This Book: Revelation - Look! (Revelation 1 v1-8)

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There are four big 'scenes' in the book of Revelation. We're going to pause in each one, standing in John’s sandals, and look around. To see what John saw in those landscapes. To hear what he heard. 

Got your travelling shoes on? Let’s go visit the Island, the Temple, the Wilderness, and the Mountaintop.   

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John, a man in his 80s, stood trial under Emperor Domitian, and was found guilty. He was torn away from everyone he knew. He was chained and (literally) shipped to an isolated island in the Mediterranean called Patmos, with no expectation of ever going home. Leaving behind the people he loved to possibly face the same kind of trial.  

He had been a child, growing up playing and working on a lake—a circle of water—surrounded by the green and the gold of the hills of Galilee. 

He was now an old man, praying and working on a circle of stone and trees entirely surrounded by water.  

Scene One: The Island 

Every day, in exile on Patmos, John felt underfoot the grit of volcanic rock. He tasted the salt of the sea wind. He saw the colours of the sea and the sky.  

Except for the day when the curtain was pulled back.  

On the Lord's day, I was in the Spirit. And I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches...” Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me. Revelation 1 v10-12 

And John saw—uncurtained—Jesus. He saw his friend. He saw his friend's carpenter-calloused hands now cradling stars. He saw his friend's hair, brown and curly before, now blazing silver with eternal wisdom. He heard his friend's voice that long ago had said to his disciples, “Don't fear the enemy,” now saying to John, “Don't be afraid of me.”  

This was Jesus as John had never seen him before, but this was Jesus—unmistakable.  

John also saw—uncurtained—the churches. Golden candlestands, tall and shining.  

• Ephesus – a flame starting to flicker because they had started to forget their first love. 
• Smyrna - a flame smaller than some, but bright and steady.  
• Pergamum - a flame smoky and adulterated.  
• Thyatira - a flame bending with the breeze, because it was easier to bend than to fight back.  
• Sardis - a flame reduced to just the glowing tip of a wick, but that could still be rekindled.  
• Philadelphia - a flame alive, shining, steady, bright, and true.  
• Laodicea - a faded polaroid of a flame, what they could be, what they needed to do. 

Holy Spirit parted the curtain, and John saw the churches uncurtained in all their beauty and all their heartbreak. He saw Jesus standing among them.  

Scene 2: The Temple  

The same voice that I had heard before spoke to me again. The voice said, “Come up here and I will show you what must happen after this.” And instantly I was in the Spirit and I saw a throne in heaven and I saw someone sitting on it. Revelation 4 v1-2 

Toto, I don't think we're in Patmos anymore.  

John looked, and what he saw awoke his Jewish imagination, his Jewish memory. He saw and he remembered: 

• The Ark of the Covenant: the God-designed, human-made, consecrated touchpoint of the presence of God among his people. The original ‘God with us.’ 
• The Tabernacle: the tent where God met with his people wherever they were journeying, or wherever they were settling.  
• The Altars: now rubble, destroyed by the Roman forces, but the place where for centuries, for generations, priests had burned incense, making tangible the prayers of God's people.  
• Harps: like the ones that long-ago King David had given the Temple musicians, so hands and voices could sing the joy of being with God.  

Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty... For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous deeds have been revealed. Revelation 15 v2-4 

Jesus pulled back the curtain, and John saw the eternal reality of God's presence, foreshadowed by Temple and Tabernacle. God with his people. 

Scene 3: The Wilderness 

One of the seven angels said to me, “Come with me.” So the angel took me in the Spirit into the wilderness, and there I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that had seven heads and 10 horns, and blasphemies against God were written all over it. And the woman wore royal purple and scarlet clothing, gold and precious gems and pearls. And in her hand she held a gold goblet full of obscenities. And a mysterious name was written on her forehead: Babylon the Great. Revelation 17 v1-5 

In the history of the Jewish people (to that point anyway) there had been nothing worse than Babylon, although Rome came close.  

Both of these empires had come against Israel. Each in turn had destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. Each in turn had enslaved and exiled innocent people. Each had controlled the kings of other nations. Both had consumed the riches and the resources of other nations.  

Both had dug in their heels to oppose Yahweh God.  

For followers of Yahweh God, wilderness is a place to go through. Elijah retreated to the wilderness to rest, to be restored and encouraged so he could return to the work God had given him to do. The people of Israel journeyed through the wilderness, from slavery to the promised land and their nationhood under God. Jesus went into the wilderness for a time, to be tested and prepared for the work he was going to be doing. The wilderness, for followers of God, is a place to go through.  

The enemies of God, as John sees in his vision, choose the wilderness. They sit down in the wilderness, because it can feel like insulation. Like self-sufficiency. Like independence. ‘Babylon’ chooses a place where nothing needs to be able to grow because Babylon has no intention of doing the work of providing for themselves.  

They lean back on their arrogance and on their own power while weaker nations feed their appetites. The wilderness is a place of wealth with no meaning. A place of freedom with no growth. A place of pleasure with no joy.  

But—as they will learn—wilderness is also a place of vulnerability. The enemies of God end up being enemies of each other. Babylon's admirers will turn on her, and will tear her to pieces.  

God pulled back the curtain, and John saw the sad reality of temporary power. The sad end of the enemies of God.  

Scene 4: The Mountaintop  

One of the angels took me in the Spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. Revelation 21 v10 

There is no way that in that moment, John was not remembering the prophecy of Isaiah.  

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's house will be the highest of all. And people from many nations will come and say, “Let's go to the mountain of the Lord. Let's go to the house of Jacob's God, and there he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his path.” Isaiah 2 v2-3 

The city that John saw coming down out of heaven doesn't mathematically or physically make any sense to our brains. We can't process what he's describing.  

This city is bigger than makes any sense; it couldn’t possibly exist on planet earth. It's more beautiful than we can imagine, more full of life than we can imagine. This is a city where the gates are never closed, because there is nothing against which the city needs to be defended. There is no light coming from outside or from above because the city has light that shines from within.  

This is a city that is a garden: the garden that Eden was meant to be. A garden of healing and life, of diversity and unity. It’s a home open to everybody from every place. Everyone who has faithfully followed Christ, and faithfully fought back against Babylon.  

The Spirit pulled back the curtain, and John saw hope because John—everywhere—saw Jesus.  

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Revelation is, hands down, the most debated and difficult book of the Bible. It is unmatched in its epic scope. Deep in its theology. Profound in its implication for each one of us, and for our world. But Revelation is still just one of the books of the Bible. We cannot read it well in isolation from the rest of that great story, because the rest of that story is woven into everything that John writes and records. There are connections in what he writes to every other point in the history of Yahweh God's long and patient journey with humanity.  

Revelation offers us an understanding of our destination, but it does not stand alone, and it cannot be understood alone.  

Above all else, for all of its challenges, for all of its difficulties, it is a book of hope. Pointing us toward the possibility of life with Christ. Toward an answer to the question not only of ‘why do bad things happen to good people,’ but ‘why do good things happen to bad people?’  

It offers us a choice between temporary self-satisfaction in the wilderness, or life as we were designed to live it. Journeying alongside each other, submitting to each other, serving each other, and with every step walking closer and closer to God.