May 18, 2025 — Fifth Sunday of Easter
Jack Belsom
If you think Revelation is a strange book, you should listen to the contemporary “prophets” who are laying out a totally different vision of the future. It is a vision where a few are in power and bring the rest of the nation, the state, the community, the world into line with their vision. These “prophets” are the ones who are influencing those in power in the U.S. (Just look at who visits the White House to advise the president.) And, they are attempting to take over other governments with their vision of the way the world should be.
I’ll be honest. The vision of John of Patmos in Revelation scares me less because it is a vision with a God who loves—a God who loves people, animals, and all creation. It is a vision in which God does not tear down and destroy much to the delight of some but re-creates in God’s image not the images of power and control that so many political leaders find irresistible. But, I am not being fair… because I haven’t shared how I came to that understanding.
Robyn J. Whitaker wrote a commentary: Revelation for Normal People:
A Guide to the Strangest and Most Dangerous Book in the Bible [© 2023 by The Bible for Normal People]. She explains:
Among the reasons Revelation is so confusing and prone to being misinterpreted is that it is highly symbolic and non-linear, and it contains coded references to a bunch of things that probably made some sense in the first century CE, but are not part of our everyday language and worldview today. Therefore, we need to situate Revelation in its original context—the first century CE—to unpack the way it works…
We will situate Revelation in its context as a piece of Christian resistance literature written to help first-century Christ followers navigate life within the Roman Empire. By looking at what images and symbols meant in that ancient time and place, we will discover that Revelation is a highly political, but also deeply theological, text. It offers us a profound way to think about evil as something found in structures and systems, and to ponder what an ethical response to such evil might be. It is also just a little bit weird, which, in my opinion, makes our journey through its pages that much more interesting.
The first century of the Common Era was an anxious time…especially for those small struggling Christian communities. They were in the minority. They were considered heretics both by some Jews and certainly by the Roman Empire. Heretics? Yes, when Caesar is God, anyone who claims to follow a different sovereign is practicing religious heresy and is also a threat to the Pax Romana— the Roman peace. It is no accident that John was confined to a small island and had to write in code.
When I was much younger, I studied Revelation and what scholars call apocalyptic literature. “Apocalypse” does not mean destruction. It means “revelation.” My aunt, who was well into her eighties, had a conversation with me. “All those strange images in Revelation scare me. How do you make any sense out of that?” “Try reading the book in one sitting and them summarizing it in one sentence,” I suggested. “You can’t summarize it in one sentence,” she protested. I gave her my summary: “Things may be tough now but hang in there because God is going to win.” That satisfied her. Does it really satisfy us in 2025?
If evil can become manifest in the Roman Empire and its system of domination, it can become manifest today. The Roman Empire took 75% of the subjugated peoples’ food, skills, and money to provide for the elite back in Rome. The “Peace of Rome” was maintained with the sword, and many paid the ultimate price for giving allegiance to another “kin-dom.” I have been thinking about how evil becomes manifest in systems today. For example, public education is under attack, and that will only benefit those who can afford private education. Health insurance is not universally available in this country, so the wealthy always get the best health care. Do I purchase items or services from companies that are polluting the environment or the earth? I can choose to support or reject systems that are maintained by subjugating many for the benefit of a few.
What we need is a vision. What vision does this church need in 2025? Is it the promise of ultimate victory? Perhaps the better hope is the one John lays out of God’s presence in the New Jerusalem. John writes that God is moving to be with humans at the end. It literally says that God will pitch God’s tent with people as their God. God will be with us. God will wipe every tear from our eyes. And, death will be no more. Robyn J. Whitaker sums it up:
While I’m being a bit literal in my translation here, I think the idea of God pitching God’s tent among the people captures the imagination more than “dwelt.” It is tangible, practical, and evocative. Imagine a God who wants to pitch their tent and camp with us! (Robyn J. Whitaker, Revelation for Normal People: A Guide to the Strangest and Most Dangerous Book in the Bible [© 2023 by The Bible for Normal People])
What we need is a vision that gives us hope. Kenneth Gibble tells this story:
One Christmas I had asked my parents for a new baseball bat and a football helmet. On the night before Christmas, I dreamed that under the tree lay a dirty, battered old helmet and a broken, beat-up bat.
When morning came, I ran downstairs to find a shiny new bat—a Babe Ruth model (Mother and Dad suffered from delusions of grandeur) and a beautiful new helmet. So why do I remember the terrible dream after all these years? Could it be that fulfillment of our desires is of less importance than our longing for them? (Word and Witness, May 1, 1983)
Have we lost any vision? Have we become so focused on bad news that we can’t catch John’s vision of a future in which God pitches God’s tent with us?
Imagine not needing any kind of temple or sanctuary because God is so present with us. Imagine never surrendering to the power of any darkness because God and Christ will be our light. Amid all our worrying about the future…amid planning for the next year and the year after that, we need John’s long view of hope. John tells us the words are “trustworthy and true” (v. 50). When you get past all the philosophical and theological verbiage, what is faith but trust?
Faith—Trust—calls us to hope. That’s what keeps us eighty-year-olds hopeful. That’s what motivates the rest of us to bind ourselves to the one who promises to be with us as we move into an uncertain future. Richar Rohr (83-year-old Franciscan Priest) said, “It is not the fulfillment which drives and calls and enriches humankind, but … the mystery of what-could-yet-be. God’s people are led forward by promises. It is dreams that drive us and hopes that make us happen” [Sojourners, Nov. 1979, p. 18].
“See, the home of God is among mortals. [God] will dwell with them; they will be [God’s] peoples, and God will be with them and be their God; 4 [God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (vv. 3a–4 NRSVUE adapted)
AMEN.