12.12 | Tori
Revelation 7:1-8:5
‘After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”’
Revelation 7:9-10
Tori was a young mum at our kids’ school, and she’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
I’d offered to go in and pray with her, not knowing if she was a Christian, or if she’d be open to prayer. She said she was, and, as I went in—and met her husband, her parents, her brother, her sister-in-law, and her son—I realised that I was walking into a family of quite special faith. I visited a number of times in the last weeks of her life, including the day before she died, and I always felt that I was walking somehow on ground that was both tender and holy.
There were a number of moments that stood out to me on the day of the funeral, but maybe one above all the others.
It was at the graveside. It was November—drenchingly wet, and cold. It was muddy under our feet, and we stood in a large crowd of grief and pain and questions. Everything about those moments, in every physical measurement possible was tears and hurt. And yet, in those moments, the grieving family began to sing. They sang a song of worship—of honour and love and gratitude to God. They sang in the grief and they sang in the rain and they sang over and above that grave.
It made no sense. And yet, somehow, it made the deepest and purest kind of sense. For it was the defiance of hope in the midst of grief—a defiance that Tori herself had demonstrated in her final days. It was a resilience of soul that would not allow the brutality of circumstance to dictate ultimate reality. It was a refusal to receive death on its own terms, for in that act of song it dictated a different story in the face of death itself—of a God worthy of honour, of a God faithful through every storm, and of a God who holds the enduring victory.
Yesterday’s reading introduced us to a whole world of pain and problems and mess—in this final season of history, where evil rages and humanity attempts our final endeavours of building our crooked empires.
And yet, today’s reading juxtaposes this with a vision of the people of God, standing with beautiful defiance.
Who are they?
These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.
Hear those words. They are in the great tribulation, and yet they are also coming out of it. They are in the pain and grief and poverty and pandemic, and yet they are also coming out of it into a glorious new moment that is surely coming. They are in the tears of grief, and they are coming out of it into glory.
Friends, this is a picture for us:
For you are protected by angelic warriors.
For you are marked by the seal of God Himself.
For you stand in robes of white (symbolising purity), and are offered palm branches of celebration for your hands.
And you, and I, are called to sing a song of salvation in the midst of a world full of pain.
It makes no sense. And yet, somehow, it makes the deepest and purest kind of sense.
Hold onto this imagery, my friends, when you feel most unsettled by the turbulence around you. For worship in this moment is a weapon of prophetic defiance. For more certainly than you are standing in a moment of tribulation, you are also coming out of it. You are dressed in white. And your Lord has certainly won.
And thus, dear friends, in this tribulation,
We sing.
Reflect:
Be kind to your heart here, grief never benefits from the pressures of religiosity.
What we seek here instead is an awakening to the greater realities. And so, simply, offer Him your song in this place, and this pain. And invite the Spirit of God to open your eyes to the greater realities of which you sing.
Pray:
Father,
In this pain,
And in this turmoil,
And in this place of struggle and madness and conflict,
I sing.
I don’t sing to avoid reality,
But rather, Father,
To more greatly inhabit it.
For these rags of the world are not my clothings,
And these songs of defeat are not my song,
And these markers of worldly belonging
Do not tell my story,
For indeed, my Father,
You have positioned me amidst Your multitude.
And thus,
As one who is in tribulation,
And yet coming out of it,
I lift my voice,
And ask for Your flooding Spirit,
That I may sing
The salvation song.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Amos 7-9 | Psalm 143