Did you see Jesus on Sunday?
As a church, in our various groups, we’re reading through Revelation, where John tells us what he saw and heard while “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (Rev 1:10). We should not expect to experience the anointing of the Spirit like John did as one who was chosen to write words of Scripture, but as we read in 1 Corinthians 1:30: “You are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption…” If we, like John, are in Jesus, are we not also caught up in the Spirit on every Lord’s day, into the presence of Jesus, sitting at the right hand of the Father?
When I’m putting our youngest two boys to bed, the most interesting conversations often happen. The other day Calum, the five year-old, asked me, “Where is Jesus in church?” Their experience of church is a bit odd, having grown up meeting for church in our living room, but they know, in a way I sometimes struggle to, that it is truly church, just like when we were able to meet with you all during the summer. But where is Jesus in all this?
In the Gospel reading this week, we went with Jesus up on the mountain and, with his disciples, received his words: “Blessed are…” Jesus gave us a picture of the good life, the life of one who like the blessed man of Psalm 1 is “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.” But he did not only give us a picture of the good life; he, the Blessed Man, lived the good life and died as the perfect sacrifice so that you and I can be in him. And what made his life good? Comfort, security, loving and understanding family and friends, riches and influence? Of course not! When we consider Jesus’ life, the goodness we see is in him, not in his circumstances. Jesus made his life good by giving it to his Father: on the cross we see him poor in spirit, mourning, meek (gentle, repaying evil with good), hungry and thirsty—for righteousness, not for sour wine!—merciful, pure in heart, the true peacemaker, persecuted for righteousness’ sake, reviled and persecuted with all kinds of evil uttered against him: enduring the shame for the joy set before him. This is the one:
Who pardons your sin
And heals every sickness
And out of the pit redeems your life
And crowns you with his love and compassion
And satisfies your soul with good.
He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean:
His blood availed for me.
When John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, he tells us he heard a voice behind him, and he turned to see the voice that was speaking to him (Rev 1:10 and 12). May we also turn, and see Jesus, and seeing him, be made more like him.
Hannah
Why Study Revelation?
For some of you, that mean seem like a strange question. It shows us what will happen in the end times, right? Of course we should study it, because then we will know what to expect!
If you join one of the Bible studies, you will be surprised to find out that “end times prophecy” is NOT going to be the lens through which we read Revelation. The way most modern American Christians read it actually isn’t the way the Church in ages past generally understood it. Other lenses have been used (“end times” is one of the four common lenses), and we are going to use one of those other lenses—one that understands it as a prophetic description of something that happened to the Church about 40 years after the ascension of Christ. In other words, our primary mode of interpretation will be looking backward to history, not forward to the end times.
This may stir some of you to re-ask the initial question. If it already happened, then why read it?
The answer to this question is simple: God is consistent, and people are repetitive. The same things confront the Church, over and over. And God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (the Alpha and Omega). Even though most of what Revelation describes happened nearly 2000 years ago, we should expect to see it repeated. In other words, even if Revelation isn’t primarily about the end times, it will still teach us a lot about what to expect in them. And more importantly, it will show us a great deal about our current moment, and what God might be doing in it.
I hope that your appetite is whetted! We are leaping into the study next week. Unlike other studies, we are providing an introduction and weekly reading guides. These will be distributed by the leaders of the study, so make certain you let the leaders know if you will be joining in.
In Christ, the Alpha and Omega,
Steven+
Scripture Reflections
There is a theme in the background of last Sunday’s Gospel reading (Luke 2:41-52). As a boy, discussing the Law with the teachers in Jerusalem, Jesus caused amazement—he was no threat to these men and they could delight in his precocious understanding. Around 20 years later, though, these same leaders, threatened by every word he spoke, would condemn Jesus to death. The boy at whom they marveled became the man whom they had to silence. He was now a rival and a danger.
This same story occurs in the life of David, and before that, in Joseph. A gifted young man, as he ages, becomes a threat to those who are desperate to retain power. Joseph’s brothers were so threatened by his dreams of leadership that they were willing to kill him. Saul rejoiced in David’s martial success until Saul felt his own position was threatened. This pattern is really about our inability to receive our Savior, because he threatens our position as lord of our own lives, but it shows up in history regularly.
In my mind, I call this the “Saul Syndrome.” God sends someone to help, but we reject him or her because the helper threatens our pride, self-sufficiency, or control. People we should receive and rejoice in are rejected, because we don’t want to be corrected or take second place. It happens in all of our lives—we know best and we aren’t going to cede our position! The one who would be a helper becomes a threat.
I wonder if we would think differently in these moments if we imagined ourselves as the leaders of Jerusalem. Certainly, the people whom we are inclined to ignore aren’t Jesus, but what if we recognized that our dismissal of them might be a silencing of God’s very answers to our prayers? The leaders of Jerusalem were praying for the Messiah to come and God’s deliverance, after all. They just didn’t like what the answer to that prayer looked like, when it showed up.
I hope and pray that we would be humble enough to receive God’s messenger (and message!), no matter how threatening it might be. Pray with me that the Spirit would make our hearts willing!
In Christ,
Steven+