words from wick

Rev 6:12-17 “When he opened the sixth seal…”

Unfortunately there are many who read these verses, and begin to watch for earthquakes. Their eyes are trained to the skies, looking for evidence of the sun becoming black, the moon appearing blood-red, and stars falling from the sky. They watch the world news, and hear of natural disasters with drool hanging off their lips, hoping everything comes crashing down as a sign of Jesus’ returning.

Thankfully, these verses contain much more hope and transformational New Life than that. What we read here are words symbolizing a cosmic “upheaval”. John is writing to a community by the sea, well aware of how travelers know where they are and where they are going. Navigators use the sun, the moon, the stars, and islands/mountains as landmarks.

John had just finished talking about the faithful who have passed from this fallen world in verses 9-11. Now he moves his focus to those who find themselves living apart from God in a world He is breaking into. And the “breaking into” being discussed here? The presence of God embodied in the Church.

When the Church is faithfully living as the presence of the resurrected Jesus in a broken world, the impact on the world is as noticeable as such cosmic upheavals. From the highest leaders to the lowliest servants, anyone living according to their own natures will continue to lose footing as God’s Kingdom becomes realized here and now.

He ends this section with those people crying out to be hidden from the “wrath of God”. This is hard for some people to swallow, noting that so much of scripture speaks of God as a “God of Love”. To quote Dr.Mulholland, “if we began to walk off the roof of this building, you wouldn’t accuse gravity of being retributive or vengeful, but you would surely experience its’ wrath.”

God’s nature is Love, and His Kingdom is one of infinite sacrificial Love. To those who have built up an entire existence against this Love, the Church moves in the world as an extremely disorienting and radical force. Not as a weapon, but as Truth revealing, New Life bringing, Kingdom establishing presence of God.

May we live a bit less self-stabilized this week…

In thinking about what has changed in a world that has experienced the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, it points us to the forces undone. Believing that much of what we read in Revelation has happened already, or is happening now, it’s always made me wonder about this rider that was given “a fourth” of the earth.

In Revelation 6:7, “When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature call out, “Come!” I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him; they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and (death), and by the wild animals of the earth.”

Honestly, I’ve not done much studying on the specifics of these symbols in a while. Growing up in the land of “Rapture Readiness” and extremely skewed/blurred vision in regards to this book about Jesus, I was finally freed (thank you Jesus, college, and NT Wright) from those chains.

In listening to Dr.Mulholland from Asbury recently, he talks about this rider and the authority that’s been given. Unlike many of the sky-watchers like the site linked above, Dr.Mulholland offers a much more reasonable translation. Throughout scriptures, we hear the phrase “to the third and fourth generations”. (Ex. 20:5, Deut. 5:9, 2 Kings 15:12, etc.) It was common to think in terms of generations when it came to family life and blessings. You have a first generation (children), second generation (parents), third generation (grandparents), and fourth generation (great grandparents).

Influenced by this, it wouldn’t be a large leap to interpret these words as pointing to death having authority over the 4th generation. It just so happens that most people usually die when they’re in that 4th and oldest stage of life, if things like the sword and famine (riders 2 & 3) don’t first.

This can be a hard interpretation to swallow, if we view Revelation as a secret time line meant to tell us how the world will come to a close, step by step. But when we read these words as pointing to Jesus, the world He has entered, and what He is accomplishing/He will accomplish…it can be a very healthy thing for our celebration of all it contains.

Yes, God has allowed “death” to have authority over a fourth. But here we see Jesus on a white horse (Rev. 6:2), ahead of the others in the picture. They are following His lead, and in Easter we continue celebrating that Christ goes ahead of us, calling us into New Life!!!

Yup, that’s right…it’s Easter celebratin’ time.  So indulge a little bit….