It’s Time to Get Apocalyptic

Photo by Arthur Savary on Unsplash

As I write this over a million people have died worldwide of a global pandemic, including over 235,000 in this country alone. An economic slump threatens workers, businesses, and entire industries, all while a divisive election (complete with deep suspicions and accusations of cheating on both sides) threatens to tear this country apart. In the west, our churches are still shrinking while secularism grows. These are dizzying times, to say the least. In the midst of it all, God’s people need a word of hope. They need a reminder that whatever happens, God is in control, and these strange forces tearing civilizations, nations, lives, and livelihoods apart are not.

I believe God has given us this word in the Revelation to John. This suggestion is likely to strike many as ridiculous. The final book of the Bible is one of the least preached books in the New Testament, and that in spite of the fact that it is longer than all but the four gospels and Acts. It is often thought of as being about ‘the end of the world’ and is assumed to be terrifying. This has much to do with the way it is often preached and taught. When it is not being ignored, Revelation seems to attract the obsessive attention of purported end-times prophets, fire and brimstone preachers, and the theological equivalent of flat earthers. It is easy to assume John’s apocalypse is guilty by association, and thus not fit for polite company.

And unfit for polite company it may be, though it is exactly fit for God’s people as long as we live in such impolite times as these.

I have come to believe that Revelation scares us not because it is too fantastical, but because it is too realistic. Commenting on John of Patmos’ tears in Revelation 5 in his Notes on the New Testament, John Wesley remarked, “The Revelation was not written without tears; neither without tears will it be understood.” Many of us would prefer to ignore this truth as inconvenient or uncomfortable, but we live in a world of tears. Drama and tragedy confront every human life sooner or later. Anyone claiming otherwise is likely in the throes of denial.

I can certainly empathize with this impulse toward denial. But a Christian has no need for shelter among the rocks and crags of such lies. Amid the chaos, we can boldly face the truth of our lives and our condition because of the hope we have that no matter what else might happen, in the end Jesus wins.

Were he alive today, we would call John of Patmos a pastor. His book reflects pastoral interests from the messages to the seven churches of chapters 2 and 3 to the words of challenge and encouragement of chapter 22. The book itself is framed as a letter - just like those of Paul and other New Testament authors. And in like fashion to those other more approachable New Testament books, John’s main aim is to see these seven congregations grow more faithful to God in the middle of a world that is pulling them in plenty of other appealing and attractive directions. What could be a timelier message than that?

But the way John seems intentionally to pack multiple layers of meaning into a few words is more akin to poetry than what one typically finds in letters--within or outside of the Bible. Eugene Peterson claims the number of Old Testament references in Revelation is greater than the number of verses in the book. Jerome, a church father who lived in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, was effusive: “The Apocalypse of St. John has as many mysteries as words. All praise is insufficient. In each of St. John’s words there are many meanings.” When we approach Revelation as if it were intended to be some kind of obscure end times answer key, we miss all of John’s layers – and his contemporary relevance as well. 

In Revelation 6, the Lamb opens the first four seals, and as he does, the fabled four horsemen of the apocalypse emerge: a conqueror, a remover of peace, famine, and Death. With the possible exception of the conqueror, can you imagine a more appropriate ensemble to represent the trials of 2020? All it needs is a swarm of murder hornets to complete the picture. (Lest you accuse Revelation of being insufficiently comprehensive, a more intense and demonic portrayal of such a swarm can be found in the clouds of stinging locusts in Revelation 9. While not actually deadly, their sting is so painful it has people begging to die.)

Our world is always full of the kinds of things represented in the book of Revelation: plagues and hail storms and earthquakes and economic crises and death--and plenty of darker, unnatural forces besides. Whether in our world or in the world of John’s vision, God does not seem to directly cause these things. There is a connection, but it is indirect; we might say God allows them. In other words, all these things operate within the scope of God’s sovereign control. In the case of the four horsemen, the Lamb opens the seal, the living creatures (heaven’s worship leaders) say, “Come!” and the horse with its rider emerges.

Even when the world is most out of control, even then God is still in control. If there is one thing I hope this year teaches the church, it is that truth.

And then, of course, there’s evil. Evil is a real force in the world, and sometimes it shows up in obvious ways. But the brilliance of Revelation is the insight that this is usually not the case. Evil most often presents itself in a more attractive garb than we expect. In Revelation 13, for instance, we meet the “beast from the sea,” sometimes identified as the Antichrist (though that term never appears in Revelation), and his prophet, the “beast from the earth.” We are told that in appearance this second beast resembles a lamb, but when it speaks it has the voice of a dragon.

The point is that the kinds of temptations Christians most often face are usually not easy to identify. If they were, they likely would not be very effective temptations. The devil rarely shows up as a literal giant red dragon, much less a red man with a goatee, a pointed tail, and a pitchfork. The Evil One is more likely to show up through things like addiction, consumerism, pride, revenge, racism, shame, resentment, and other less cartoon-worthy guises. Particularly in our secular milieu, he knows subtlety is his best strategy.

One beast-like force that John seemed to be worried about was the Roman state. Rome was the lone superpower in the world in John’s day, though there were already some signs of its decline. Roman society was intensely hierarchical and shot through with idol worship, violent sporting events, sexual exploitation, and slavery. The parallels with contemporary American society are obvious. In different but often surprisingly similar ways our society is not immune to the corrupting lure to use our power and opulence in ugly and corrosive ways.

But on a more individual level, I think John would say that anyone seeking their own glory, especially if they have any worldly power at all, is going to be at least a little beast-like, no matter how lamb-like they seem. Our world is full of worship of these persons and powers, from political leaders and political parties to celebrities and, yes, even pastors. You and I are not immune to idolatry’s alluring pull. It quite often seems gentle, innocent, even holy: the beast that looks like a lamb but has the voice of a dragon is a parody of the true lamb in Revelation, Jesus.

John wants to expose these things for what they are: beasts that seek to draw our worship away from the one true God. And so, like a good sermon, Revelation is meant to unsettle you, to draw your attention to the darkness all around. But it is not meant to give you nightmares. John wants to warn you, to wake you up. He is not at all interested in scaring you about, for instance, being “left behind” after a rapture – a concept that does not make a single appearance in Revelation, or, for that matter, the Bible.

Idolatry is deadly serious business and is the source of many of the book’s most terrible images. Not just beasts, but dragons, great battles, and lakes of burning sulfur populate Revelation. But again, John is a pastor, not a fear monger. He is doing at least two things with this imagery. On the one hand, as I have already noted, he wants his churches to know how dangerous even small compromises with the idols all around them are.

On the other, he wants to encourage them that justice is in God’s hands. In a world where Christians lived with the possibility of being called to account for their refusal to bend the knee to this shrine or to that emperor, John’s message is that all will be called to account in the end for how their lives have squared with the Truth. Which judge is worth taking more seriously: the human judge or the Alpha and Omega? Who offers justice that is worthy of serving in this life: the one on the throne in Rome, or the One on the Throne in heaven? One is at worst a devilish lie, at least a pretentious show, and at best a partial truth. The other is eternally Faithful and True.

Christians in this country are far more likely to be dragged before the judgment seat of  “cancel culture” than they are to face any more life-threatening tribunal to account for their faith. This may not always be the case. One day things may change for the worse. But we nonetheless face temptations to compromise, to believe well-intended lies that suggest our allegiance to God can be mixed with allegiance to other principalities and powers. Even now, in this relatively mild situation where we find ourselves, courage is required. 

From what source might this courage come? To return one final time to the four horsemen of Revelation 6: the second horseman removes peace, the third represents famine, and the fourth is Death himself. The current divisive political climate, the economic recession we are in, and the global pandemic are a (perhaps milder) form of these three riders. But what of the first rider, the conqueror?

The interpretation of the passage is contested, perhaps because it operates at more than one level like much of the rest of the book of Revelation. But one intriguing option is that the rider on the white horse with the crown who goes out to conquer is meant to be an echo of the similarly clad rider in Revelation 19, who is clearly identified as the Word of God, the Faithful and True One, Jesus the Christ.

Whatever else we might have to say of the assorted disasters all around, the loss of unity, the loss of jobs, the loss of people we love, to be a person of faith in a world of such loss is to always come back around to say, “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns” (Revelation 19:6b).

In the end the Conqueror conquers, along with His victorious faithful ones. In the end all tears are wiped away, death and chaos are abolished, even the nations are healed. In the end all our loss yields to victory and restoration. All is made new. This is not some politician’s promise; this is the hope of the world. Come, Lord Jesus!

Cabe Matthews serves as an associate pastor at Montgomery United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Texas, where he preaches weekly in the modern worship service. You can find him on the web at www.cabematthews.com.