Revelation - A Book for Today

A simple tenet of mine is to take all scripture seriously. That means not simply discarding or leaving to one side any book of the Bible, but accepting that it has something for God to say to us through it, no matter how difficult that book (chapter, or even verse) is to read or understand. If necessary wrestle with it for years to come. The Bible book of Revelation fits this category!

Interpreting Revelation has always caused difficulty, and sent people in different directions. Worryingly today some seem to be using it to justify military action and war - in the process seemingly disregarding what we know of the way of Jesus and His Kingdom.

There are many many others who are much better qualified to unpack Revelation, and we don't have space here anyway. But in short summary, what might we glean from the book in light of 21st Century Mission right now?

It seems to me that along with other parts of the New Testament, the basic message is simple: a call to ongoing faithfulness even as things chaotic events happen in the world around us.

The words of Jesus written up in Matthew chapter 24 resonate with this: hair-raising things will happen - Jesus is sovereign - keep watch and be ready as a faithful servant.

James writes that we should "be patient ... until the Lord's coming" (chapter 5), explaining how a farmer has to wait for spring and autumn rains. I'm struck by the need for both spring and autumn rains, i.e. multiple seasons to come and go. "Stand firm", he writes, "because the Lord's coming is near"! Paul of course writes in Ephesians chapter 6: "... so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and ... to stand". I'm not seeing any shortage of evil out there (in fact, quite the contrary), so the reminder to 'stand' seems pertinent enough!

Even the Revelation 16 'Armageddon' passage being used by some today echoes the words of Jesus (most closely to those recorded in Luke 12) with the exhortation to remain awake and fully clothed, i.e. ongoing readiness as a servant-witness.

So we might not get our head around all the content of Revelation, and maybe we will never get our head around it. Others may scurry off in very troublesome directions ... but as followers of The Way of Jesus  - hoping to remain faithful - the message is straightforward even as the world rages around us: stay ready as a faithful witness!

Changing a Nation

The ministry of Jesus is expanded by Jesus commissioning grass-root activists to disperse and make the kind of difference to individual's lives that He was making - literally demonstrating the Kingdom of God through healing, deliverance and affirming people as children of God. This high-risk distributed network approach was revolutionary and completely different to the 'rally around the central high profile leader' method. It started the permeation of society with a new story - one different to the existing stories which typically assumed success by force and bloodshed.

The way of Jesus was to give up power in the human ways of expressing it, and instead pass on the genuine Kingdom difference, and empower others to pass it on. Most assumed a power-play against the Romans was pre-ordained by God, but the real power-play was for the hearts of individuals. Regardless of what the human-regimes might do, or how they might rise / fall / be replaced by another, the change of heart in individuals could then endure down the ages against all odds.

In the folly of fallen humanity, human regimes and structures can come and go, and nation states can change between benevolence and evil. We know from history just 100 years back of such a negative change in Germany spanning about a decade. In our own age we are watching similar changes play out in real time right now in America. The need for the true good news of Jesus and His Kingdom is therefore still acute!

The way of Jesus brought a different kind of change in a different kind of way. Ultimately it didn't just change a nation but brought change across a whole empire and beyond. Today nations and wannabe-empires rage and deploy their 'might' in terrible ways all around us, and will continue to do so ... but the grass-roots work of the Kingdom heart-activated individuals can continue amidst the turmoil, will endure, and ultimately supersede the current schemes of man.

Christ not Christian Heritage

Over the past couple of weeks many bytes of social media have been transmitted concerning the "Put Christ Back Into Christmas" carol event in London. It is not for me to comment on an individual's past record and whether their recent conversion is genuine - that is between God and that person in any case. Other people attended the actual event on Saturday 13th and are now commenting for us. The impression seems to be that it was a peaceable open air carol event, celebrating the birth of Jesus with testimony and calls to the public to put their trust in Him.

The aspect of the pre-event traffic which caught my own eye was a comparison between the 'public messaging' and the private 'supporter messaging' when the event was first announced. One commentator helpfully quoted verbatim from both the sources, which gave a snapshot of the possible original motivation behind the event. That worried many, because a significant component of the private messaging resonated with the 'Take back our country' sentiment, which I argue is simply not valid as a Christ-led mission sentiment.

From a mission perspective there was another more subtle (but no less important) issue in that first private message to supporters. Throughout the first rallying call the repeated focus was a desire for a return to & celebration of our Christian heritage.

This is an important point! Let us be clear: Our mission is to point people to Jesus as Lord ... not to restore a particular heritage. There is a difference between the two.

Celebrating heritage is often a good thing, and need not be a threat to anyone (I am pleased when my Asian nearby neighbours do things that resonate with and celebrate their heritage, it causes me no problem at all). We might also lament a loss of aspects of our own heritage, and feel that key aspects of what we perceive as Christian heritage have been diluted or even replaced over years. All that is valid (though we probably also want to acknowledge aspects of our heritage, labelled as Christian, which do not in fact measure up to how we now understand of what it means to be Christ-like).

If people want to gather a large crowd and celebrate what they perceive to be Christian heritage, especially around the Christmas story, that at one level is fine ... but it is not necessarily the same as the Matthew 28 commission to point people to Jesus, so that Jesus may become their Lord and they learn to follow Him as His Spirit directs them. Restoring and/or celebrating a certain heritage of yester-year does not in itself make Jesus-followers, only helping people encounter the Risen Lord and move forward in Him does that. It is the latter that is our mission.

Perhaps the event on Saturday did enable some in the crowd to see Jesus and encounter Him afresh or even for the first time in their lives. If so, that is fantastic! it wouldn't surprise me if it happened, because God is clever like that and turns up in unexpected places, often working in spite of the way we do things! But let us sit light with heritage, lamenting loss where that is troubling, but in any case pointing to Jesus such that whoever we meet in a wonderfully diverse society and wider world might see Him and worship Him themselves. 

Empires Fall

I am finding the BBC series 'Civilisations: Rise and Fall' fascinating to watch. The episodes remark on how quickly an empire that has enjoyed power / super-power for hundreds of years comes to a speedy end - with Egyptian and Roman empires as two examples.

In today's world, with the hideous re-emergence of 'empire-like' mentalities, there are lessons to be learnt and (for the Christ-faithful) encouragements to be had from these historical summaries!

The rumours of the birth of a new 'King of the Jews' fuelled by the visitors from the East sent a shiver down the spine of Herod the local ruler. The rumours meant competing claims to his own rule, which Herod could not tolerate. The new king was indeed born - in the seemingly insignificant place of Bethlehem - and despite Herod's genocidal intents, the baby survived ... and Herod didn't!

From the resurrection of Jesus onwards, the phrase 'Jesus is Lord' came to be seen as a politically dangerous and subversive statement across the Roman Empire. Those proclaiming faced serious persecution to the point of death because it was taken as a direct challenge to the rule of emperor Caesar. Despite many killed, the witness to Jesus as Lord continued and the Roman Empire eventually fell apart.

There are lessons from history about how super-powers can become so corrupted by their lust for power, that they create the conditions for their seemingly invincible status to quickly crumble and fall. One can't help but see parallels with power corrupt super-power leaders today in both East and West - will the lessons be learnt and appropriately applied before it is too late for them?

We don't get to know the timescales - whether it is decades (e.g. Eastern Germany, post-war Soviet Union), or centuries (e.g. Egyptian, Roman) - but as followers of Jesus we do know the eventual outcomes: Jesus is Lord and will endure, while at some point these power structures and empires will fall one way or another.

Therefore trust Jesus and steadily keep faith as earthly powers around us rise and fall!