Many older churches use a three year cycle of readings, the lectionary. For about a month, we will be reading selections from the book of Revelation. (Notice it is singular, as it is the translation of apocalypse in Greek, meaning revelation in the sense of uncovering).
Few books in the Bible have been so misunderstood and misused. I remember when I just started out in ministry, a woman screamed at me after a funeral as she did not like the book of Revelation. (I suppose now that it was a symbol, as I rather doubt she actually even perused it). The vision was transmitted to seven actual churches on a Roman road in present-day Turkey. Wondering if they are indeed with God, they are shown that they are part of a movement that moves inexorably to God’s vision for a better world. That is to be an encouragement as they face opposition, even persecution in their lives.
In America, a relatively new interpretive model has taken hold of the popular imagination.John Nelson Darby in the 1830s worked out a systematic interpretation of apocalyptic material in the bible and wrote on the book of Revelation itself. His method may have fallen by the wayside, but its viewpoints were included in the notes of the very popular Scofield Bible of the 20th Century. The Left Behind series is deeply indebted to this treatment. TV preachers of the imminent end, such as Hagee or van Impe are the descendants of this viewpoint.
Yet, a supposedly secular culture has embraced elements of Darbyite thought and transformed it into their own purposes. Look at the profusion of interest in end time scenarios in popular culture. Look at the media portrayals of zombies as the format that has replaced, say, the Western.
Befuddled by this viewpoint, and frankly embarrassed by it, the older established churches ceded the field and proceeded on their own trajectory.It is a cleavage point in american relgion. One side sees a world sliding straight to Hell, and another sees with Dr. King that the arc of the universe is long, but it points toward justice. One view is essentially passive, and out of a sense of powerlessness throws the course of life upstairs, while the other viewpoint sees us as intimately involved in the work of God to make the world answer the lord’s Prayer, on earth as it is in heaven.
So America is dotted with churches who are convinced that the end times can be predicted by reading various passages as a sort of code. They make the assumption that the predictions are directed at America, even though it was an unknown land to the writers of the bible. It does not seem to matter that prediction after prediction is wrong.In this view of history, we take note of every problem as a downhill slide to oblivion. If “things get worse and worse” then God’s hand will be forced to usher in a new age.
For instance, this Sunday we will be introduced to the figure of Jesus imagined as a slan little lamb. This crucial image often gets s little attention. C.S. Lewis made his central Christ image a lion, but Revelation chooses a sacrificial image.Eugene Peterson in his Reversed Thunder sees it as a vital image in this compendium of images drawn from the Old Testament.One would expect the powerul preening Lion of Judah, a symbol of power and strength. No, there in the throne room vision is a little slain lamb. God’s power is not demonstrated here as an exalted militarized fantasy of control.Revelation’s core image tell us that god work through the power of sacrifice, of a love that will lay down its life for friends.
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