10.12 | Tears of Longing
Revelation 5
‘…and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.’
Revelation 5:4
As I’ve got older, I cry more.
I didn’t cry much as a younger adult. Somewhere in that experience of being a teenage boy in secondary school culture, suppression of emotions became the norm.
And yet, as I’ve got older and have gently learned the ways of God, I’ve learned that He values the expression of tears far more than the suppression of them. In the softening of His presence and time, tears now tend to come far more easily, and most weeks I find myself tearing up. Not usually because I’m sad, but more simply they come in the places where I feel. Tears seem to come for me both in sadness and in longing, and yet the longing can be for something so deeply good and joyful. Tears can come for me in that space between the greatest beauty desired, and the immediate absence of that beauty. Tears reveal the deeper longings of the human heart.
Today, John sees something that makes him cry.
The One on the throne has a scroll. And yet, scrolls in the ancient world were sealed with a wax seal—usually embossed with the signet of the author. The etiquette was clear—you could only open the scroll if you were the recipient. You needed authority to access the content.
There’s double-meaning when it comes to scrolls.
Firstly, there is the sense of Scriptural writings. The Old Testament promises of God, held in scrolls across the Jewish world, contained the promises of God for all humanity.
And secondly, in the Roman Empire, a person’s will was often written on a scroll—written on front and back. To open such a scroll was to reveal inheritance.
When we pull these together, we get a clear idea of why this scroll being sealed was enough to make John cry.
For if the promises of the prophets were sealed, then all those longings of the human heart—for joy and vitality and flourishing and peace and justice and healing and the conquest of God over all enemies of sickness and darkness and death—were also sealed up. He wept for the inaccessible promises of God.
And if the inheritance of God’s people was sealed, then God’s children remained orphaned and distanced, unable to access the fullness and glory of what He has promised to His children.
John’s weeping at the sealed scroll are the tears of both grief and longing, for this is a longing for those things that are so perfectly good, and yet sealed away from humankind. It is glory hoped for but unattained, beauty imagined but unseen, life envisioned but untouched.
But the vision doesn’t end with tears. For the strangest of all images enters.
I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.
The lamb has seven horns (suggesting perfect or heavenly power) and seven eyes (suggesting perfect or heavenly wisdom and knowledge). The slain lamb is the lead symbol of the Passover festival—the liberating of God’s people from the land of slavery. The lamb is the symbol of sacrifice—life given by one in order that the life of another may be redeemed.
And this Lamb, Jesus of Nazareth, is counted worthy. Worthy to open the seals. Worthy to bring to fulfilment every promise of God. Worthy to release the inheritance of the Father upon His children. For that which He gave at the Cross released the heavenly and eternal for the people of God.
For the scroll is to be opened. For the Lamb has conquered.
And thus, while we may weep in longing in these moments for the heavenly life to break in, we truly know this:
The Lamb has overcome.
Reflect:
What longings stir you to tears?
Bring these to Jesus again today. For He is counted worthy to open the scroll of all the promises of God. Turn this to prayer, for your prayers are as a bowl of incense in the heavens.
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
Worthy are You,
To receive all power, and all wealth, and all wisdom, and all might,
For you gave everything
That the purposes
And promises
Of God
May be released to a hurting world.
Lord Jesus,
It is to You
That I bring my tears today.
That which I have longed for,
Yearned for,
Wept for,
I bring to You again.
And Lord, Lamb of God,
May you stir in me
Both heavenly longings,
And would you stir up
A heavenly response,
That in these days of turmoil,
I may see and know
The peace of the heavens.
In Your Name,
Jesus, the Lamb who was slain,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Amos 1-3 | Proverbs 30:1-9