Yesterday – in our ongoing “read the New Testament in the order it was written” class – my Sunday morning study group (Everyday Christianity) talked about the unusual but very interesting “Book of Revelation.” In the evening my “Parents of Grads” friends did the same.
Revelation, as most people know, is an “apocalypse,” a literary genre containing visions and revelations designed to shed light on what’s going on in the earthly and/or heavenly worlds, then, now, and/or in the future. An apocalypse often uses symbolism to represent visions/dreams/revelations that our language doesn’t have any words for, and that have no recognizable reference point in our common experience.
IT WAS A REVELATION! As always, I found the experience of reading the entire book in one sitting (it took me close to two hours) to be illuminating. Revelation experienced as a sweeping vision is entirely different from the typical approach of over-analyzing details, or concentrating on just a few verses, or trying to make every word fit our current experience of the world, or looking for hidden codes, or insisting that certain images are direct references to specific 21st Century political systems or weapons systems….
ASSURANCE: My thoughts – both morning and evening – ended up coming back to the words attributed to Jesus at the very beginning, and then the image of the Tree of Life at the end. Both are helpful scriptures for a Monday morning, as we face the beginning of another new week.
“Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive for ever and ever.” (Rev 1:17)
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Rev 22:1-5)
NO FEAR: One of the great benefits of being a follower of the Way of Jesus is the assurance that comes with accepting God’s redemptive love. Life can be as complex and confusing and overwhelming as the contents of the Book of Revelation, but the word from Jesus is – always, “Fear not.” “Do not be afraid.”
And – jumping to the second text – that gift of assurance is one way we can live our faith out loud, as “leaves of the tree of life… for the healing of the nations.”
I love the image of entering a new week and embracing the opportunity to be leaves from the tree of life, available for the healing of the nations… our families… our community… our workplace….
Grace, and peace, and blessing, and the liberating promise of the Gospel of Love – DEREK
When Jesus tells John not to be afraid (in Rev. 1:17), it is because John has just seen a frightful vision of Jesus and has fallen at his feet as though dead: in 1:14 Jesus’ eyes were like a flame of fire; in 1:16 a sharp two-edged sword came from his mouth and his face was like the sun shining in its full power. While Jesus comforts John, in Rev. 2-3 Jesus’ “sword” (from his mouth) speaks mostly words of challenge to (5 of the) 7 churches: “repent.” Because most churches have abandoned the love they had at first (2:5)–their initial love for Jesus, who is the first and the last–and have begun to love false prophets and false messiahs, they are in danger of not eating from the tree of life. Only those who “conquer” (the evil in the churches and nations) will be given the privilege of eating from the tree of life (2:7).
And, consequently, Christ’s consistent message to those who embrace the Gospel of Love is, “Don’t be afraid….”
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