Uvalde and St. John’s Revelation

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Worship God (Rev 22:9)!

We live in dangerous and chaotic times. The economies in the developed world look set for a period of inflation and recession. The war in Eastern Europe has no foreseeable end. And the mass killings in Buffalo, Uvalde–every day seems to bring a new senseless killing. 

I remember where I was when I heard about the Sandy Hook shootings. I was driving on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. The story came on the radio and I had to pull over as I began to sob, thinking of my own children then in elementary school and those parents. 

A decade later, I am aware of a change in our culture and disturbingly, in me. I feel like I have lost some of my humanity. When I heard about the shootings in Uvalde, I didn’t have to pull over. I haven’t cried. I seem to have become numb. Sudden life-destroying, fear-instilling chaos has become ordinary. Like tornados, you can’t stop it, so we run drills.

Chaos, the principal of death, the uncreation into which God spoke in Genesis 1, seems to be advancing against creation’s order, and against love. The Sandy Hook shooter murdered his own mother before going to the elementary school. The shooter in Texas shot his grandmother who took him in. Both killed elementary school children, people far weaker than they, who had never harmed them, who couldn’t harm them. 

This is not what humans were created for. While we may attempt to tinker around the edges of governmental regulations, and building security, I am skeptical about a legislative fix. I am not sure this is a political battle. I am pretty sure legislation won’t soften whatever has happened to my heart. It is not really psychological either, though dis-eased souls are its consequence. The forces of chaos and death are on offense. These tribulations are spiritual. 

As you read through the confusing images in the “Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1), you get to see, with St. John, the spiritual meaning of things.

With John, you see Jesus as He really is. And He is awesome,

“someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet … with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head … white like wool, as white as snow, … his eyes … like blazing fire. His feet … like bronze glowing in a furnace, … his voice … like the sound of rushing waters. … coming out of his mouth [is] a sharp, double-edged sword. His face [is] like the sun shining in all its brilliance” (Rev 1:13-16).

You see Him in chapter 5 as the “Lion of Judah” who is simultaneously a “Lamb who was slain” (Rev 5:5,6). You see Him in chapter 7 as the Messenger who seals the fullness of the redeemed: 144,000 who are also “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev 7:9) You see Him in chapter 19 as the Warrior on a White Horse who throws the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire, and in chapter 20 as Satan’s judge.

You also get to see the powers of this world, as they really are, as a dragon warring against the armies of heaven (Rev 12:7), as a beast on earth who crawls out of the chaos, as another beast out of the earth, making “the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast” (Rev 13:12), as a drunken debauched prostitute reveling in what the beasts give. 

In this last chapter of Revelation, an angel, one of the seven who held bowls of wrath in chapter 16, who showed John the New Jerusalem in chapter 21, tells John, “These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, [that is, the Holy Spirit] sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place” (Rev 22:6).

John hears a voice, like one he heard at the beginning of his visions. “Look, I am coming soon!” the voice says, “Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll” (Rev 22:7). But what does it mean to “keep the words”?

Then John does exactly the wrong thing. “When [he] had heard and seen [these things], [he] fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them” (Rev 22:8). Now, if there is one word from this Revelation, it is who Jesus is, who he really is. 

Back in chapter 1, John heard a “loud voice like a trumpet” (Rev 1:10), and saw “someone like a son of man.” “When I saw him,” John wrote, “I fell at his feet as though dead” (Rev 1:17). Then, the voice said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (1:17-18). 

No rebuke. The Son of Man can be worshiped. Jesus can be worshiped. But here, the angel rebukes him. “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!” (Rev 22:9)

Again, “Keep the words.” Keep the revelation of Jesus. 

Creatures may not bow to anyone but God, not an earthly government, not our power (individual or corporate or even ecclesial) not our desires, not to angels, neither to the principalities and powers of this world, or even those angels who serve Jesus. There is only One before whom we may bow: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. “Worship God” (Rev 22:9)! 

There is no peace, no life, apart from Him who is “the first and the last,” who holds “the keys of death and Hades” (Rev 1:17,18). Apart from Jesus is only fear, individual and cultural. The unholy Trinity of the dragon and the two beasts enslave us through it: through destruction, decadence, distress, duress, discord, and death.

The angel tells John, not to “seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near.” The world needs this message because, as Jesus states a again, “Look, I am coming soon!” His “reward is with” Him (22:12),and His reward is blessing: “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city” (22:14).  

Washing robes, eating fruit from the tree of life, access to the city of God, is the “way of salvation.” It is the process by which God frees us from diseased fearful slavery to the gods of this world and restores our humanity, His image in us. It begins with “washing,” turning from worshiping what keeps us in anxiety, and falling before “Jesus Christ the crucified!” to receive pardon for our idolatry. “Worship God” (Rev 22:9)!

Worshiping Him we gain access to the tree of life, “yielding its fruit every month,” to “the leaves of the tree … for the healing of the nations” (described in 22:2). We can be healed, “have life, and have it to the full” (Jn 10:10). We can enter the city, become part of God’s society, an order of living distinct from our media, our politics, our economics, our military. Blessed.

Jesus, Messiah, anointed one, savior, “the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star” (22:16) issues an invitation at the end of the Revelation, like in Mt 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes, take the free gift of the water of life.

The entire Revelation of Jesus to St. John is an invitation and a warning. It’s an invitation to life, and a warning against the consequences of rejecting life. Those consequences are evident all around us, in our collapsing institutions, including our denominations, and in the violence in our streets, our schools, even our minds.

There is only one way out of false worship, to which too often even the church in the West has fallen prey. There is only one way out of the fear, complacency, and numbness we feel in false worship. There is only one way to restore our humanity. “Worship God” (Rev 22:9)! Not money, not fame, not “likes” or “hits,” not power, not comfort, not our own desires, not our invented selves. They will all “pass away” (Mt 24:35).

“Worship God” (Rev 22:9)! the only One, the Three in One. He can restore what is broken in our society and in us, in me, so that we “[b]less those who persecute; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Rom 12:14-15).

“Worship God” (Rev 22:9)! We who know the revelation, know the end. “He who testifies to these things says, (yet again) “I am coming soon” (Rev 22:20). 

“Amen, Come Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20).