Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
Imagine you have a leader who believes he is an unquestionable god. Where being in charge isn’t enough, but he insists on being worshiped as well! Imagine a country where loyalty oaths aren’t voluntary, but mandatory. Where not participating in the oath will ruin your career, or worse. Imagine a country where the leader fawns over anyone who lavishes him with praise, but is volcanic with rage at the slightest hint of disloyalty. Imagine a country where the nation’s poor fight wars simply to make others rich. Imagine a country where even TALKING about ideas like healing for all, the hungry having enough to eat, and clean water for all… where those ideas are demonized and called treasonous. Imagine you lived in a country that exports destruction around the world and throws people in cages for the heinous crime of simply not being born in the right place or time.
If you can imagine that, then you can imagine the Roman Empire as it was when the Book of Revelation was written. We’ve had a number of lessons from Revelation in this season, but I’ve happily found other lessons to talk about these past few weeks because… well, let’s face it… Revelation is sorta, kinda creepy… at least on the surface. It was written that way on purpose. Not on purpose to be creepy but written that way to grab people’s attention! These people lived in a daily attention-grabbing-train-wreck of a world, happening 24/7 right outside their front doors! This book was written to get the attention of a people who had been so beaten down that they couldn’t even imagine any sort of future, let alone a good one. This was the “feed the Christians to the lions” era. They lived with the daily horror of news of their friends and family meeting violent deaths, living in deep injustice and suffering in ongoing persecution. To grab the attention of people living THAT sort of life, this book had to OUT-ATTENTION-GRAB the REAL-LIFE crazy of their lives.
The other reason this book was written this way, was so it could be passed off as a work of fiction and not propaganda calling out the Emperor. That’s why they wrote about a mythical beast, with a spooky, cryptic number for a name! The people reading it would know that Caesar Nero’s name, written first in Greek, and then transliterated into Hebrew… added up to Six Hundred and Sixty Six, but the emperor and his minions would have no idea! This coded message painted Nero as the ANTI-CHRIST... not because he was some sort of supernatural beast, but because he ran the world in a way that was literally ANTI-CHRIST’s way of doing things!
The whole of Revelation goes back and forth between reminding people that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is NOT on the one hand… and on the other hand painting a picture of what God actually intends for the whole of creation. In today’s lesson we get more of the “what God intends” and not the fantastical baddies and beasties! In today’s lesson we get the “revelation” that God intends a world with open gates and without walls… a place that welcomes ALL nations! We are shone a place where there is no darkness. NOT just a place where some guy tries to paint himself like a Roman sun god, but a place where the One True God is on the throne and all of the world’s darkness… the darkness of racism, sexism, violence, nationalism, disease, war and every form of supremacy fades to oblivion because of the brilliance of God’s light and love.
This lesson paints a picture of the world where the water of life, flows like crystal, down the middle of the public streets… available for ALL to drink, regardless of the city in which you live or the color of your skin. The water isn’t OWNED or controlled by any sort of Caesar… The water flows freely from the throne of God! This vision reveals the Tree of Life, which bears abundant fruit every single month of the year! There is never a time of hunger, whether that is a hunger for food, or for justice, or equality, or dignity. When Jesus is LORD and Caesar is NOT… everyone has all that they need AND everyone has life in abundance! Because Jesus is LORD and Caesar is NOT… health, healing and wholeness is available to all of creation and found as freely and abundantly as leaves on a tree!
The book of Revelation wasn’t written to be a creepy, supernatural, fortune telling book. It was written to be a message of HOPE to a people ruled by a horribly insecure human being, living out of his brokenness, paranoia, and greed. It was a word of HOPE to a people who were ruled by a person with un-checked power, enabled by others around them who had fooled themselves into believing that they could manipulate the Beast to do their bidding, until the Beast inevitably turned on them as well. It was written to provide a vision for the people to hope for and a vision for them to work toward.
It was written for them... AND itwas ALSO written for us. It was also written, so that if any future generation should ever have the bad fortune of living in an empire, ruled by a paranoid king who fancies himself as a god to be worshiped… If we ever should find ourselves in that sort of terrible spot, we too would be reminded that God’s intention for OUR world is still that same sort of inclusive, compassionate, caring, world without gates or walls. A world where the thirst for justice is satisfied by a crystal clear, ever-flowing river and where a hunger for dignity, purpose and peace is fed to fullness. Revelation was also written, so that if we should, in some future terrible time, ever find ourselves living in an empire, ruled by a narcissistic king who fancies himself as the all-knowing savior of the world… If we ever found ourselves in that sort of terrible spot, we too would then be able to hold onto that same HOPE and that same PROMISE that this book gave the people back in Nero’s day. The HOPE and the PROMISE that every emperor is eventually toppled by the weight of their own hubris, and every oppressive empire eventually falls. So if that day should ever come for us, may we read this again and remember, that no matter what horrible things happen in the world around us, one thing alone remains true… Jesus is LORD and that, my friends, means that Caesar, by whatever name or number he might go by in our time... IS… ABSOLUTELY AND EMPHATICALLY… NOT! Amen.
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