren’t the way that they appear to be. This is one of the things that makes it hard for us to be faithful to Jesus. If everything really was the way that it seems to be, life would be so much easier for us. We could just take everything at face value, and act accordingly. But as the saying goes, you can’t believe everything you read. In the same way, you can’t believe everything you see, or hear, or experience. You can’t believe everything you believe. Part of being a disciple is questioning and examining everything. We need to test the spirits, as John wrote elsewhere (1 John 4:1), to see if they really come from God or not. The story of Joshua 9 is instructive: the Israelites fell for their own version of a Trojan horse and accepted a trick that the Gibeonites played on them to avoid destruction.

That’s not the way that we want to live. We just want things to be simple. “Give us some straightforward rules and direct explanations for us to accept. Why does everything have to be so complicated?” Things are complicated for two reasons. First, that’s the way God created the world. We marvel at the complexity of everything from the tiny cell to the immense galaxy. It’s one of the hallmarks of God’s creativity. So, if God set us in a complex world, why should we settle for what’s simple? That’s why he gave us sharp and inquiring minds: to be curious, to ask questions, to figure things out. Those simple puzzles that preschoolers play with are great for them, but adults can’t be bothered. God pushes us along in the same way. Second, the world isn’t straightforward because there are people and powers at work that are trying to undermine or destroy God’s good creation. We need to recognize who and what they are. It’s like a soldier on the battlefield, getting ready to cross a field in enemy territory. Wouldn’t it be easiest and simplest just to run straight across it and take cover as quickly as you can on the other side? Maybe, but a wise soldier knows that the enemy may have planted landmines in that field. Doing things the simplest and easiest way can get you killed.

There is an appeal to religious leaders who tell you just to accept whatever they say. There’s something nice about simple explanations of the Christian faith. That way you don’t have to think for yourself. You don’t have to worry about getting confused. You don’t argue about nit-picky aspects of theology. Simple unambiguous faith is a good place to start, as people are being introduced to Christianity. But it’s not where you stay. You start with simple puzzles with big pieces when you’re a toddler, but if you’re still playing with them in college, you’re not developing the way God wants you to. But because we like the simple and straightforward, there are leaders who are happy to supply it to us. That’s the appeal of fundamentalism, regardless of which religion you find it in. “Just tell us a few simple main principles for us to follow. Don’t confuse us.” One of the dangers of fundamentalism, beyond the failure to appreciate the complexity of human life and faith, is that there’s an inherent trust in the leader who’s telling you what to believe. Nobody’s perfect. So any religious leader who tells you just to trust the simple story they’re telling you isn’t going to get it right. It might be close, or it might be horribly far off the mark.

We see the same thing in politics. Here, we call them “sound bites.” Our elected officials need to balance an amazing number of different factors into each decision they make, and where they need to be working on multiple situations, each of which is very important, all at the same time. But we tend to base our selection of them on simple slogans (“Change we can believe in” or “Country first”), or on what we think of ten second blurb that gets squeezed into the evening news.

At some level, we know this isn’t the way things really are. We might not like it, but we know that we need to take just about everything with a grain of salt. People can twist or select the facts to make them say whatever they want. In the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, the pirate captain tricked the woman into accepting the rules of “parley” by distorting the obvious intentions of the rules into something completely different (sorry; it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, so I don’t remember the details). But it’s something we see in real life all the time. We know that the politicians aren’t really going to do what they promise. We know that sales offer that seems too good to be true has a catch in it somewhere. We know that things aren’t as simple as they appear. And we know that we can’t trust everything that we see or hear, or that we’ve been told in the past. That, by the way, is the basis for scientific inquiry. It’s an attempt to see if the things that we’ve been told in the past by people we trust is really true. It’s a way to test things to see if they really operate the way that we think they do.

My PhD dissertation focuses on Jesus’ message of Mark 13, in which he describes what the world is really like, from a spiritual perspective, and what the future is going to be. Throughout his speech, he keeps telling the disciples to watch, to beware, to be alert, and to understand. In fact, that’s the whole point to the discourse (although there’s a lot of other very important things we can learn from it as well). Be sharp, because things aren’t what they seem to be. We don’t always recognize the way that God is at work around us and within us. The bad things may not be as bad as we think that they are. And what seems to be good and godly may actually be demonic and destructive.

Paul told the Corinthians pretty much the same thing: there are false and deceptive teachers all around us, pretending to be leading us in Christ’s way, while they’re actually moving us the other way (2 Peter 2 and Jude say a lot about it too). In the eleventh chapter of his second letter to them, Paul said that not only do false teachers appear to messengers from God, but that “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” Wouldn’t it be so much easier if the devil always appeared to be as horrible and evil and disgusting as he really is? But he doesn’t, because he’s cunning enough to know that doesn’t work. So he comes to us in a way that makes us think that he’s good and wonderful, holy and healthy. It’s only after we take the bait that we realize the trouble we’re in. The same thing is true for temptation: the urge to do something wrong. It will hurt us, or others, or God, or the world. If we realized the extent of the damage that sin causes, we’d never engage in it. But it always looks good at the beginning.

The Christians in Thyatira, the fifth of the seven churches that John wrote to, were too gullible for their own good. There was a prominent leader in their church (probably a woman, since John calls her by the name of one of the most wicked women in Jewish history) who was leading people astray. She was pretending to speak for Christ, presenting his message to the people. Jesus told John that she was leading them into idolatry and sexual immorality. Sound familiar? that’s what was going on in Pergamum as well. In the Old Testament, adultery and idolatry were often closely associated with each other. Hosea’s life was a living parable of this. And Ezekiel offered some shockingly graphic descriptions of it. So there’s at least a chance that the Thyatirans weren’t sleeping around like maniacs; that may be a representation of their unfaithfulness to God by worshiping other gods in addition to the Lord.

There’s a good chance that the teachings of “Jezebel” were a version of Gnosticism: the belief that there is arcane secret spiritual knowledge which will save you from the ugly messiness of the physical world if you acquire it. Gnosticism had begun as its own form of belief but tried to latch on to Christianity; the “Gospel of Thomas” is an adaptation of Christ’s life and teachings to make him look like a Gnostic guru. Since “Jezebel” offered “deep secrets” to her followers, she may have been a Gnostic as well.

Jesus, in contrast, is the one with blazing eyes who can search out and destroy falsehood. As we saw in Chapter Two, this description of Jesus shows that he’s the one with insight and understanding. And he is the one with power and authority, even when appearances may lead us to think that he’s not. The answer to the struggle for insight to discern error and deception is not just to rely on our own suspicions and cynicism (although to some degree that can be helpful). But as Proverbs 3 puts it, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

What does that mean? It means committing yourself to a lifetime of discernment. Exactly where is God leading me? What truths is he offering to me? How can I learn them? What are the dangers to avoid? There are times that we’ll get them wrong. At times our mistakes may be tragic. But if we trust that he truly is the one who has authority over the nations, and over our lives, even our mistakes will not undo his will. He will take our errors and direct them to his purposes, if we continue to do our level best not to settle for what other people tell us, and not to just follow our own “gut,” but to seek his will. That’s what Scripture is for. That’s what prayerful reflection is for. That’s what the church is for. Each of these are means by which we can discern God’s truth in a world of deception. We can misinterpret Scripture. We can fool ourselves about how God speaks to us through prayer. Churches can mess up. But if we continue to be diligent in our discernment, we will fall for Jezebel’s tricks less and less.

Revelation 2:12-17 – Stand for Something, or Fall for Anything

2009-01-27T14:37:00.001-05:00

Last Sunday we celebrated Christian unity. In the morning our church switched preachers with another church in town, and in the evening most of the churches in our community came together for a shared worship service. It was great, and everyone loved it. Days like that really make me happy, because one of my pet peeves is the way that we cause division and are quick to mistrust other people and think the worst of them. Maybe part of why I like events like a Christian unity service is because of my ethnic heritage. The Dutch have always been a tolerant people (well, at least relatively tolerant). During the Middle Ages, Holland was a place where Jews could go to escape the ant-Semitic attacks that were so common elsewhere in Europe. During the Reformation, everyone from Mennonites to Calvinists could find refuge. Even the famous Pilgrims settled in Holland before they traveled to Massachusetts (the reason they left Holland wasn’t because they weren’t welcome, but because they were afraid that their children would lose their English identity). Overall, the Dutch will tolerate just about anything. At times, however, they’re tolerant to a fault. In the 60’s, Amsterdam became a favorite destination for the counter-culture movement, which pretty much took over the Netherlands’ version of the National Mall. There were no laws to prevent them from doing it, although my father loves to tell the story about some navy cadets who showed up and gave everyone a haircut! Dutch tolerance is probably responsible for giving the Netherlands the image that it has today: most people today associate the Netherlands with things like legalized marijuana use and legalized prostitution. If you accept or tolerate anything, sometimes you may go a bit too far.

Unity and tolerance are good. Our world needs more of it. But in our pursuit of respect and acceptance of others, we need to be sure that we don’t go too far in the other direction. There are some things which we need to stand up to oppose. And this was the message that Jesus told John to give to the people of Pergamum. They were in danger of being a bit too “Dutch,” by accepting some things that for Christians should be unacceptable. Jesus’ message was for them to be a bit more like the Ephesians and be discerning of error and sin. It’s a balancing act: the Ephesians were too quick to find fault and error and failed to act out of love. But the Pergamites (if that’s what you call someone from Pergamum) were too quick to condone actions and beliefs which are incompatible with Christ’s call for us.

Having said this, we shouldn’t be too hard on the Pergamites. It wasn’t easy to be a Christian in that city. Apparently at one point, the believers were ordered to renounce their faith, and they didn’t. One of them, a fellow named Antipas who may have been a leader in the church, was put to death for his courageous stand for his faith. So until we’ve been in a situation like that, we don’t have much room to criticize the Pergamites. There are times when we’re willing to back down from our faith for something a lot less severe than death: accepting off-color or racist jokes to fit in with other people, failing to speak up when a clerk gives us too much change in order to have some more change in our pocket, failing to tell a friend about the encouragement that our faith gives us because we don’t want to seem like a Jesus freak, or skipping our devotional time because we’re too tired or have too many “more important” things to do. These are examples of ways that we deny our faith every day, and our lives aren’t even at stake when we do.

Pergamum was a tough place to be a Christian. It was the capital of the Roman province in that region, so political and military authority was everywhere. Pergamum was the first city in the region to have a temple dedicated to the worship of the emperor. This, by the way, is probably what Jesus meant when he said that it was the city where Satan lives. Pergamum was also the center of worship for the god Alscepius, the god of healing. You might not think that you’re as familiar with this Greek god as you are with others like Zeus, Apollo, and Athena, but that’s not completely true. If you’ve ever seen the medical symbol a snake winding around a pole, then you’ve seen the symbol of Alscepius, the healing serpent-god. (If you have a medical card in your wallet or purse, then you’re probably carrying around an image of this god. I am.) The Bible’s depiction of Satan as a serpent in the garden of Eden is probably another reason why Jesus said that Satan lived in Pergamum. So if thousands of years later, we’re still unwittingly honoring this pagan god like this, then is certainly understandable that the Pergamites may have looked the other way or even gone along with Alscepius-worship.

It may be understandable, but wasn’t acceptable. Jesus held the Pergamum Christians to account for the fact that they tolerated practices among their own members that they shouldn’t. They were a bit too “Dutch.” We don’t have many details about exactly what these unacceptable beliefs and activities were. The first reference is to Balaam, a pagan prophet hired by Balak, the king of the Moabites, to curse the Israelites as they wandered through his kingdom on their way to the Promised Land (you can read about this in Numbers 22-25). Things didn’t work out for Balak quite the way that he had expected: Balaam ended up blessing the Israelites instead of cursing them, because of God’s intervention. The Bible doesn’t tell us anything about Balaam teaching Balak and the Moabites about sexual immorality or eating food sacrificed to idols. This may have been a tradition which wasn’t included in the Bible but which the early Christians would have known about. Or, it may be that these were things going on in Pergamum, and Jesus compared what they were doing with someone trying to curse what God wanted to bless. The second reference is even more cryptic: the Pergamites accepted the teachings of the “Nicolaitans.” If you’ve never heard of these Nicolaitans, don’t worry: you’re not carrying their logo in your wallet like Alscepius’! In fact, no one really know anything about these Nicolaitans. This is the only reference to them anywhere in the Bible or any other ancient literature. But just because we don’t know anything about them hasn’t prevented people from thinking that they do. Some people think that it must have been an early heresy begun by Nicolaus, one of the first deacons of the church in Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 6:5. But there’s no evidence of this. Nicolaus wasn’t exactly an odd name, so the founder of Nicolaititanism could easily have been someone else. Other people think that the Nicolaitans were a variety of an early heresy called Gnosticism. But again, there’s no evidence for this. Still others have done some fancy guesswork based on the Greek words which they think the name is based on, and claim that it means “victorious over the people.” So a Nicolaitan is someone who abuses authority over people. That makes for a nice story, but the foundations for it are pretty shaky. The wisest choice for us to make is to say that we really don’t know anything about these Nicolaitans. They were a group that caused some headaches for the Christians in Pergamum, but they have long since lapsed into obscurity. Maybe they had something to do with the sexual immorality and idol worship that the Balaamites practiced, since they’re mentioned side by side. But not necessarily; preachers talk about the evils of pornography and drug abuse in the same breath, but they’re hardly the same thing either. The bottom line is simply that there were some people in the Pergamum church who were doing things or believing things that Christians shouldn’t.

And there are Christians who still do. It may be idolatry (although modern idols are different from the ones that they had in Pergamum), it may be sexual immorality (something that always seems to be a problem for Christians), the acceptance of any of a number of erroneous doctrines, or something completely different. Instead of getting caught in analyzing what was wrong about the Pergamite church, we ought instead to focus on the right that we should be living by. That’s a good point in general: when we focus on the wrong to avoid instead of the right to follow, we don’t generally get very far. For example, if you feel like the devil is throwing temptation or trial your way, the answer is not to concentrate on the devil; that will only make the problem worse. You can’t overcome it on your own, by the strength of your will. The answer is to focus more fully upon the Lord, and the guidance and care he offers.

Jesus’ instruction to the Pergamites to resist evil and error is a complicated one for us American Christians to follow, because we live in a land of religious diversity and freedom. We are not part of a society in which one religion has the right to set the standards for all of society. And that’s a good thing. That’s what life was like in Pergamum, and Antipas’ refusal to follow those standards cost him his life. That’s what life was like in Spain during the Inquisition, when people who didn’t follow exactly what the church taught were tortured and executed. That’s what life is like today in Islamic states where strict sharia law is enforced either by the government or by fanatical groups. If you don’t agree with their version of religion, it may be your neck. So while as Christians we are called to testify to the truth as we understand it, as Americans we have no right to expect that everyone else in our nation will agree with us. We can, nonetheless, discern the actions and beliefs of our fellow Christians and exhort each other to faithfulness. And we can witness to the society around us to the faith that we have. But it’s a fine line: to avoid the too-tolerant error of the Pergamites while at the same not losing sight of the love upon which our faith is based, as the Ephesians did.

Revelation 2:12-17 – Stand for Something, or Fall for Anything

2009-01-27T14:37:00.000-05:00

Revelation 2:1-7 – Getting Back to Basics

2009-01-07T02:31:00.000-05:00

As we begin to study the letters which John wrote to each of the seven churches, we can notice that the letters follow a specific pattern. Each begins with “These are the words of him who…” and then picks up one of the descriptive phrases for Jesus which we found in Chapter 1. The particular descriptive is frequently something that relates to the particular issue that the church is dealing with. Next, the letter provides an affirmation for how the church has been faithful (except for the notable exception of the church to the Laodiceans). The next element for each letter is a call for reformation: the identification of something that the churches can do to be more faithful (except for the notable exception of the Philadelphians). The letters end with a promise of the reward which the faithful will receive, and the charge “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” The regularity of this formula helps us understand the message for each church.

John begins with a letter the church in Ephesus. Ephesus was a major seaport and the most important city in the region. It was also the center of worship for the goddess Artemis (or Diana). Acts 19:23-41 describes a riot that the worshipers of Artemis incited in reaction to Paul’s preaching of the gospel there.

The affirmation for the Ephesian church was that they were hard-working and conscientious. They were discerning people and sought to avoid the influence of misleading or false leaders. That’s great: these are values which we’d all admire. There’s something almost instinctive, at least in the American “heartland,” about valuing hard work and quality work. And we respect people with sharp minds who don’t just accept every idea that comes down the pick, but probes and analyzes them to sift out what is valuable and get rid of the dangers and problems.

This is all quite commendable, but in the midst of their hard work and careful thought, the Ephesians had strayed from their “first love.” This can be understood two ways. First, they may have forgotten about the condition of love which is the starting point and grounding of everything we are and do as Christians. Church history is riddled with unfortunate examples of believers who became so caught up in doing the right thing and working hard to do it, that they no longer acted in love. The Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials are two quick examples that come to mind. But they’re safe examples because they’re so removed from us. But it’s a danger we still face. It would be easy for the ongoing debate about the role of homosexuals in the church to dissolve into this, if and when those who hold up the Biblical standard against such conduct fail to do so out of love and respect and begin to demonize and break fellowship not only with homosexuals but with those who support them. Many congregations can find sad localized examples of their own: when a longtime member criticizes a new member because she violated a long-standing tradition about how “things are always done here,” or if a dispute about how to handle a situation in the church dissolves into factionalism and bitterness. In each of these cases, the love from which all discipleship begins has been violated.

But there’s a second way to understand Jesus’ criticism that the Ephesians have “forsaken their first love:” they lost sight of their primary call from God. They forgot how their relationship with God and their identity as God’s people started. In the process of developing and growing in faith, they abandoned their roots instead of building on them. This can happen to us, individually and as a church, when we forget why we are doing what we’re doing and obsess over how to do it. They need to heed the exhortation that Paul offered to the Philippians: “Let us live up to what we have already attained” (3:16).

Revelation 1:9-20 – You’re in Good Hands

2008-12-30T16:06:00.001-05:00

In this section of John’s introduction to his book, he tells us about who we are as Christians, and who Jesus is as our Lord.

In verse 9, as John tells us about how the vision came upon him one Sunday on the prison island of Patmos, he describes himself as a “brother and companion” with the people of his churches in three ways. They are three traits that all Christians share. We are companions in..

1. SUFFERING: Look at Mark 13:5-23, 1 Peter 4:12-19, Hebrews 11, and 2 Corinthians 1 as just a few examples. Suffering is an aspect of Christianity. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

2. THE KINGDOM: The philosopher Paul Ricoeur wrote about the “superabundance” of the kingdom of God. The “economy” of grace goes far beyond the give-and-take exchange of the world. It’s an overflowing blessing of God that’s at work now, and it’s an inheritance that we’re waiting for. In the midst of the suffering, there is grace and hope beyond our imaginations.

3. PATIENT ENDURANCE: Think of Romans 5:1-5, for example. This is how the first two Christian traits interact with each other. Because of the presence and the promise of the kingdom, we hang on through the suffering.

John goes on to tell us that he was in exile because of “the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” Jesus’ testimony isn’t what he said; it’s what he did. John was committed by faith to the saving work of Jesus. “The word of God” is more than just the Bible. Remember John 1:1-4: Jesus is the living Word of God. The word that continues to come to us through the Spirit (and yes, as the Spirit testifies to Jesus through the words of Scripture). These are the two reasons why we have the three traits.

John heard a voice, and turned to see who was speaking. Verses 13-16 give us a description of Jesus as John encountered him. If we read this literally, we get a very weird image of Jesus (Albrecht Durer’s Renaissance woodcut of this scene is a good example of what that would look like). Remember: John uses symbols, images, and references to other parts of the Bible to stir our imagination in order to understand more about who Jesus is. Here, he give us three descriptions.

1. WHITE HAIR AND HEAD: Think of Isaiah 1:18’s description of purity
2. BLAZING EYES: There are lots of images of fire in the Bible as a heavenly attribute (2 Kings 2:11 is just one example). It’s a fire that purifies and transforms (Proverbs 17:3). His eyes search us, know us, and refine us.
3. BRONZE FEET: In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a statue with feet of clay, which represents our human weakness. Here the image changes to reflect the solid feet of our Lord
4. VOICE OF RUSHING WATERS: Think of Amos 5:24, describing God’s justice as rolling water. Water can be lifegiving (Exodus 17) or dangerous (Genesis 6 & 7). Just like God. This is how Ezekiel described the voice of God (Ezekiel 43:2).
5. HOLDING THE SEVEN STARS: There were seven known planets at the time John wrote this. Christ holds and controls the cosmos.
6. SWORD FROM THE MOUTH: The sword is the word of God (Hebrews 4:12; Ephesians 6:17) that both protects and cuts us.
7. BRILLIANT FACE: Exodus 34:29-35 tells us about how Moses’ face became unbearably bright, just from the reflection of having been in God’s presence

These are all attributes of God, which Jesus, being God himself, shares. But one is most important of all. Greco-Roman literature was often arranged “chiastically,” which means that in a list, the outer elements balance each other out, leaving the most important thing in the middle. Here we can see #1 and #7 related to each other (the head and face), and #2 and #6 (eyes and mouth). #3 and #5 are the feet and hands. This leaves us with #4 at the center: the voice. It is Jesus’ voice calling us that matters most of all.

So what is it that the voice says? “Do not be afraid.” This is something that heavenly messengers frequently say when they appear to people (the angel speaking to the shepherds in Luke 2 is the best known example), because they were so strange and frightening. But Jesus doesn’t tell John not to be afraid just to calm him down. It’s like what he told John and the other apostles at the Last Supper (John 14): do not let your hearts be anxious or troubled. Frightening and horrible things are going to happen. But you don’t need to be afraid as you go through them. Jesus, the one who loves us, encompasses everything from the First to the Last. He died, but lives forever. Even death can’t stop him. So often we’re tempted to think of death and hell and the devil as God’s adversaries that he has to work to overcome. But that’s not the case. He controls them: their keys are in his hands.

There is so much that we can be afraid of. But none of it really matters when we have the right perspective. This isn’t to trivialize the struggles that we face, with finances, with relationships, with health, with time management, with self weakness, with violence and scarcity and bitterness and so much more. It’s all real. But Jesus gives us perspective. Often, when we’re down about our troubles, we talk about “getting perspective” in the negative sense: think of all the people who are worse off than you. Yes, that helps. It keeps you from dissolving into a puddle of self-pity. But this is a positive sense of perspective. How much do all of our struggles and trials really matter compared with the power and authority of Jesus, who loves us?

Verse 19 reminds us that he’s always there. John is seeing what was, what is, and what will be. (Remember that Revelation is to be read from a historical-prophetic perspective, not just about what the end times will be like, or what the past was like).

At the beginning of his description of Jesus, John said that he was standing among seven lampstands. Now, Jesus tells him that the lampstands are the churches that he serves. And the stars in his hand are their spiritual protectors. That’s our assurance. Jesus holds his church in his right hand. He’s here. We’re in good hands, and always will be.

More Comments on Revelation 1:1-8

2008-12-24T08:15:00.000-05:00

The key words for this passage, and maybe even the entire book, are the first five: “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” This could either mean that Jesus Christ is being revealed in this book, or it could mean that he’s the one doing the revealing. If you read what follows in the next couple verses closely, you’ll see that John means that Jesus is the one who reveals. He sent it to John by means of an angel. And at the end of verse 2, it’s called the testimony of Jesus. And that makes sense. As we talk about the revealing of hidden spiritual mysteries, that’s a major part of what Jesus Christ is about. He came into our world in order to show us what is beyond our world, and to give us the opportunity to experience it with him. He is the heavenly one who also became the earthly one. The only things we can know about God is what he chooses to reveal to us. While God does so in all sorts of ways (natural theology talks about seeing God through creation, Scripturalists refer to the Bible as God’s revelation), the fullest form of God’s self-revealing is through Jesus. It is through Jesus’ testimony that we know what we do about God.

Verse Five gives us three descriptions of who Jesus is.
1. THE FAITHFUL WITNESS: The Greek word for witness is martyr. If you’re going to testify, it may very well be at the expense of your life. In fact, the most faithful testimony that Jesus gave didn’t just lead to his death; it was his death!
2. THE FIRSTBORN FROM THE DEAD: In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul describes Jesus’ resurrection as the first-fruits of what is to come. His resurrection is one that all God’s people will share in, when our time (or the time) comes.
3. RULER OF KINGS: Philippians 2 predicts the time when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Psalm 2 describes the incredible power that God has over the kings of the earth who may try to break with him.

The second half of verse 5 and verse 6 tells us what the result of Jesus’ identity and action has been for all of us. First, it all starts with love. The very first commitment we can make about who our Lord is, what characterizes him, is love. Because of that love, he took something from us, and he gave something to us. What he took was our sin, the poison that kills our souls and destroys our world. Because of his love, he gives us the identity of a kingdom and of priests. We have an identity and a ruler. We are priests: those with direct access to God. And this is all possible because of his blood: the blood of his martyr-testimony.

When will all this happen? Verse 7 could make us think that it’s all in the future. Eventually, when Jesus returns, his promise will be fulfilled. But Verse 8 reminds us that Jesus holds the beginning and the ending—and everything in between—in his power. The distinction between future and present doesn’t really matter much to God. For him, that which is future is already present.

Comments on Revelation 1:1-8

2008-12-17T11:00:00.000-05:00

Revelation is one of the strangest books in the Bible, and certainly one of the most misunderstood. So as we start this study of Revelation, it’s a good idea to think about the best way to approach it.

The best way to begin is to think about what the name of the book means. “Revelation” means “to reveal,” or to expose what has been hidden. The word “apocalyptic” means the same thing: to expose or to make known. This book is meant to reveal or disclose things that would otherwise be hidden or unrecognized. Think of an audience attending a play. They see all the action on the stage, and may start to think that what they see is everything that’s going on. But if the backdrop and curtains would be taken away, the audience would see that there’s a lot more going on than they would otherwise be able to see: lighting and prop technicians hard at work, costume and make-up artists getting the actors ready, and so much more. The same thing is true for what is happening all around us in the world: we may think that “what you see is what you get.” But there is so much more going on than what we can recognize with human senses. There are spiritual forces at work that are influencing and affecting the affairs of the universe. Modern science is wonderful, but it can only go so far. There are aspects of the cosmos that are beyond our ability to observe, measure, and analyze. We can only see and understand them if they’re revealed to us.

Think of Revelation as our back stage pass: this is our chance to learn about what’s going on “behind the scenes” that influences this world that we live in. It is a vision (or perhaps a series of visions) that the apostle John had, in which God showed him more than what we would otherwise be able to see. In the midst of the suffering and distress that fills human life, John’s vision showed him that there is a larger cosmic purpose to it all, and it gave him a promise of the ultimate victory of God and his people over the powers of evil. But the insights that John received from God weren’t meant just for him: he was instructed to share what he learned with the seven churches that he was serving as a pastor.

Because what he experienced was so different from ordinary human experience, John couldn’t simply describe what happened: our language doesn’t have the words and concepts to do it. John had a dilemma: how do you express something that words can't describe? How do you use earthly words to describe heavenly realities? He decided to use symbols, to express a reality that points to a more profound reality. Symbols, by the way, are not simply substitutes for saying something straight-out. In other words, we can’t get out a magic decoder ring that helps us recognize that when John wrote “A,” we should understand that he meant “X.” Sure, it may mean “X,” but it also means so much more: more than we could ever explain. Revelation is meant to capture your imagination and make you see things in ways that you’d never be able to otherwise. There are some books of the Bible that are meant to be read logically and straightforwardly. For example, Paul’s letter to the Romans is a well-reasoned logical discussion of Christ’s grace. But if we try to read Revelation the same way, we’ll misunderstand it, just like you’d misunderstand a book of poetry if you read it like a chemistry textbook. John engages our senses through his use of art, symbols, and images in order to stir our imagination. As they work through you, you'll experience truth he's expressing, more than if he laid it out in declarative form. John’s intention was not to baffle or confuse, but to express truth in the best way possible. To do so, he used images from the rest of the Bible. One Bible scholar has found that Revelation has 518 Scripture references in just 404 verses! It only misses 6 of the 39 books of the Old Testament (the New Testament doesn’t really count because it was still being put together when Revelation was written). In a sense, Revelation doesn’t really tell us anything new: it just tells us in a new way what we already know from the rest of Scripture.

That’s not to say that Revelation is a disorganized hodge-podge of ideas. Like any good work of art, it all flows together, but not necessarily in a logical progression. As we look at this book, we’ll see that it is organized in groups of seven (a symbolically significant number for John). But it isn’t organized chronologically: first this happens, then that, and so on. If you try to read Revelation that way, you’ll start to get hopelessly confused somewhere in Chapter 8 as the same situations start to be described in different ways.

There are four basic ways that we can try to understand Revelation. The first, which is most common these days, is the “futurist” approach. When we read Revelation this way, we focus only on what John’s vision tells us about the end times. While it certainly does tell us about what will happen in the future, that isn’t the only thing the book is about. It also describes what’s going on right now, and what has happened in the past. A futurist reading blinds us to the lessons about right now that John’s vision offers. A second way to read it is “historically:” John’s vision is about what was happening in John’s time. In a sense, this is also true. We can learn about what God was doing for these faithful Christians as they faced horrendous persecution. But this approach is also limited because it puts everything in the past; Revelation means nothing for us today. Third, we can read Revelation as an example of comparative religion, and think about how John’s book is similar to what we may find in other religions of the time. We can see how John borrowed from other religions to make his point. But if this is the only way we read it, then we may be tempted to think that all religions are the same. But they’re not. The fourth way to approach Revelation, which the way I’ll do it, is called the “historical-prophetical” approach. To put it simply, Revelation describes all of history: past, present, and future. It is closely tied to the situation that John and his seven churches experienced, but it’s not limited to it. It offers us news about the future: the promise of a New Jerusalem and the annihilation of evil, but it’s not just about the future. John’s vision is rich enough to speak to all generations of believers, including ours, because the issues that it explores are ones that we continue to experience. Or to word it another way, the spiritual forces that were at work in John’s time are still at work today, and will continue to influence human life until the end.

Revelation is a profoundly Christ-centered book. It is all about what Jesus has done, and how his victory over the forces of evil continues to be at work in our lives and in our world. That’s why, as John introduces us to his vision, he begins with a description of Jesus’ glory, the way that his self-sacrifice gave us the status of being God’s people, and of the victory that he will win in the future. The “revelation” isn’t a revelation of some broad, vague, general spiritual stuff. It is “the revelation of Jesus Christ,” as John’s opening words tell us. The whole point of the vision is to help us understand Jesus better. And as we understand Jesus more, we know more and more what it means for us to be his people.

Revelation 4:1-11 – To Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever

2008-12-08T16:08:00.000-05:00

Revelation can be a frightening and confusing book. But it also a powerful document that offers hope for the future and insight into the present. From the votes that are coming in from the congregation for my next sermon series, it looks like we’ll be exploring these themes more fully after Christmas. For now, we’ll focus on this particular passage, and the description it offers us about prayer.

Revelation is a book that the apostle John wrote after God granted him a visionary experience that took him to the very limits of human experience. In fact, we call it “Revelation” because it revealed aspects of the cosmos that are beyond our perceptions and experiences. (The word “apocalypse,” by the way, comes from a Greek word that means the same thing: revealing or unveiling.) In order to capture our imagination, John draws upon a wealth of images to evoke other passages of Scripture. In fact, this is a hallmark of Revelation. You really can’t read this book with any sort of understanding until you’ve first become familiar with the rest of the Bible. Revelation is at the back of the book for a reason.

Chapter 4 is John’s description of the throne of heaven. As a good Jew, John was rather reticent about describing God himself upon the throne of heaven. After all, no one can look upon God and live. And the Second Commandment forbids us to try to represent God with any kind of an image. So John reverently provides us only with hints about God’s appearance by describing the brilliance of precious gems. One of the blessings we will enjoy in heaven will be the privilege to gaze upon the glory of God face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). And we’ll be able to do so without being utterly undone by the power and majesty of the Lord, which no mortal human can handle. John tells us that the throne is surrounded with a rainbow. This is presumably a reminder of the covenant which God shared with Noah after the flood, that he would never again destroy humanity; the rainbow was the sign of his covenant of grace.

God’s throne is surrounded by two groups of creatures. John describes one set first, but then tells that the other is “in the center.” So it’s a good guess that the creatures described second are actually the ones closest to the throne, with the others farther out. This could make sense if we think about John’s perspective, beyond both sets. The best way to understand them is like two concentric circles surrounding the throne.

Closest to God’s throne, John saw four “living creatures.” The fact that they are covered with eyes symbolizes their insight and wisdom, and their wings reflect their mobility. In Revelation, the number four is used to describe all of creation (as in the four corners of the earth), so these creatures represent all that God has made, and John’s descriptions indicate the chief qualities of the created order. The lion represents nobility, the ox represents strength, the human represents wisdom, and the eagle represents swiftness. By the way, these are also the creatures that Ezekiel saw in his vision, and the four gospels of the New Testament are frequently symbolized by them.

Next are the twenty-four elders. Their white robes indicate their purity, and their golden crowns highlight their honor. According to one theory, these elders represent the twenty-four divisions of priests who served in Solomon’s temple. According to this theory, John saw the reality for which the Solomonic temple was just a reflection. Another way to understand them is to think of the twelve patriarchs of the tribes of Israel, and the twelve apostles which Jesus appointed. According to this theory, the elders are the leaders of the full number of God’s people: the Old Testament nation of Israel and the New Testament church. To be honest, I like this second theory better. But the nice thing about symbols is that they can mean more than one thing, and often do. So we don’t have to pick between the two.

Now that we’ve met the “cast,” it’s time to look at what they’re doing. You’d expect creatures that represent all of creation, and elders who are the leaders of God’s people to be doing something impressive. They’re sort of like God’s Cabinet, or his inner circle of advisors. When the President meets with his Cabinet, or goes to the Situation Room to meet with military, intelligence, and diplomatic leaders, they gather to deal with very important matters. So here, in God’s throne room, we’d expect the same thing. God is meeting with his chief deputies, to assign duties to them or to listen to their counsel, right? Wrong! The main thing that they do – in fact, the only thing that they do – is to praise God. That may be surprising. These are very important and prestigious creatures and people. So that’s all they do: praise God? Shouldn’t they be doing something more important?

In fact, what they are doing is the most important thing of all. We frequently lose sight of this truth. Worship seems like a waste of time. Even among people of faith, we describe a church by its programs and the stuff that it does. Mission statements talk about things like education and evangelism and mission and justice and fellowship. All very good things, but not the most important thing. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That’s what we were made for: to worship. Sure, we can do other things, just like you can use a screwdriver as a pry bar or a shoe as a hammer. If the four living creatures and the twenty four elders who surround God’s throne have nothing better to do than to praise and glorify him, why should we think that we are somehow more important, that the world needs our actions to keep going?

Although it’s beyond the scope of this particular passage, by the end of Chapter 5 John looked beyond the immediate vicinity of the throne and saw ever-expanding circles of creatures engaged in praise to God, starting with the thousands and tens of thousands of angels and extending all the way to every creature in heaven and earth and sea and underground. That, by the way, is what we do when we are worshiping. Whether together as a church on a Sunday morning, or individually in our personal praise to God, we are taking our place in the giant circle around God’s throne, singing his praise.

As we’ve been looking at the various things that Scripture teaches us about prayer, it’s fitting to end with this passage. Of all the different kinds of prayers that we can lift up, it’s prayers of praise and glory to God that are the most significant. They are the ones that fill heaven, and they are the ones that will fill our lips for eternity. Does your prayer life reflect the value of praise?

Some people have said that heaven must be pretty boring, if all we do is stand around and sing our praises to God. It would be boring, perhaps, if God was boring. Because of who God is, his surprising, amazing, literally limitless glory and majesty, there will always be something new to inspire, amaze, and thrill us. Think of it this way: do fans at a football game get bored? Perhaps, if they don’t really care who wins, or if one teams starts to run away with the score. But if it’s a close game with lots of great plays, and if you’re a die-hard fan, you’ll scream yourself silly for three hours straight. And when the game’s over, it’s all your going to want to talk about. If we can get that excited about 22 guys fighting over a piece of pigskin, surely the glorious majesty of God will keep us excited! And we don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to grasp this. God’s glory is all around us. Sure, it’s not as obvious as it will be when we’re in heaven. And sometimes we lose sight of it. But that’s our role for now: to watch for God’s glory as we see it around us now, in order to take our place in the circle of praise.

Just a few final thoughts about the praises that the living creatures and the elders lift up. The song of the living creatures declares God’s glory throughout time: past, present, and future. Compare that with the song of praise of the seraphim that Isaiah heard during his call: very similar, except that the seraphim declared his glory throughout all the earth. God’s praise covers all times and all places.

The elders’ song is a bit different, declaring that God deserves our praise because he has made us. Remember those crowns that they were wearing, to symbolize their honor. They take off their crowns and lay them before God. Whatever honor we receive, we like the elders can offer to God. By the way, this passage is the inspiration for that line in the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy:” casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea (see verse 6).

And we haven’t even gotten to the rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning, which were echoed on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19, before Moses received the Ten Commandments. In Revelation 8:3-5, it is the prayers of the faithful which bring this tremendous power of God to earth itself. But that passage deserves its own sermon about prayer.

Matthew 1:1-17 – Nuts in the Family Tree

2008-12-08T16:06:00.000-05:00

Christmas messages are usually based on the second chapter of Luke: the well-known narrative of how Joseph and a pregnant Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem because of the Roman census, they couldn’t find a room at the inn, the baby was laid in a manger, and angels announced the news to terrified shepherds out in the fields. When the preacher wants to break out of the mold, she might turn to Matthew for a different version of the story that describes the dreams that guided Joseph and the star that guided the magi. Or, she may really go out on a limb and preach on the great hymn on John 1, which describes Jesus’ birth in cosmic terms as the creative word which came into the world and the light that shone in the darkness.

But how often do we look at the opening to the book of Matthew? It’s a tough read because it’s filled with hard to pronounce names. And it’s pretty boring, to boot. But if we want to understand the significance of Jesus’ birth, it’s an excellent passage to explore.

The first seventeen verses of Matthew outline Jesus’ genealogy, through his earthly father Joseph, all the way back to Abraham, the patriarch of Israel. It’s forty-two generations of fathers and their children. Some of the names are pretty familiar: we find Abraham and Isaac, David and Solomon in the mix. Those of us who have a better grasp of Scripture will recognize names like Ruth and Boaz, Hezekiah and Josiah. But even the greatest student of the Bible will run across names that are totally unfamiliar, and are found elsewhere, if at all, only as minor players in the Biblical story.

Christmas is a time for family. We may not always like everyone in our families, although we’d only admit that to our closest confidants. There are plenty of holiday movies that are based on the crazy things that happen when people who spend all year avoiding each other or engaging in surface pleasantries now have to gather together and pretend that we like each other. Perhaps the family circle includes the black sheep: that person whom the rest of the family is ashamed of because of what they’ve done, or what they’re not doing. They’re welcome at the family gathering, but they’re tolerated at best. It could be that some family members have had a big fight which has turned into a bitter resentment. For the sake of the holidays and the rest of the family, they put up a good appearance and pretend to be able to endure each other until they can go on avoiding each other for another eleven months. Maybe the family includes the braggart that sees the family gathering as an opportunity to tell everyone else about the wonderful things she’s done. Or, it could be that the relative is there who offends everyone else every time he opens his mouth. Parents revert to treating their grown-up children like little kids, while young children fuss because of their fancy but uncomfortable holiday outfits, too much candy, and not enough sleep.

Things are different for Jesus, right? After all, he is perfect. Therefore, he ought to have the perfect family. That’s what we may be tempted to think, but it’s not true. These opening lines of the entire New Testament remind us of that. We all have a few nuts in our family trees, and Jesus was no exception. The Roman Catholics believe in the Immaculate Conception: that Jesus was born to a perfect mother (that’s right; the immaculate conception refers to how Mary was born, not Jesus). While we Protestants certainly honor Mary as an exceptional example of faith and devotion because of her willingness to accept an important but difficult role in God’s plan for salvation, we recognize that she was a fallible human being just like the rest of us. Jesus’ birth bridged the gap between perfect holy divinity and broken, sinful humanity. Jesus’ genealogy demonstrates that he was born into the heart of human messiness.

As Matthew outlines Jesus’ genealogy, he goes off script a few times. When he does, it’s to make a point. The Holy One of Israel was born into a family with a lot of baggage. Genealogies are generally supposed to be pretty straightforward. In a male-dominated society like ancient Israel, you’d outline someone’s heritage by following the male bloodline: father begets son, son begets grandson, and so on. But Matthew breaks the traditional way to describe a genealogy four times. Each time he does, he lets out a family secret.

First, Matthew tells us that Jesus’ ancestors include Judah and Tamar, the parents of Perez and Zerah. We find the messy story of this household in Genesis 38. It seems that Judah and his wife had two children, and Tamar was the wife of his oldest son Er, until Er died. According to the custom of the time, called levirate marriage, when a man dies before having a child, his brother is to marry his widow, and her children would be considered to be the offspring of the dead man. This may seem creepy and weird to us, but for a society that placed high value on bloodlines and inheritance rights, it makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately for poor Tamar, Er’s brother also died. At this point, Judah considered his daughter-in-law to be something of a curse, so he sent her away. In a society where a woman with no husband and no son had no legal rights, this was pretty harsh. But the story gets even more interesting. It seems that Judah had the habit of visiting the prostitutes in the next town. So Tamar dressed up like a prostitute, including a veil that hid her face, and Judah slept with her without knowing it was her. Several months later, when he learned that Tamar was pregnant, Judah ordered that she be killed for her offense. But when Tamar produced evidence that Judah was the father of her unborn child, he had plenty of crow to eat, and he acknowledged that he had mistreated her. Eventually Tamar gave birth to twins: Perez and Zerah. Perez is one of Jesus’ ancestors.

Second, Matthew tells us that Boaz’s mother was Rahab. We can find her story in Joshua 2 and 6. Rahab was actually a hero: she hid the Israelite spies when they came into Jericho as part of the preparations for conquering the city. And when the city officials got wind of the spies and went looking for them, she helped them escape. As a reward, her life was spared when Jericho was taken over. If that was everything there was to Rahab’s story, you’d think she’d be someone to be proud to have your family. But there’s just one minor detail about Rahab that may make you think twice: she was a prostitute. And that’s a big enough “detail” to make us want to put her behind Cousin Ernie, who shops at the Big and Tall Store, for the family photo.

Next we move on to Obed’s parents: Boaz and Ruth. Now, Ruth is a pretty well-known character in the Bible. In fact, she has a book named after her (one of only two women to receive this honor). She was a Moabite woman: she came from one of those heathen nations that surrounded Israel and caused it all kinds of grief. In fact, back when the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness, the Moabites attacked them, tried to get someone to curse them, and tried to wipe them out. Let’s just say with a history like that, the two nations got along about as well as Iran and Israel do today. She had married a Jewish refugee who came to her land; when he died, she joined her widowed mother-in-law when she went back home. The Jewish law was pretty clear: their men weren’t supposed to marry outsiders like the Moabites. So when Boaz and Ruth got married, their son Obed was, well, a half-breed. It hasn’t been that long since mixed race marriages were illegal in some states here in the US. So we can imagine the outrage and shame that Boaz and Ruth caused the family. And it was probably pretty hard on Obed growing up.

Probably the best known person in Jesus’ family tree is David: the greatest king that Israel ever had. So, when Matthew reaches him, you’d expect that he’d either stay on script, or talk about what a wonderful king David was: a man after God’s own heart, who unified the nation of Israel and did so much to increase the devotion of the Lord in the land. But that’s not what we find. Instead, Matthew reminds us of David’s greatest crime: he seduced a woman named Bathsheba and had her husband killed so that could marry her.

So here we have the family tree of Jesus: a hypocritical womanizer who mistreats his daughter-in-law, a prostitute, an enemy of the Jewish nation, and an adulterer and murderer. No matter who’s in your family, I’d say that Jesus has you beat. This certainly isn’t a pedigree to be proud of.

And that’s the whole point. The Son of God came into the world in order to touch us at our deepest, most broken places. We all have things we’re ashamed of. And I’m not just talking about embarrassing or frustrating relatives. I’m talking about the damaged places in our own lives. We’ve been the outcasts like Ruth, the mean-spirited people like Judah. We’ve done things that we’re ashamed of, like Rahab. We’ve abused our positions and hurt other people in the process, like David. When we recognize this in ourselves, we either do our best to hide and ignore it, or we collapse in a puddle of guilt and shame that paralyzes us from doing anything else. We’re unworthy of anything.

And then we learn about Jesus: the perfect Son of God. Not only was he born under, shall we say, suspicious circumstances…. Not only did his mother have to give birth to him in a cattle barn…. But he came from one of “those” families. The kind that you know no one good ever comes from. So, if you ever think that you’re not “good enough,” that God would never accept someone like you, remember how Jesus came into the world. Not as one of those goody-two-shoes that never makes a mistake and handles everything wither perfect grace. No. When God decided to enter our human world, he met us at the most disgraceful, broken places where humanity goes. And he did it to remind us that there is nothing we can ever do, no checkered past we could ever have, that disqualifies us from his love.

James 4:1-12 – When You Don’t Get What You Want

2008-11-22T14:33:00.000-05:00

The world is a rather contentious place. Whether we’re considering international politics or the preschool playground, you’re going to find people bickering with each other. As our passage today points out, these quarrels generally arise from the same situation: people want something that they don’t have, or they want to keep something that other people want to get from them. It doesn’t matter if it’s two preschoolers arguing over a favorite toy or countries negotiating with each other over a trade deal or a peace treaty. We see it everywhere. People dispute with each other because they want something they don’t have, or they want more what they already have, or they want to make sure others don’t get what they have. The only thing that changes is what the “it” is that people are fighting over, or the way that they handle their disagreements. People steal to get what they want from other people. Labor unions and corporate officials negotiate over salary packages. Retailers undercut each other’s prices. Sports teams do everything they can to get the edge over the competition in order to win; sometimes they do what the New England Patriots did and break the rules to do so. Spend some time thinking about it, and you’ll see the point. All kinds of conflicts and struggles are based on the fact that people want “stuff,” and do what they can to get it from other people.

This desire to get stuff dates back to Adam and Eve.
We have desires within us that keep driving us.
Relates to last of 10 commandments: one that addresses attitude & not action: coveting

As long as we strive to satisfy that itch w/in us to satisfy desires, we’ll never be content.
Desires are like poison ivy rash: the more you scratch them, the stronger your desire is to scratch them.
December 26 syndrome: there’s no such thing as having all your desires met.
We may experience those moments when we’re so happy with something new that we got that we get a momentary rush of happiness. But it doesn’t take long until the moment is gone, and our desires have rushed on to the next desire that fills us.
So we start to pursue the next desire, like a junkie who wants the next rush. So we go off to the after-Christmas sales even before our Christmas presents have lost their shine: there’s still more that we want.
We’re like the wealthy tycoon who had amassed a vast fortune, but was still working tirelessly to earn even more. Someone asked him how more money he’d need before he could rest content, and he replied, “The answer is the same answer that I’ve given my entire life: just one more dollar, and it will be enough.”

Sometimes, some of us realize how insane this progression is. We see that we’re chasing a mirage that we’ll never catch. The end of the rainbow looks like it’s just over the next hill, but we know that when we get there, it’s moved on, still just beyond our reach. So, if we’re wise, we stop the race to satisfy our desires. We resign ourselves to the fact that there will always be some things that we wish we had that we never will. We congratulate ourselves on our self-restraint and insight. It doesn’t make us any happier, but at least we aren’t wearing ourselves out. We’ve just learned to accept the pangs of unfulfilled desires, just like you can get used to an annoying rattle in your car.

Or, if we’re somewhat religious, then we realize that we can get God in this act of ours. God can do anything, and God says that he loves us. So, we tell ourselves, what could be more loving than giving us what we desire? After all, we’re convinced that the thing which will make us most happy is to receive whatever it is that our desires are pushing us toward. If God gives it to us, then we’ll be happy. And, we tell ourselves, this is perfectly Biblical. After all, doesn’t Psalm 20 contain that wonderful blessing: “May he give you the desire of your heart, and make all your plans succeed…. May the LORD grant all your requests”? And didn’t Jesus tell us, “my Father will give you whatever you ask”? And here in this passage, James tells us that “you do not have, because you do ask God.” So, the answer seems to be, we need to bring our requests to God, and he’ll fill them for us. This line of reasoning has a powerful appeal for many people. Vast religious empires have been built, and continue to be built, which are based on the notion that if we learn exactly the right way to ask, God will give us what we want. He’s better than Santa Claus, because he can do it 365 days a year, not just one. The preachers say, “God wants to bless you! Let me tell you how you can get it.”

But when they quote today’s passage, they conveniently stop before verse 3. Yes, James wrote that we do not have, because we do not ask God. But he went on to say, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” When Jesus said that the Father will give us what we want, he told us that we had to ask “in his name.” This doesn’t mean that the name “Jesus” is a magic password to get us into the heavenly goody-jar. It means that we must be conformed to the personhood of Jesus in order to receive. Our lives must be remade in Christ’s image. And yes, Psalm 20 seeks the blessing of receiving the desires of our hearts. But Psalm 37 gives us a bit more of an explanation: “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” In other words, when your desires are focused upon the delight of the Lord, not upon the satisfaction of your cravings, you will find the satisfaction you’ve been looking for.

James tells us that we have a choice to make. Our first choice is to continue to live in what he calls “friendship with the world.” We can continue to live life and accept the values of the kind of lives we’ve inherited from Adam and Eve, who traded their fellowship with God for a taste of the one fruit they were told they couldn’t have. In other words, we can continue to seek for satisfaction and meaning by pursuing the desires we have within us. But, even if we convince ourselves that we are chasing these desires in a religious way by asking God to give them to us, we are an enemy of God. We display hatred to God. That may sound harsh, but sometimes the truth hurts. We’re dedicating our lives to a pursuit that separates us from God and rejects his place in our lives.

James calls us to accept a different choice. It is the choice of humility and submission. It is a humble recognition that we can never satisfy ourselves. It is a submission to the power of God. We do not have the power or ability to quiet those cravings and desires within us. They’re simply too strong, and we are too weak. But God offers us an opportunity to become new, different people. It can happen not by the force of our human will, but by the power of Jesus Christ, who alone can undo the disease of desire that affects us all.

Colossians 1:3-14 – How to Pray for Someone Else

2008-11-11T20:23:00.001-05:00

We have this interesting ritual at our presbytery meetings when a minister seeks to join our presbytery to serve as a pastor for one of our churches, or when someone who has been preparing for the ministry is ready to be ordained. First, we grill them with all sorts of theological questions. Then, we send them out of the room to talk about them and to decide whether or not to approve their request to join the presbytery or become a minister. It’s been a long time since I was on the receiving end of that ritual, but I still remember how unsettling it was. There’s a whole roomful of people talking about you, and you have no idea what they’re saying.

You don’t have to be a candidate for ministry to have that kind of an experience. People talk about other people all the time. And I’m not sure if we’d always want to know what they’re saying about us!

This passage is a bit different. Here, Paul tells the Colossians exactly what he thinks of them. Specifically, he tells them what kinds of prayers he makes for them. And that’s a powerful thing to do. We believe in the importance of intercessory prayer: praying to God on behalf of another person. But do we tell the person we’re praying for what kinds of prayers we’re lifting up for them? For that matter, do we even tell someone that we’re praying for them? Just knowing that someone is praying for you is a powerful gift and affirmation. When I visit our shut-ins, or those in nursing homes, I remind them that we pray for them by name every week at Old Union Church, and their gratitude is incredible. From time to time we’ve heard from members of the military that we’re praying for, and they affirm that the knowledge that we’re praying for them has helped them to get through some dark times.

Paul did more than just tell his friends in Colossae that he was praying for them; he told them what kinds of prayers he lifted up on their behalf. The first thing to notice about his prayers is something that we could easily overlook, but it’s significant. He begins by thanking God for them. Usually, when we tell someone we’re praying for them, we imply that we’re seeking God’s blessing for them: whether it’s healing for someone who is sick, comfort for someone who is grieving, or safety for someone in harm’s way. But do we begin our prayers for another person by thanking God for who they are, and the kind of lives they are leading? I think we’d do well to follow Paul’s example here, and start off our prayers for another person by thanking God for them.

Paul’s prayers of thanksgiving for the Colossians reveal that they are true examples of the Christian life. Paul thanks God that they have the three great attributes of the Christian life. They have faith, they have love, and they have hope. Faith, love and hope. We meet this trio of great virtues elsewhere in the New Testament. The best-known passage is I Corinthians 13, where Paul tells the Corinthians that these three abide: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Paul also talked about these three virtues when he wrote to the Thessalonians, and we hear about it again here in this passage. Paul is thankful for the faith that the Colossians have in Christ Jesus. He's thankful for the love that they have for all the saints, that is, for all the people who have been made holy through Jesus Christ. For all the people of God. Both their faith in Christ and their love for his people are grounded in hope. It's a hope that is stored up in heaven; it's a hope of what is still to come. But it's a hope that they have already heard about and taken hold of when they heard about the gospel. It's a chain that flows logically. The Colossians heard the gospel through a preacher named Epaphrus. The gospel gave the Colossians hope: hope for what was waiting for them in heaven. And because of that hope, they were able to have faith in Christ Jesus and love for the saints. That truly is something to be thankful for.

Faith, love and hope. Notice that all three of these come hearing and receiving the gospel. Because that really is the only way that we can come to have true faith, love and hope. If you put your faith in anything or anyone other than Christ, they'll let you down, and faith will betray you. If your love is based on anything other than God, it will become corrupted. If you are hoping in anything other than redemption through Christ Jesus, you will be disappointed. It is only through the good news of Jesus Christ that we can truly take hold of faith, love, and hope. The Colossians have, and Paul expresses his thanks to God for it.

As I said, faith, hope, and love are marks of a Christian life that come from receiving and accepting the good news of Jesus Christ. I invite you to think for a moment: whom do you know that you could thank God for, because they have these qualities? Once you’ve thought about that, you can move on to another, more difficult question. If someone was looking at your life, would they be able to see faith, hope, and love that they could thank God for?

It would be tempting for us to end here. The Colossians are all set: rooted in the gospel, and brimming with the three great Christian virtues. All was going well, so why worry about anything? As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s true, but only up to a point. You don't want to tamper with something that's going well, because then it might not. But just because your car is running well doesn't mean that you don't bother to change the oil. But cars need to have their oil changed, even when they're running well. And Christians need to grow, even when they’re already doing well. We can never be complacent where we are spiritually, for two reasons. First, when we’re sitting still, we inevitably will start to slip backwards. The progress you’ve made in the past is a foundation to build upon, not a bed to rest upon. Second, there’s always another step that we can take. Did the Colossians have faith, love, and hope? Good! Excellent! But the farther we go into the faith, that is, the closer that we come to God, the more urgent that it becomes that we continue to grow. The closer you are to God, the more aware you become of the distance that still separates you from Him. As long as we live on this side of glory, we are on a journey that we will never complete. We are reaching for a goal that is always beyond us. No matter how far we progress, there will always be farther to go. And the farther you go, the more you realize the importance of continuing on the journey.

So the second part of Paul’s prayer for the Colossians was that they would grow in knowledge. This was a particularly important thing for them to gain if they were to continue to grow into the kind of people that God had in mind for them. The city of Colossae was obsessed with learning about the secret workings of the universe. It was a fertile ground for the first century versions of occult, sorcery, voodoo and the like. It was easy for Christians there to get sucked into the superstitions that they saw all around them. They might even have been tempted to consider their faith in Jesus to be nothing more than a variation on the Colossian quest for the secrets of the universe. Jesus may have been nothing more than a lucky rabbit's foot for them. In addition, the church in Colossae struggled with various false teachings. So Paul prayed that the Colossians would be filled with knowledge. Not just facts, but an understanding about the character and will of God.

None of us live in Colossae, but we could also benefit from the kind of knowledge that Paul wished for them. We live in a society that is cut off from the spiritual dimension of life. If we can’t see it, measure it, or buy it, it may as well not even exist. I’m not just talking about the secularization of our society, although that’s certainly a topic worthy of consideration. But even within the Christian family, our knowledge and understanding of God and his character is sadly lacking. We accept trite slogans and the latest spiritual fads as though they will bring us closer to God, when in fact they’re nothing more than a religious version of the marketing campaigns all around us that try to get us to buy everything from pharmaceuticals to food to phone plans. A couple generations ago, you wouldn’t have been able to join Old Union Church, or any other Presbyterian Church, without memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Now, we’re lucky if people can find the book of Hezekiah in the Bible. But what I’m talking about, and what Paul prayed that the Colossians would receive, isn’t facts that you learn or lessons that you memorize. What really matters is an understanding of God’s character, his will, and what it means to be his child.

Third, Paul prayed that the Colossians would live worthy lives. Another way to word it would be to say that he prayed for them to grow in godliness. He wanted their actions, words, and character to be pleasing to God. Now of course, we're saved by faith and not by works. But our faith in God bears fruit in the way we live. Our faith can bear fruit in the good works that we do. A godly lifestyle is a natural result of our relationship with Jesus Christ. How we live is tightly linked with our growth in the Lord. We can consider this for ourselves: does the way that I act and speak let people know that I am a child of God?

Fourth, Paul prayed that the Colossians would grow in strength, that they would know the power of Christ themselves. When we think about the power of God, we like to think about things like healing the sick, or speaking in tongues, or telling a mountain to cast itself into the sea. These might be the flashy manifestations of the power of God, but they're not really the ones that matter. Paul did not pray for the Colossians to be strengthened with all power according to God's glorious might, so that they might make the blind see and the lame walk and have spiritual fireworks go off all around them. That might be spectacular, but Paul's more concerned about the practical. Paul wanted the Colossians to be strengthened so that they might have endurance and patience. There's nothing glamorous about those things. But these are essential to the Christian life. When we look to God for strength, we need strength especially for endurance and patience. Too often, eager Christians will flame out when their zeal dies down and the going gets rough. We need endurance and patience for the long haul, for those dark valleys that we go through from time to time. For times when life is so difficult that faith nearly gives way. It is at times like these that we need the power of God to carry us through. The Colossians needed it, and so do we.

Fifth and finally, Paul prayed that the Colossians would be able to give thanks to God. Does that sound familiar? It should, because that’s how Paul’s prayer for the Colossians began. There are lots of things that we can thank God for, and in about ten days we’ll mark a day that is set aside specifically for thanksgiving. There are lots of things that each of us can be thankful for. But here, Paul calls attention to the most important thing of all. As Paul put it, God has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. I like the way that phrase sounds: God has qualified us. It reminds me of athletes struggling to qualify for the Olympics, or for whatever competition they’re trying to get into. It reminds me of a family trying to get a mortgage for their dream house, hoping that the bank tells them that the “qualify” for it. It makes me think of a student applying to college, hoping that she “qualifies” and gets the thick acceptance packet instead of the thin rejection letter. We can be thankful that we qualify for an incredible inheritance, mostly because it’s not the inheritance that we deserve. We have lived under the power of darkness and death, but God has brought us into the glorious kingdom of light. We have been destined for destruction because of our sins, but now we have received redemption.

Romans 8:18-27 – Moans and Groans

2008-10-23T19:16:00.001-04:00

The world is in a mess. I think everyone would agree with that. But this is nothing new; it’s always been in a mess. Some of us may look back to the past and think about the “good old days,” but there were plenty of problems back then, too. Others of us look to the future with hopes of how we’ll find a way to get out of our problems. But every time we’ve tried to follow these optimistic dreams in the past, things didn’t turn out as we’d hoped. We may solve some problems, but we seem to come upon (or cause) new ones in the process. No matter where or when you look at, things stink. The only thing that changes is the odor.

(And don’t even get me started on the politicians who are courting our votes by promising that the world will turn into a paradise if only we elect them. We’ve been around the block enough times to know how that usually turns out.)

Do I sound cynical and pessimistic? Perhaps. Of course, a pessimist would say that they’re just being realistic. And I think that’s the case here. Ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the garden, we’ve lived in a world under a curse: the curse of sin. It’s a curse that the human race has suffered under ever since. And with us, the rest of creation as well.

However, it wouldn’t quite be accurate to call this a pessimistic view of the world. Because there’s a message of hope among it all. The time is going to come when the curse will be lifted and, as Paul put it, “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom.” That liberation has already begun through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as the new life of God has broken into the world. The promise has not totally been fulfilled yet, of course. If it was, then earth would be paradise and believers would be perfect. We have a hint of what is to come. And that’s the basis for Christian hope.

I need to interrupt here with a comment about Christian hope. Hope, for us, is more than wishful thinking. So often we speak about hope in terms such as “I hope the Steelers will win tomorrow,” or “I hope I get a pony for Christmas.” When we feel really confident, we may replace the word “hope” with the word “expect.” Then we say things like “I expect to graduate this spring,” or “I expect to see my brother this weekend.” When we say things like this, it indicates that we are doing more than wishing; we believe that our wishes will come true. We give ourselves better odds of it happening when we talk about “expecting” instead of “hoping.” But Christian hope is something completely different. It is a certainty that the future is real. It is so real that we can talk about it as though it has already happened. And it is the power of that already-happened future which reaches back into the present that gives us, well, hope. It’s a hope that drives us to move toward that future. It’s a hope that claims a reality which hasn’t yet happened, but which as certain as things from history that no one disputes: like the American Revolution and World War II.

So this message really isn’t pessimistic after all: it’s a optimistic as you can get. A wonderful, glorious future is on the way. We know that it is. We know it so strongly that we can already start to celebrate it.

So we do some celebrating, but we have some other things to deal with as well. As sure as the future is, the present still has a ton of problems and causes acres of grief. We know the dawn is coming, but the night is still so dark. So what do we do in the meantime?

This passage talks about moans and groans. Verse 22 tells us that all of creation is groaning under the burden of sin, evil, death, suffering, and brokenness that it must endure. Like Psalm 13, we cry out, “How long, O Lord?” No matter how optimistic we may be about the future, we have to be honest about the present situation. We’re still waiting for our vindication and victory. It’s not just us humans; it’s the entire creation that God placed under our care (Genesis 1:29-30).

There’s another kind of groaning, too. Verses 26-27 are a powerful testimony to the fact that the future is not merely a distant promise that we’re living toward. Even in the midst of our “in-the-meantime,” God walks with us. These verses are perhaps the most powerful explanation of the prayer relationship in the entire Bible. As we struggle with our weaknesses, our sin, our suffering – the evil we endure and the evil we cause – we are so overwhelmed that we can’t even speak. Words fail us. Language evaporates. We don’t even know what to say to God, or how to express our dilemma. That’s about as bad as it gets: not even being able to put your suffering into words! So, you’d think we have a real problem. The gift of prayer means that God will listen to anything we say to him. But what do we do when things are so bad that we can’t even say anything?

God’s love for us is so strong, and his future victory is so certain, that he steps in to join us in our deepest crises. The poem “Footprints in the Sand” tells us that God carries us when we can’t walk. But these verses tell us that God speaks for us when we can’t speak. God offers our prayers for us when we aren’t able to.

And notice what kind of prayers these are that the Spirit lifts up: “groans that words cannot express.” Just as Jesus joined with humanity in the worst of our suffering and sin, the Spirit carries the agony of life in a broken and hurting world that we must face as well. The groans of creation in verse 22 become the groans of the Holy Spirit, who prays for us when we can’t pray anymore.

It’s a wonderful future that we’re “hoping” for. It’s so wonderful that the Spirit walks and prays with and for us until it comes.