Follow the Shepherd into love

“So. You're minding your own business, filling up your gas tank, when your cell phone rings. Hmmm. Should you answer it? Because you've heard you shouldn't use cell phones near gas stations since they can produce small sparks that can ignite big fires.

But wait. Could that actually be true? Sounds like a job for MythBusters! It's a tough job separating truth from urban legend, but the MythBusters are here to serve.

Each week special-effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman take on three myths and use modern-day science to show you what's real and what's fiction.”

This summary from the Myth Busters webpage gives a great description of one of my favorite TV shows. My entire family enjoys watching this show and seeing what goofy thing they are going to prove or disprove next. Over the last week, while I attended CREDO I found myself engaged in a deep conversation with a room full of priests, and we were all discussing Myth Busters. Seems it is a favorite around the country with me and my colleagues.

And I bring it up this morning because there is a lot of stuff written and thought about the Book of Revelation that is simply not an accurate portrayal of this beautiful book of scripture.

True, this book is very difficult to understand. The language is symbolic and intentionally oblique. The author, some unknown person named John, (not the Gospel writer, nor the author of the Epistles of John, but another John) wrote The Book of Revelation sometime between the years 92 and 96 AD. Revelation was written during a time of great persecution of Christians in Asia Minor.

This book of scripture is in the genre of apocalyptic literature. It is similar to the book of Ezekiel, Daniel, and 1 Enoch. Apocalyptic writings in our scripture have been misconstrued by other modern day writers. These books are not predicting the future. Rather they are dealing with some current issue at the time it was written.

In Revelation the story is about the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Domitian. The image of the “Beast” in Revelation refers to Domitian and his Roman soldiers who captured and killed Christians.The Roman Officials were arresting and killing Christians in large numbers because, as a general rule, the Christians refused to worship the Emperor.

It was customary in those days to worship the Emperor as if he were a God. For many centuries, up until most recent times, it was believed that people of royalty, kings and queens, and Roman Emperors were divine, made of the same stuff of God.

It’s where we get so much of our language for Jesus as King.

But ancient Christians, who in baptism have given their lives to Jesus were not about to betray him by worshiping the Roman Emperor. So, when discovered, the Roman Officials arrested and killed Christians as traitors.

Therefore the author of Revelation did not want the average Roman to understand what was really being said. It is a book written for the marginalized and persecuted under class, Christians. So, it was written in secret code. Only those “in the know,” the Christians in his community, would have the key to understand this book. Roman citizens, who were the dominant culture of the day, would not understand it. It might be like someone today writing in Hip Hop which the average American would not understand.

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures…”

…thrones, and lambs, white robed elders, made white in the blood of the lamb…images of myths. Like other apocalyptic writings of the times, Revelation is almost absurd in the richness of its images and the drama of its text. Its grandeur and drama are a powerful reflection of the suffering experienced.

There is a potency to suffering. All humans experience suffering – emotionally, physically, and or spiritually… I wonder, though, if we are becoming numb to our suffering and the suffering of others in the world. On television and in movies and photographs in the newspaper overwhelm our senses with images of violence. After awhile these images lose their power over us, they become normal.And soon we don’t even see them anymore. Like a sign you drive by every day that blurs into the landscape.

I wonder if violence and suffering are just blurring into our overall view of life and the world.

I hope the narrative stories of real people and their suffering remain powerful;

So that we can be moved by them, So that we can become vehicles of change working to end suffering and violence in our world. We arrest teenagers for writing violent stories. But we do nothing about the environment they are exposed too; nothing about gun control for automatic weapons, nothing about the violence on TV or the movie theater…

Some contemporary books and movies are returning to the apocalyptic genre. Some of them use themes and imagery from the Book of Revelation. But often these books these distort the beauty of the Book of Revelation.Yes, the Book of Revelation uses mythic imagery to tell its story. It is a book about pain and suffering and violence.

But that pain and suffering and violence is inflicted by humans onto other humans.
It’s a story about how awful we can be to one another.

To this day, people around the world who suffer are able to understand and find comfort in the book of Revelation.

The language is intentionally obscure because the writer wanted to protect the Christians and prevent the Romans from understanding what the book was about –

the salvation found in Jesus.

The intent of the Book of Revelation is to encourage and support Christians during times of great tragedy and difficulty.

The worship service in the red Book of Common Prayer specifies particular readings for funerals, several of them coming from the Book of Revelation.

“They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Primarily it is a story of how God meets us in the chaos, the suffering, and the tragedy of our lives. God meets us in those dark places and walks with us, journeys with us to a better place.The grace of this book is its ability to offer tremendous comfort to suffering people.

Although it is written in code, people around the world, people over the centuries, who experience persecution get it. The language is beautiful poetry. The words assure the grieving of God’s great love for all humanity. They remind us that we are not fully in charge of our lives.

People make decisions, for good or for evil, that affect the lives of others.

People fly planes into buildings.

People take over cities and countries and destroy lives in the name of justice.

People make and hord huge sums of money failing to share or even care for those who have so little.

Revelation is not a story of prophecy. This is not a story of predicting the future. Although apocalyptic literature in the bible deals with “end times” they refer to the end of the time of suffering, The end of the world as we know it, of violence and greed and abuse of power. Revelation points to a new era, one grounded in God, centered in the divine.

The Book of Revelation is story of love.

The great multitude named in Revelation points to people of all nations, all people. God is with all of us. With all of us to hold us up. To sustain us. To guide us. To love us.

We are made pure in the blood of Christ, shed in the pouring out of God’s love for us.

God who lived as one of us. God who died as one of us. God who understands the pains and sorrows and joys of life.

In this deep love God saves us from ourselves.

God saves us by offering us a vision of God’s love poured out in Jesus. Saves us by showing us the way to follow God’s love. Saves us by leading us away from our narrow view of life, away from power and control and violence and selfishness.

All we have to do is turn our hearts and minds toward the love of God
And strive to love others as God loves us.

In the Book of Revelation we have a view of heaven – of the profound love God has for us. Heaven, perhaps the only place where there are no tears.

And in the real “myth”, which is the revelation, we come to know the greatest truth of all, for “the one seated on the throne will shelter them.”

The love of God is a gift freely given to all to lead us out of suffering into new life.

Like sheep, following their shepherd, let us hear the voice of God calling us to love.