Monday, November 3, 2014

Monday, November 3, 2014

Revelation 14:1-13

Here is another vision of the end of the world as we know it.  It uses both carrot and stick.

Again it is not easy to relate to if we try to match symbol to concrete.  The 144,000 virgins, for example, have been interpreted in a variety of ways, sometimes being seen as referring to the 12 tribes of Israel (12 X 12,000), for Jehovah’s Witnesses as referring to themselves, as a purely metaphorically “complete” number…

I find it more helpful to look at the big picture here and see what picture is being painted.  What I am most struck about is the sense of contrast.  On the one hand are those who keep God’s commands and on the other those who worship “the Beast”, the challenger to God.  The two outcomes are clear: celebration, joy, worship, glory, versus ruination, pain, suffering, “no respite.”

The call is made to the whole world in three different ways: first a call to worship God only as Maker of all that is; second a call stating the fact that the challenger to God is already defeated (so why would one bother with staying there!); and third, a call that says that any who does continue to side with the challenger will share the challenger’s fate - destruction.  (The various names of the “whore”, “Babylon”, “the Beast” all may have referred - in code - to people or empires of the times; they certainly have also been variously applied to people and empires throughout history.  Clearly, though, they all refer to choices against God - hence I find it more helpful for me to keep the brush stroke broad, not to try to “decode” specifics.)

Throughout the three Angel calls, the saints who stand around the Lamb (we recognize the Lamb as referring to Jesus) are those who “were bought from humankind, firstfruits of the harvest for God and the Lamb. Not a false word in their mouths. A perfect offering….“stand passionately patient, keeping God’s commands, staying faithful to Jesus.” (14; 5 &12)  I love the phrase passionately patient - not words often put together.  I am reminded of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

The overall picture seems to me to suggest that the time will come that justice - God’s will - will be completely done, and that this will involve the whole earth and every person.  Every person will have a choice - and we are given a heads-up about the reality of the consequences of the choice.  Ideas of Heaven and Hell, of justice and mercy, of God as a loving God but also a just and maybe wrathful God have interested and perplexed people throughout the ages.  We might not “agree” with all of the images in Revelation, but certainly the question of how God will act justly and at the same time lovingly is one we can all wonder about.

The passage ends with a reassurance, a blessing.  To complete one’s earthly life while still living a life that models itself on Jesus’s, that obeys God’s commands (to love God, love each other, and love ourselves) will be a blessing, a happiness, a joy.  The spirit concludes with the statement that there will be rest for that person, and an honouring of what they have done with their lives - nothing lost or wasted, blessed by God. 

The first and the final words of the passage are ones of encouragement, of attraction.  Where do I want to be in this picture?  What must I do to be there?

Blessings

Ann Kelland