This blog is part of a series on our Fall study topic: Waging Peace. On Sunday mornings and in a special event on October 26, St. Stephen’s is embracing Gods’ vision of a world healed in justice and peace. This course focuses on laying a secular and religious groundwork for real change in our community.
Revelation is, in my opinion, the coolest book in the Bible. Unfortunately, it’s also the most used and abused book, too! As we look forward to this Sunday’s “Waging Peace” lesson on Revelation, I wanted to share with you 5 surprising facts about this wild book.
1. It’s about here and now, not the great beyond.
Revelation is written in a literary style called “Apocalyptic,” which is a special way of using a metaphorical story to convey a lesson about life on earth. In apocalyptic literature, many of the characters and objects are metaphors for contemporary actors. For John of Patmos, the author of Revelation, much of the demonic activities are stand-ins for the bloody and colonialist Roman Empire. He wants Christians to see their lives of faith as subverting Rome’s might, and he reassures early Christians of God’s victory in Jesus.
2. The violent imagery is a call to non-violence.
In Revelation, violence is a tool of the enemy. Plagues and horrors and blood are tools of Rome to keep down the Christians, who must endure these trials to gain victory in Christ. God only wreaks violence on the forces of evil, not on faithful—or even average—people. Violence never provokes repentance, and even in the last battle at Armageddon, Jesus wins with his Word, which comes from his mouth like a sword. Evil is bloody; good is bloodless. This is a sign to early Christians that the way to conquer was to endure, not to fight.
3. Evil destroys evil.
One of the most provocative images in Revelation is that of… ahem… “lady” Babylon. She ls seen as both seductive and grotesque, and she rides atop a dragon, with which she destroys and terrorizes those she opposes. It is very common to depict famous cities or nations as fair maidens, like “lady Liberty”, “Columbia,” or the French “Marianne.” Here, Babylon is a stand-in for Rome. Eventually, the dragon that Lady Babylon rides devours her, symbolizing that the terror which Rome inflicts on its people will ultimately be its undoing. Evil turns on evil, whereas good things are never deceitful.
4. Revelation is written with humor.
At one point in Revelation, a great eagle, symbolizing God’s might and judgment, flies over the earth, crying “Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants o the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!” The Greek word (Revelation’s original language) for “woe,” is “ouai” or pronounced “ooo-aye”, which sounds just like the sound an eagle would make “ooo-aye! Ooo-aye! Ooo-aye!” [GO BIRDS!]
5. Heaven is not some far-off place.
The final scenes of Revelation do not involve good people getting sucked up into space to go to heaven. Rather, God brings heaven down to earth, and heaven and earth are forever united. God walks among God’s creation, wiping the tears from our faces. There is a tree of life and a river flowing by it, and God will be among us. All of creation is redeemed and restored, and it’s a vision of a singular, physical loving state. Christians look forward to a new, restored creation, not being saved from a fallen earthly plane. We celebrate that our loved ones are in heaven, as in God, the future reality of the new creation is timeless, past, present and the future. Jesus is described as the “alpha and the omega,” reflecting the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. He is the one "who is and who was and who is to come.”
I hope these 5 little factoids make you think about Revelation in a new and interesting way! For more ways to encounter the Bible, come to our Bible studies on Mondays from 1PM to 2:30 PM and on Wednesday evenings from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM. And please be sure to join us for our Waging Peace Sunday Seminars after church and for the Waging Peace Community Forum on October 26 from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
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