G.K. Chesterton said that, although John saw many strange monsters in his vision of the book of Revelation, he saw no creature so wild as one of his commentators.  John's kaleidoscopic symbolism of bizarre creatures, bowls of wrath, the sky drenched in blood, can mean anything to anybody - except for those who have studied what the symbols actually meant in Bible times!  Revelation's images are not predictions of 21^st century events.  The first recipients of the letter understood what John was talking about, just as we recognize what a donkey and an elephant mean in an editorial cartoon.  The white horse with a mounted archer represented the dreaded Parthians who waged war against the eastern edge of the Roman empire.  To people in whose lifetimes Mt. Vesuvius had erupted, the sky turning black would be familiar.  The ignominious "666" is a clear example of gematria, the transparent reference being to Nero, whose rumored survival from a brush with death (and return in brutal vengeance) stirred intense fears among Christians familiar with his habit of tarring Christians and burning them as torches for his garden.  Lindsey and LaHaye overlook the fact that Revelation is a letter, addressed to the real concerns of Christians living in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) who faced mounting persecution under the emperor Domitian; Christians desperately needed, not a crystal ball forecast of the early 21^st century, but a word for the moment, their moment.  And that word was that God would triumph over all evil.

   Yet we also notice the extravagance of John's symbolism.  When the final upheaval comes, when God's consummation of history dawns, no writer, artist or musician could begin to capture the glorious wonder of it all.  The climax of God's ultimate plan will be such a marvelous victory that Christians may endure any oppression now.  And the sureness of God's plan leads Christians, not to a sheltered flight from the world, but to a courageous resistance, daring even to stand up to the powers that be.  Revelation speaks to Christians in every day, calling them to invest all their hopes in a God who rights all wrongs, who is in fact coming, who will in the end draw us and all of creation to himself when time will be no more.  As Cardinal Newman put it, "Christ, then, is ever at our doors; as near eighteen hundred years ago as now, and not nearer now than then; and not nearer when He comes than now.  When He says that He will come soon, 'soon' is not a word of time, but of natural order."

   Why are Christians so intrigued by all this?  Can it be that an obsession with the end times distracts us from the business at hand of being the hands of Christ now?  There is some sheer headiness of being in the know, being privy to God's calendar.  Norman Cohn noticed that such movements in the Middle Ages found fertile soil among the poor, whose world was falling apart around them.  The dangers are plenty.  David Koresh and the Branch Davidians were hypnotized by what they thought Revelation was telling them to do.  American political strategy in the Middle East has even been influenced by mis-interpretations of Revelation!

   Jesus was clear:  the Messiah will return, history's curtain will close, time will be no more.  But this moment will startle everyone "like a thief in the night" (1 Thessalonians 5:2).  Jesus said, "Of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32).  If Jesus and the angels do not know, then you and I have not the slightest clue, and we are not meant to know the hour of His coming - and so we are always prepared, now, should he come now, or now, or next week, or a million years from now.

James

james@mpumc.org

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