Understanding Revelation: A Brief Background

When I was in 8th grade, my CCD (Catholic catechism) teacher had us read Revelation. I don’t remember much, but I remember being terrified. He taught us that Revelation depicted things that would happen to Christians in the end times, and he did not teach us any skills to interpret Scripture in any way other than a literal way (which I should say is not the norm for the Catholic Church). As a 13-year-old, I became incredibly fearful of Revelation and I refused to read it again until much later, when I was in college. Thankfully, by then, I was given a better framework for understanding Revelation and how to responsibly read it as a Christian.

Image result for christ in majesty national shrine revelation
Christ in Majesty, Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC

Revelation can be a frightening and overwhelming book of the Bible, and it is almost certainly one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted books of the Bible. It seems like every other day, we hear news of some person or group predicting the end of the world based on their interpretation of Revelation. It seems like every other day, someone is making conjecture that event x, y, or z is a sign that the end is imminent.

Revelation is a particular genre of writing called apocalyptic literature, which comes from the Greek word “apokalypsis,” meaning “revelation.” Apocalyptic literature is a unique style of writing that is not very common in the Bible. It is not meant to be read in the same way as the Gospels, or the Epistles, the Prophets, the Wisdom literature, or any other genre found in the Bible.

Apocalyptic literature is meant to do several things:

  1. to reveal truth to a human recipient
  2. to act as a response to some crisis, real or imagined – social, political, theological, existential
  3. to give comfort and hope to people who were overwhelmed, confused, frightened, or persecuted
  4. to assert an alternative understanding of the world and to emphasize God’s ultimate victory
  5. to protest against the prevailing worldview of the dominant culture

In order to accomplish its purposes, apocalyptic literature is characterized by a few traits:

  1. a cosmic struggle between good and evil where the good will ultimately triumph
  2. heavy reliance upon symbols – creatures, numbers, etc.
  3. highly dramatized scenes filled with other-worldly visions

Revelation was written in the late 1st century, in a context where Christians were in the minority; a time well before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire. It was written in a time, where, in fact, Rome saw Christians as a subversive threat to the empire because they refused to participate in ritual worship of the emperor as a divine being (the imperial cult), something required of all citizens. Christians were faced with the dilemma of either conforming to or resisting the obligations of empire. For those who chose to resist and disobey, the cost was extreme hardship, and often execution. John’s visions in Revelation were meant to convey hope to these early Christians and to urge them to continue living faithfully, even under the threat of persecution and death.

Though the strange symbolism of Revelation can make it hard to understand, several themes emerge throughout the book:

  1. The sovereignty of God – God as the ultimate power in the universe; the one who creates and the one who brings it to completion
  2. Radical monotheism – no power on earth or heaven is worthy of allegiance but God alone
  3. Exalted Christology – Christ shares the heavenly throne with God and is the object of heavenly and earthly worship
  4. Salvation – Emphasis on God’s care for the world and its inhabitants, yearning to provide health, wholeness, peace, security; in other words, salvation for all creation
  5. Judgment and warning – those who would be the people of God must be obedient to God
  6. Non-violent lifestyle – Jesus conquers not by violence, but by his own death; not by a sword but a cross. The only conquering that is consistent with the values of God is conquering that occurs through self-sacrifice and love
  7. Hope – God, not death, will have the last word, and God is always present with God’s people; the way things are is not the way things will always be

As we go through the text, we’ll be able to see these themes articulated. It is my hope that we will all come to a deeper understanding of God’s saving work and the demands of Christian discipleship; not only for the original hearers of Revelation, but also for us today.

Sources that I am using to direct this current study of Revelation include (though may not be limited to) are:

So – now that I’ve shared a brief background to Revelation, in the next post, we’ll dive into the text and look at Revelation 1-3!

A note: I will not be addressing the popular theology known as dispensationalism in anything other than an occasional and superficial way. Dispensationalism includes the ideas of rapture of believers and tribulation for those left behind as literal experiences that the world has yet to face (as depicted in fiction like the Left Behind series). Dispensationalism was made popular by an Anglican priest-turned-sectarian of the 19th century named John Nelson Darby, and further developed by Cyrus Scofield, the author of the Scofield Reference Bible. While dispensationalism has made its way into some evangelical theology, in many ways, it often misconstrues Scripture, leans towards a literal and futurist interpretation only, and tends to view the whole of the Bible through the lens of the end times. There is not room for me to adequately unpack the issues with dispensationalism in this blog series without detracting from the things I believe are important to highlight in Revelation. If you are interested in reading a good synopsis of the rise of this theology and why it is problematic, read End Times: Rapture, Antichrist, Millenium by James M. Efird. It is a short and concise book (96 pages) that does an excellent job of explaining the rise of dispensationalism and its theological and biblical issues. Over the coming weeks, I hope to share another way to understand Revelation – one that is both theologically and biblically sound, grounded in the tradition of the Church and in faithful scholarship.

Squashing Spiders, Squashing One Another

Image result for spiderThis morning something TERRIBLE happened on my way to Bible study. There I was, driving along, and then all of a sudden, I saw these legs and this body slowly lowering itself down right in front of my face. A SPIDER. What nerve of this creature to drop down in front of me while driving! Who did he think he was? Thankfully, I was driving slowly on a side street at the time, because I proceeded to freak out, flailing my arms around, fidgeting in my seat, looking for the closest thing I could find to get the spider away from me. I proceeded to flick it onto the dashboard, and then grabbed a napkin from my glove compartment, and I squashed that sucker. I squashed him good. All of this happened within a few seconds. But as soon as I squashed the spider, this thought crept into my mind, unbidden: “Why did I have to go and kill it?”

I was bothered by the fact that my gut instinct was to squash the creature who was doing nothing but going about his spidery business, just as God created him to do. As I thought about the question that had crept into my mind, I thought to myself, “I killed it because I’m scared of it.” In squashing the spider, I exhibited a most basic human response – to eliminate that which we fear. I went on to Bible study and left that thought on the back burner, but now it has come back to the front of my mind.

Fear seems to be the great motivator these days. I feel it all around me. And all around me, I sense a desire to squash that which we don’t understand; to squash that which causes us to fear. The rhetoric in our country increasingly reflects the desire to squash that which we fear. There is an ever-increasing polarization taking place – we see this exemplified between the political left and right, we see this exemplified between conservative and progressive churches, we see this exemplified in the struggle to come to terms with our racial history and identity as a country. We see this exemplified in so many arenas of life.

Where is the dialogue? Where is the deep listening? Where are we recognizing and honoring the image of Christ in one another? Those things seem to have been thrown out the window in favor of our baser human instinct to squash one another through a barrage of disgust and hateful words.

James 1:19-20, 26-27 says this: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires…. Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight reign on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

It seems to me that the opposite is so often true – we, myself included, become angry or offended quickly, and want to jump in with our opinions or moral outrage, and in doing so, we remove any opportunity to deeply listen to one another. We want to squash our opposition because we don’t want to entertain the thought that we might have something to learn from them. We are afraid of what that might mean for how we live our lives.

For those of us who profess faith in Christ, he calls us to a different path than the path we now find ourselves on as a country. Christ calls us to be deep listeners to one another, and to truly hear the vulnerabilities and the injustices that plague our world, even when we, ourselves, may have little to no personal experience of those injustices. As James writes, true religion is caring for the orphan and the widow – in other words, the least of these. This is not convenient or easy, and it can, in fact, be very uncomfortable for those who are not at the margins of society.

This morning I read an article about the need for white Christians to invest in really learning about racism in our country – past and present. Personally, I believe racism is still one of the biggest issues in our country today, but there is so much contention over whether or not that is true. I absolutely understand the impulse to say that it’s not such a big deal these days – and that is easy for someone like me to say, since I don’t experience the injustices that many in our country do. And for so many of us, we simply want to squash an alternative narrative that suggests otherwise – that racism is still very present. To acknowledge that racism is a real and active evil means that we have to change, even those of us who believe that we do not exhibit characteristics of racism or prejudice – and not just superficially, but deeply. And that is a scary prospect.

I keep thinking about the spider I killed this morning. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had slowed down and taken the time to approach it differently. But I can’t undo it now, it’s dead.

Image result for listeningWe cannot continue on the path of fast anger and loose tongues, unleashed to squash one another, but we still have time to choose to act differently toward one another and to embrace a posture of deep listening to those we do not understand; to those whom we fear. I too, am learning that I need to take James’ words to heart. All too often, I want to share the first thing that comes to my mind – I want to express disgust and moral outrage over so many things. I want to drown out those with whom I disagree. I want to squash their views and promote mine. But that gets us nowhere good. Today, may we all take these words to heart: let us be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, and may we seek to listen to one another and see one another through the eyes of Jesus Christ.

-Cindy+

Footwashing and Faithfulness

Every Monday morning like clockwork, I walk into Tudor’s Biscuit World, go up to the counter and order my usual (decaf) coffee. Then I sit down at a table with several folks. We share food, and conversation, and then we open up our Bibles. We’ve been going through the Gospel of John for the past I don’t know how may weeks. Sometimes it feels like forever. In fact, I can’t even remember what we studied before we decided to dive into John! John’s writing is heady and dense. Jesus is far more philosophical and verbose in this fourth gospel than he is in the other three. We’ve spent ages talking about Jesus’ identity and the failure of those around him to truly grasp the nature of that identity and the kingdom that Jesus is working to bring about.

We sit in the midst of people coming in and out of the restaurant – ordering their food, having conversations, and then going on about their day. We sit in the midst of TV screens flashing the latest news and workers doing their daily tasks. We sit in the midst of a world that is meant to be growing toward the kingdom of God.

Image result for footwashingToday, we started studying John 13 – where Jesus gets down on his hands and knees and washes his disciples’ stinking, dirty feet. It’s not a glamorous job. It’s not a job for the master. It’s not a job for the guest of honor. And yet, it is what Jesus does because it is who he is. And in washing his disciples’ feet, he shows them the nature of God’s kingdom. It is a kingdom of humility and servanthood. It is a kingdom of messiness and vulnerability.

It’s no coincidence that immediate following the footwashing, Jesus and his disciples gather around a table and Jesus speaks of the one who is to betray him, Judas Iscariot. Judas has always been a controversial figure in Christianity. Was it inevitable that he would betray Jesus? Was Judas damned for his actions? What motivated him to betray Jesus? We don’t fully know the answers to any of those questions, but I have some speculations about what led Judas to betray Jesus, and I think it has something to do with this common theme we find throughout John and the Synoptic Gospels – that even those closest to Jesus fail to grasp the nature of the kingdom that he has come to inaugurate.

Related imagePerhaps Judas betrayed Jesus because he just could not grasp a kingdom characterized be servanthood and sacrifice. After all, that hardly translates well into a world of empire and oppression. How in the world is humility supposed to overcome the forces of the world? How is it supposed to overcome a powerful emperor and an even more powerful army? I suspect that Judas was getting impatient with Jesus, wondering when he’d start getting to the business of overthrowing Roman oppression and establishing a new rule for God’s people. Even though Judas had been present for Jesus’ miracles and teachings, he did not understand Jesus’ work in bringing about the kingdom. Now that they had entered Jerusalem, maybe Judas thought it was time for Jesus to stop messing around and to get down to the work of building a revolution – of showing his power and using it to subjugate Rome.

But Judas had it all wrong. He completely ignored the fact that time and time again, Jesus refuses to exert power over others. Jesus has demonstrated consistently that his kingdom is about giving up power, not grasping after it. Judas’ betrayal may have been motivated by what he thought were good intentions. But when it comes down to it, he failed to trust Jesus and the mission to which Jesus called the disciples: to wash one another’s feet, just as Jesus washed theirs.

All of this talk about Judas and his betrayal got me thinking today. It made me think about what it means to be faithful to Jesus and his kingdom. The temptation to grasp for power is great, and Christianity has a muddy history when it comes to seeking and exerting power. Whenever Christianity has become entwined with empire, this happens. And whenever Christianity becomes entwined with empire, it betrays Jesus and his kingdom. We like to demonize Judas for his betrayal of Jesus, and yet our own history as a Church is bursting at the seams with the same betrayal. It has been happening from the forced conversions of the Christian Roman Empire, the Crusades, the Inquisition, through today. We live in a time and place where Christianity continues to grasp for power – we see this in the constant talk of trying to make America a Christian nation by force – by political manipulations and rhetoric, and through the legislation of morality. And we do it through backroom deals and for exchanges of money and power. Like Judas, we may have good intentions of wanting to see a Christian world, and yet our striving for and exertion of power subvert the very kingdom Jesus set out to establish.

I can’t pretend like my thoughts are totally fleshed out. That’s the nature of studying Scripture and of Christian discipleship. Our theology is never complete. And yet, as I dwell on Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet and Judas’ betrayal, I can’t help but think that we, I, am not so different from Judas. I struggle to imagine the alternative of Jesus’ kingdom in the midst of a world filled with violence and unjust power dynamics. I struggle to understand the way of the cross when I perceive that exerting power might be the only way to stop oppression and injustice. I’m just like Judas in that way. So I ask God to do this: May God work in my heart so that I may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, living his way, working for his kingdom, rather than the kingdom I think he should bring. May he teach me to learn and live the way of footwashing and faithfulness.

– Cindy+