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“And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb … 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.”
–– Revelation 21:10, 22-23; 22:1-2
In an early stint of student ministry, when I had yet to crack the code on how to effectively be a catalyst for energizing youth interest in the Gospel (Who am I kidding, I still haven’t figured that out), I remember asking the attendees of a youth retreat what discussions they would like to have in regard to matters of faith. Unanimously, and without hesitation, they said, “The book of Revelation!” I get it. Reading the book of Revelation is as close as a youth Bible study can get to watching Game of Thrones. There are six winged creatures “full of eyes all around and inside.” There are tales of slaughter and blood. There are “angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree.” There are trumpet blasts and burning mountains thrown into the sea; tattooed foreheads; bottomless pits; dragons; plagues; earthquakes; and hundred-pound hailstones dropped from heaven, pummeling the earth. If James Earl Jones read portions of Revelation to you late at night, you couldn’t sleep for days. It seems as if Revelation was authored by the grandfather of Stephen King and George R.R. Martin.
Though it seems Revelation’s target audience would be the same crowd that flocks to see the latest horror movie or apocalyptic thriller, its mysteries are reframed as you come to understand that its original target audience was a people suffering profound persecution. The imagery and visions, some of them dark and disturbing, are framed to bring hope to a persecuted people and an assurance that God had not abandoned them. When you are being tyrannized, exploited, beaten down, it is life-sustaining to know you haven’t been forgotten; that someone is at work to free you from the oppressing power; that there is a blessed peace to be found on the other side of suffering. The author here uses rich and vivid imagery to convey that as disturbing as the tyranny is, all that opposes God’s kingdom will be defeated, and God, refusing to let us go, will draw us in to Godself –– “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb … 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.”
The fireworks of Revelation may catch our attention, but beyond the chaos, it is God, our protector and attentive Lord “who will wipe every tear from our eyes.”
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