* On May 25, Pastor Carl is starting a “read-along” sermon series based on Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett’s book Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple.
There are three types of people when it comes to math: those who get it and those who don’t (if you are not chuckling, you are in the latter group). Well, there are two types of people (no joke) when it comes to studying the book of Revelation: those who love it and those who don’t. Those who love it collect books and attend studies and conferences to help them ferret out all the obscure references to Russia, the rapture, the Antichrist, Israel, and maybe even the good ole’ USA—those who don’t plan long vacations or major illnesses around their pastor's upcoming end times sermon series.
People in both groups have been told, with just a bit too much confidence, that a careful reading of the Bible and analysis of current events proved that Jesus was going to return and wrap things up on May 21, 2011 or in the year 2017 (previous “experts” had predicted the imminent end of the world in 500, 1260, 1368, 1492. 1504, 1533, 1673, 1694, 1700, 1977, 1979, 1984, 2000, when Bill Clinton or Barack Obama were elected…well, you get the picture). Those of my age were assured that the return of Christ “had to” happen within one generation of the founding of the modern state of Israel.
I was raised to believe that the book of Revelation is about the antichrist, the millennium, and the rapture. I was taught that it was full of literal images of what was soon to come: tanks, helicopters, people suddenly vanishing into thin air just in time to escape a horrific time of tribulation. In short, it was a book of predictions about how God was going to rain down hell on everyone else but scoop people like me up to heaven just in time to miss the action. Its primary purpose, according to fundamentalist teachers, was to scare people into accepting Jesus, and sometimes it did.
If you think that’s what Revelation is about, stop right now, turn to the last book in the Bible, and count how many times the words rapture, antichrist, and millennium appear. You’ll be surprised to learn that the answer is a big fat zero. Now let’s compare that to the words Jesus, Heaven, Earth, throne, new, saints, angels, Kingdom, and glory. They occur a total of 223 times. Maybe our focus has been on the wrong area. Maybe we’re missing something that will teach us to love a book of the Bible that has long been ignored, misinterpreted, and avoided.
McKnight and Matchett call the approach that most of us are familiar with “the speculative approach” to understanding the book of Revelation. This framework leads to fatalism and escapism, missing John’s true call to dissident discipleship in the here and now. What most American Christians, particularly those who are evangelicals or fundamentalists, haven’t been taught is that the speculative, rapture-oriented, approach to understanding Revelations is uniquely American and can be traced to a woman named Margaret MacDonald who claimed to have a series of revelations about the future that included what she called the rapture.
Another mistake made by many, including me for most of my life, is a failure to recognize that the Bible includes different types of literature that shouldn’t all be read the same way. One doesn’t read a book of law (Leviticus) the same way one reads a biography (the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). One doesn’t read a book of poems (Psalms or Song of Solomon) the same way as a book of history (Exodus or the book of Acts).
Revelation is a unique form of literature called an apocalypse, which literally means an unveiling. We need to read it more like the Chronicles of Narnia or Pilgrim’s Progress than the New York Times. It’s full of rich imagery and powerful metaphors about the dangers of evil demagogues, corrupt empires, and lukewarm Christians. It’s a powerful call to action, not a roadmap for escape. McKnight and Matchett wrote, "Revelation is about discipleship, about faithfully following the Lamb into resistance, not resignation." N.T. Wright takes a similar approach to understanding Revelation, asserting, "The victory of the Lamb is not achieved by force but by faithfulness - by bearing witness even in suffering."
Here’s what I’ve learned to love about the book of Revelation: it’s as relevant now as it was when John wrote it. It critiques the emptiness of opulence and the glorification of military might and violence. It’s a bold slap in the face to those people or corporations who exploit others economically. It’s a comeuppance to arrogant politicians and the religious tagalongs who cozy up to them. It’s not a promise of escape, it’s a call to resist.
And most of all, it’s a raucous celebration of the victory of a lamb who will one day conquer all evil, carrying the weight of all government on his shoulders, seeking and saving all who have lost their way, who stands right now at the door of our lives asking us to open it wide and let him in. It’s a book honest enough to tell us that hard times will come, and good enough to assure us that if we are faithful to the end, Christ will return, evil will be defeated, Eden will be restored, Heaven and Earth will be connected, the dead in Christ will rise, and together we will reign with Jesus forever and ever.
And then the book closes with these words, “Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.”
