May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and redeemer. Amen.
The lectionary has been spending a good bit of time on the book of Revelation lately. Anybody else notice that? Yeah, lots of Revelation. What a weird book of the Bible!
I think for most people the Book of Revelation is the most mysterious and bizarre of all the books. I think it’s also the most misunderstood. Lots of people don’t know what to do with Revelation. There is so much strange imagery in the book. And it claims to be a prophecy of things to come.
There are probably two groups of people when it comes to the Book of Revelation: One group mostly wants to ignore it and not think about it too much. I’m probably in that camp. And then there is a group that wants to think about it all the time. There are a lot of people on TikTok and Instagram, for instance, who spend a lot of time trying to tie current events to the prophesies of the Book of Revelation.
Any time a river runs dry, for example, everyone on TikTok says that this is prophecy from the Book of Revelation fulfilled. Any time war breaks out, Revelation prophecy fulfilled. Any time world leaders gather to discuss economic issues, Revelation prophecy fulfilled. This phenomenon obviously predates TikTok by a long time. When the nation of Israel was created after the British withdrawal in 1948, lots of folks thought that this was the beginning of the end of the world. And lots of folks in the 1980s thought that either Ronald Reagan or Mikhail Gorbachev was definitely the anti-Christ. Today, TikTokers are thinking that the anti-Christ might be ChatGPT. And I will admit, as someone trying to teach college students how to write, that that last one does make some sense.
But the problem with all of this is that it assumes that the Book of Revelation is describing future events. The book does indeed claim to be a prophecy. It does indeed claim to be divulging the secrets of the end times. But the Revelation to John is also very clearly part of a long tradition of what scholars call apocalyptic literature. And, it turns out, apocalyptic literature doesn’t actually predict the future. This kind of literature isn’t actually trying to predict anything. Apocalyptic literature is actually about getting through the present. Apocalyptic literature is about dealing with really hard stuff in the present and overcoming it. It’s about hope.
Has anyone here been watching the HBO series called The Last of Us? It’s super scary and super good. It’s got Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in it. If you haven’t seen it, basically what has happened is that a fungus has mutated and is spreading around the world taking over humans and turning them into really aggressive, really fast zombies. It is full of jump scares that involve fungus zombies lurking in dark corridors. So scary. So good. I love it. Anyway, there’s a ton of gruesome death, as you might expect, and family loss, and tons of pain. It is bleak. You’re basically watching the collapse of society and the destruction of dozens of different families. But what makes the show really successful and popular—aside from the zombies, obviously—is the central character Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, who is immune to the zombie fungus. The idea here is that perhaps they can use her genetics to find a cure or vaccine or something for the zombie fungus. She represents a tiny bit of hope for humanity. Because of her, there is hope that maybe humanity won’t completely succumb to the zombie plague. I’m on season three, and they don’t seem to be getting any closer to that cure. But the small hope of a cure is enough to keep this show from being too bleak. From being too sad and scary. From being nothing but despair.
And that’s kinda like what John wants to do in the Book of Revelation. John was living through a bit of a crisis too. There were no fungus zombies running around killing people, obviously, but there was a fair bit of persecution of Christians in Asia Minor by Roman governors and local magistrates who were trying to impress the Emperor Domitian. The book of Revelation is actually addressed to the Christian churches in Asia Minor. It acknowledges their suffering and their pain, and it offers them hope.
The thing that’s hopeful, that’s compelling and beautiful about John’s vision is that it depicts an alternative vision of reality. John says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”
This vision of John’s, this alternative reality is a very different one from what the Christians of Asia Minor had been living through. They had been living through Roman persecution, but what John sees is a world without Rome. They had been living through pain, tears, and mourning, but what John sees is a world where God wipes away every tear. They had been living through isolation and fear, but what John sees is a world where God comes down to live among his people. It’s not a prediction of things to come, of things in the future. John’s vision is of hope for the present for people who have been through some stuff.
Some of us, like John and the Christians of Asia Minor, are in crisis. Some of us are in a crisis of grief. Or a crisis of job loss or financial instability. Or a crisis of anxiety or depression. And if you’re in crisis, John wants you to understand some things. He wants you to understand that there is hope, that the pain that you feel is not forever, that God is with his people. John’s principal image from today’s reading is the conjoining, the meshing of heaven and earth. “And I saw the holy city,” he says, “the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” John’s vision of his alternate reality is a heaven and earth not separate from each other, but fused together, merged, integrated, united. “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.” If you’re in crisis, in pain, God comes to you, God is with you. There is hope.
Or maybe you’re not in crisis. Maybe you’re not in pain. Maybe things are great for you. Well, John’s vision is for you too. The lectionary places these readings from Revelation here in the weeks right after Easter because they help us understand the mystery of Jesus’s death and resurrection. We understand Jesus’ resurrection to have caused the first heaven and the first earth to pass away. We understand Jesus’ resurrection to have brought forth the new heaven and new earth that John sees in his vision and to have fused them together. And if we want to experience that new heaven and new earth, if we want to live at that place where they are fused together, then we have to take seriously the central teaching of Jesus’s ministry: to love one another. We heard it today in the Gospel text when Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” The apocalyptic visions of John, then, are not bizarre predictions of things to come; they are a beautiful image of the world that God builds for us. A world of hope and love. The new heaven and new earth from John’s vision in Revelation is a place of hope and love.
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