19.12 | The Greater Question
Revelation 14
‘Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.’
Revelation 14:12
The Bible I read in my devotional time, and that has accompanied me along this journey of writing, was given to me on the day that I was priested in the Church of England. It is brown leather, embossed with markings that look a little like they’ve come out of Middle Earth, and four ribbons (three of which I worked into the spine myself) marking the places of my current reading. And, as a ‘Study Bible’, it is full of notes and cross-references, and various interpretations on each verse and passage.
As a part of this, each book of the Bible begins with an introductory essay. For most books, these introductions are fairly short, and yet the essay that begins Revelation is a full ten pages. It tests the tensions between competing interpretations, competing ideas, competing scholars and schools of thought.
And yet, there is something a little distracting in all this. For it fills the mind with all sorts of academic questions before you begin, and thus frames Revelation in the arena of theory. It steers the heart towards matters that exclusively dwell in the intellect. This is not wasted time, but it can be a distraction.
For remember, Revelation has a pastoral heart and a vision of building resilient, enduring, hope-filled disciples of Jesus in this moment. It is there to give us increased clarity for navigating this moment. Full brains and unchanged lives is not the endeavour of these words.
For the greater question of Revelation is simply this: how then should we live?
Today’s passage completes the three-chapter intermission in the midst of the book. It is the natural conclusion to the prophetic retelling of the story we have heard—of the Messiah who emerged from the promise-holding people of Israel, who thwarted the dragon-serpent through His death on the Cross, and now calls a pilgrim people to navigate the wilderness of this age with endurance and hope, distinct from the Empires and Emperors of the world, and marked by thoughts and ways that are of the heavenly age to come.
And this passage presents us, shamelessly, with a binary option: Follow the dragon. Or follow the Lamb.
For the way of the dragon looks like flooding our thoughts and acts with the values and emblems of Empire, deadening our souls through drinking in the intoxicating brew of its narratives and ideologies, its status symbols and materialism. It means deadening our souls in the toxic wine of its false promises and broken ideologies and hierarchical structures and the fulfilment of every wounded desire—as if answering every desire of our bodies was the true way to freedom and life.
The Way of the Lamb, on the other hand, looks like being marked from a different age, walking our days in this time of wilderness and exile with endurance and holiness and trust in the Greater way, viewing the sacrifices of this moment as worthy and worth the inbreaking joy of the Greater Age that is led by the Greater King. It is the Kingdom of humility and the Kingdom of true righteousness, the Kingdom of perfect peace and the Kingdom wherein we truly do find ourselves.
Friends, be really honest at this moment, for these words and images feel alien to the spiritualities of our age, which rarely confront us but usually are designed to affirm us in all of our existing choices. The themes we find in Revelation are no privatised or pedestrian or pluralist spirituality. They are inviting in us a deep searching of self, unto the division of our lives and hearts between those things that point towards the Kingdom to come, and the many values and ideas of our age.
And yet, dear friends, hear the invitation. For the invitation is into a life of great clarity, greater humility, greater freedom, singing a song through our lives that is inspired from eternity, in the midst of such a moment as this.
Reflect:
Hold your own thoughts and ways afresh before the loving Spirit of God. Is there anything that He is inviting you to turn away from today? Is there anything He is inviting you to turn towards?
Pray:
Father,
These ideas can rattle my existing thoughts,
For the spirituality that I am more comfortable with
Confronts me less.
And yet, I see that the spiritualities of our day—
Which merely affirm all of our existing ways—
Are maybe doing nothing more than deadening my soul,
Inebriating me to the possibilities of the greater way.
And so, loving Father, shake me awake;
Confront my thoughts and realign my ways—
That all that I am,
And all that I think,
And all that I do
Be ignited in heavenly realities
Unto living in the heavenly ways,
In this moment,
And unto Days of beauty and life
Beyond number.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
Nahum 1-3 | Psalm 146