"Have An Apocalyptic Day" Chapter 20: Judgment and Grace

 

Following the return of Christ, John sees an angel imprison Satan for a thousand years. During that time, those who were beheaded for their witness to Jesus are raised to reign with him. At the end of this time, Satan rises once again to deceive humankind. Vast armies of evil surround the saints, but they are instantly defeated by fire from heaven. Some commentators note that Satan does not fight in this war: he is merely the deceiver who tricks a human army into rising against God. At length, Satan is thrown into a lake of fire, and all who have died are raised to face judgment for their deeds. Anyone whose name is not written in the Book of Life is thrown into the lake of fire. 

As a Lutheran Christian, my first instinct is to break out in hives at any mention of judgment according to our "works" or "deeds." I'm a grace person. My core conviction is that salvation is an unmerited gift of grace, through Christ. I believe, to the extent the New Testament speaks cohesively about anything, it speaks to God's grace. We are accepted by God, not because of what we do, but because of what Jesus has already done for us. 

That said, I do believe in the judgment, because I believe in truth. I believe grace and forgiveness are meaningless unless we first understand what the charges were in the first place. We need to know and fully understand what happened: the choices we made, what we did and didn't do, say, or think. Most importantly, we need to know how our choices affected others. Judgment is not my life flashing before my eyes, so much, but my life shown to me through the eyes of others. Beyond my good or ill intentions, judgment is knowing what really happened because of me, and how it felt. Bullies feel the pain and fear of their victims. Liars feel the violation of those they deceive. Gunmen and careless lawmakers learn what it's like to hide under school desks. Tyrants feel the terror of those they imprison. Generals and rulers feel the crush of rubble in buildings they bomb, and the hunger pangs of children they starve. Judgment is telling the truth in a way we never could or would before. 

But Judgment and sentencing are two different things. Judgment is knowing what we have earned for ourselves, which is death. Sentencing is up to God, and in Christ, God has promised mercy. We earn death, we get life. 

I can't accept a heaven that operates on simple amnesia: where joy comes from forgetting, where this life was ultimately a pointless side quest. God promises to wipe tears from our eyes. That means, at first, there will be tears to dry. There will be truth. There will be judgment. And then, there will be grace. 

My poetic interpretation of REVELATION 20

20. A thousand years, the serpent’s locked away,

A thousand years the faithful dead shall reign;

With Christ, the priests, until the Judgment Day,

For them, the second death shall hold no pain.

Unleashed at length is evil’s second wave,

As numerous as sand upon the sea;

Yet fire from heaven brings a fiery grave,

The Devil in the lake of fire shall be.

The great white throne two holy books unveils,

The Book of Works, beside the Book of Life;

The dead are judged, and Death and Hades fail,

The pit itself–flung in the pit of strife!

By God’s grace, in the Book of Life are we:

By faith alone, from death, are we set free.

"Have An Apocalyptic Day." Chapter 19: One Little Word Subdues Him

 

With the fall of Babylon (Which, again, stands for Rome and all other oppressive empires) comes the final battle between good and evil. For as much as it's built up, both in religious culture and in the Book of Revelation itself, the actual battle is a short affair: a single rider descends from heaven on a white horse. His robe and thigh are marked with the words, "King of Kings and Lord of Lords," which suggests this is a vision of Christ himself. From his mouth comes a sword to strike down the Beast and all the kings of the earth who oppose God. 

And in three verses (Rev 19:19-21) it's all over. The beast is captured and his armies are defeated. All are destroyed by the sword of the rider. 

Two things I think are essential for understanding this vision are: 

    1) The rider--i.e., Jesus--does all the fighting. Every force of evil that stands against God are dispatched quickly and easily, not by any human force, but by Jesus, the Word of God.

    2) The "sword" Jesus uses to defeat evil comes "from his mouth." It's so strange, with as literalistic as so much church art and interpretation can be, that so many depictions of this scene (and there are lots) show Jesus with a sword in his hand, held high in a traditional "battle pose", where the actual text says the sword comes "from his mouth." I realize it would look strange (and the pictures that do take it literally are VERY strange), but the intent seems clear: The sword comes from his mouth because it isn't a literal sword. It's the Word of God. It's Jesus' teachings. It's the Good News, that he has already defeated death and evil. 

It's remarkable how universal it is that little kids (myself included) will find sticks outside and immediately imagine themselves as master swordsmen in a duel. It's not just the "Star Wars" generation, although we did get cool sound effects to add to our imaginary battles. But here, near the end of the final book of the Bible, we get a reminder that the most important "weapon" we'll ever have is telling the truth and sharing Jesus' teachings of love, inclusion, justice, reconciliation, and peace. That's the sword that wins the fight. 

To quote Martin Luther's classic hymn, 

"Though hordes of devils fill the land

all threatening to devour us

we tremble not; unmoved we stand

they cannot overpow'r us.

Let this world's tyrant rage;

in battle we'll engage!

His might is doomed to fail; God's judgment must prevail

One little word subdues him."

My Poetic interpretation of REVELATION 19 

19. Praise, salvation, glory, pow’r, to God,

Of hell's great whore, his judgments true and just;

At length, he has avenged his servants’ blood,

God's people, to the Lamb, as bride entrust. 

From heaven's white horse comes a rider true,

His eyes aflame, his new name, none has heard;

Behind, in white, rides heaven's retinue,

With King of Kings and Lord of Lords, God's Word!

“Come, gather, carrion birds from West and East,”

Beckons an angel, standing in the sun,

“Your meal shall be the armies of the beast,”

From rider's mouth, a sword, Truth, overcomes!

Yet only God's, the sword and victory,

The bride, God's peaceful people, shall be free.

"Have An Apocalyptic Day." Chapter 18: Easy Come, Easy Go

 

No sooner does John's vision introduce the "Whore of Babylon" (a personification of Rome), than the fall of Babylon begins. The imagery of foul spirits, birds, and beasts roving the streets makes clear that this city, symbolic of all empires, has become a ghost town. In an hour's time, all the wealth is gone. 

John sees kings, merchants, shipmasters and seafarers weeping over the fallen city. But in this truth-telling vision, even their grief is twisted: they are crying about their lost wealth. They are sad about their nice building materials, their spices, their cattle, and even the human lives they have enslaved. 

A reminder: slavery was the norm, rather than the exception, in human history, and that the New Testament emerged from a culture in which slavery of various forms was commonplace. Even so, John's list of lost possessions in Revelation 18, "choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, slaves--and human lives", to me seems to mock and expose that very institution. To mourn human lives as another bullet point on an insurance claim of lost goods, is to lose our own humanity, and our connection to God. 

We should mourn people, not things. We should love people, not things. If we get it upside down, then John's vision implores us: leave Babylon. Do it now. 

My poetic interpretation of REVELATION 18 

Another angel now patrols her streets

With spotlight and loudspeaker does he wail:

“From fallen Babylon, all folk, retreat!

She mixes twice in her unholy grail!”

In one swift hour, down Babylon is hurled

The merchants and her kings, faroff, survive;

“Such costly silks and linens, gold and pearls!”

They weep for wealth, but not for human lives.

The captains and shipmasters mourn for jewels,

For iron, marble, humans they enslaved;

The lamp is snuffed, and henceforth, darkness rules;

No flute nor trump, from silence, shall be saved.

Rejoice at this, O Heaven’s Progeny!

Let those who value lives, for praise be free.