Friday, May 20, 2011

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

A certain preacher is predicting the rapture tomorrow, and it is absolutely appalling that vicious sorts like that are permitted to monopolize discourse on the Final Days. "People these days," if such a generalization can be permitted in dignified internet discourse, are generally ignorant of what is really in the Bible, so there is a real danger that eschatological (end-times) preaching of the sort peddled by the "May 21rst" crowd will be taken seriously, that people will really think that is what the teaching of the Christian Church is. People can come to accept the view of that sort as real scripture, that the Book of Revelation is about God rescuing the true believers so that they can gloat over the destruction of everyone else.

Which is, of course, not at all what the Book of Revelation is about. St. John wrote to a community that was being persecuted, which was seeing its brothers and sisters slain for the savage delight of an empire that crushed any individual that refused to bow down to it. Was this the promise of the Kingdom? John reminds the community that it is a mere slain lamb, Christ on his Cross, that is able to bring about salvation. Which must mean much to a community that is being slain. For all the doubt and dread that their situation must have offered, John's vision of the heavenly courts is one where everything is assured and the victory already won.

So Revelation is not a vision of a Church gloating in heaven while God rains his hatred on everyone else. It is a book written to a Church that is suffering, indeed to everyone that is suffering, which argues that whatever might happen in this life the arrival of God's Kingdom of love and mercy is assured.

Zach

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