Spiritual Hiccups - Worthy Is the Lamb: The Triumph of Love

I don't really recall ever delving into the book of Revelation during my church life prior to seminary.  Still, I somehow "learned" that Revelation was an exotic book about the end of the world.  I do remember an adult study on Revelation where my family worshiped, but I was still a teen at the time.  For me, Revelation was simply about weird images and Armageddon and not worth much attention.

But now it troubles me deeply that Revelation has been so ignored because in so doing, we have effectively ceded the book to those who irresponsibly misuse it.  Everyone "knows" that Revelation is about God destroying the world in some final, cataclysmic battle, even though no such battle is depicted in the book.  Nor is any rapture to be found there.  Revelation is a difficult book, but it is a book meant to give hope.

I have actually heard people say that the kind and forgiving Jesus of the gospels will be replaced by a warrior Jesus at his return, and they claim Revelation as their proof.  But just look at today's reading from the book.  We are well into John's vision, and he has become distraught that no one is worthy to open the scroll.  But he is told, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

The lion of Judah who has conquered - surely this suggests just the sort of warrior Jesus some Rapture folks anticipate.  But when this lion appears we read, "Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered."  If we had hoped for Jesus the lamb to be transformed into marauding lion, we are disappointed.  For instead, the lion has been transformed into slaughtered lamb.  And here is a recurring theme from Revelation, the idea that "conquer" means to patiently endure, even to die for the faith, just that the lamb has done and so conquered.

Some may say that this is all well and good but not terribly significant.  What difference does it make how one obscure book in the New Testament is understood.  But because Revelation is popularly understood (incorrectly, I would add) as describing the end of the world and how God brings that about, its picture of God can become the dominant one.  Yes, Jesus came all meek and mild, forgiving folks right and left, but you've had your chance.  That was only a temporary reprieve.  Forgiveness is over.  Time to settle scores.

But when we realize that the fierce lion we thought was in Revelation turns out to be a lamb who conquers through being slain, then a God of love and forgiveness can no longer be a temporary reprieve.  The God of love Jesus reveals in the gospels is the same God found in Revelation, a work of hope that insists, no matter how bad things may appear, the Lamb and Love will triumph.

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