In today's reading from Revelation, we meet "the Lion of the tribe of Judah" who "has conquered." I don't suppose this is all that surprising. John's vision is calling the faithful of his day to remain steadfast in the face of persecution and death because God will soon act. And the Lion of Judah as a stock way of speaking of the Messiah. What is suprising is that this Lion turns out to be a slaughtered Lamb.Because of the violent imagery depicted in John's visions, some Christians envision a very different Jesus who returns at the end of time. In their view, the Jesus of gospels was meek and mild and went to the cross without protest. But when Jesus comes back, it will be different. He will be "kicking butt and taking names," as the saying goes.
Yet in Revelation we meet a Lamb instead of a Lion. And this Lamb has conquered by being slaughtered. And John calls for the Christians in Asia to conquer in the same manner, by remaining faithful even when it leads to death. It seems to me that seeing an avenging Messiah in Revelation is more the product of some readers' desires than it is what is revealed in John's vision.
The Apostle Paul writes of the cross as God's greatest demonstration of power, but we would still prefer God to act more like us. And just as people of Jesus' day rejected him because he did not exercise power the way they expected a Messiah to do, so many of us still hope for a sword wielding Jesus to show up and act just like the Messiah those 1st Century Jews expected.
Man, this cross business, this power made perfect in weakness thing, is sure hard to embrace. Why can't God be more like me?
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