The
Book of Revelation is a letter written to real churches at a real
time with a specific message to them. Therefore, the appropriate way
to read the Revelation is to determine what it said to those churches
in their real historical context and then apply that message to us
today. Thus, it is helpful to know the historical contexts of the
the Christians to whom John sent the letters containing the Book of
Revelation and why.
Who
were they? In chapters two and three Jesus asks John to write to the
seven churches in the Roman province of Asia which today would be
western Turkey. Given the meaning of the number seven in the
Revelation (completeness, entirety), the letter was to go to the all
the church. And I bet you didn’t know it but in the first couple
of centuries of the church the Revelation was the most widely
circulated book of the New Testament. The early church apparently
knew full well back them what all the images in these visions
represented and understood its message was for them rather than some
future church. The seven churches were in seven cities that were
connected together by a major postal route. Indeed, the Romans had a
very developed postal system which was nigh as fast as Canada Post.
John was in exile on a small island off the shore of Turkey and would
have sent seven copies by means of a courier first to Ephesus, then
to Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and finally
Laodicea. The letters would have been read aloud when Christians
gathered together to worship not in church buildings but in homes and
most likely in the home of the wealthiest patrons for they had the
big houses. Once one church read it, the letter would have gone to
the next church in the area until all the small house churches had
heard it. It was also likely copied as frequently as possible.
The
Revelation was given to John to encourage Christians to remain
faithful to Jesus in a wave of persecution that was beginning or soon
to come. Persecution? Well, what typically happened in the early
church was that either synagogue authorities or pagan religious
authorities turned Christians over to the Roman authorities because
they would not burn incense to Caesar as part of their civic
responsibility. The synagogue authorities considered Christians to
be heretics and pagans were offended by Christian monotheism. This
refusal to burn incense was in fact an act of treason. Christians
who would not worship Caesar as Lord and Saviour (two imperial
titles) were arrested and usually made to fight wild animals or
gladiators in the civic games at the coliseum. Persecution of
Christians became a serious problem in the mid-90’s AD under the
reign of Emperor Domitian who was insane enough to require that he be
worshipped as a living god, the incarnation of the son of Jupiter.
Typically, Romans believed that their emperors became gods after they
died, but Domitian got a bit ahead things.
It
was not easy to be the Church back then. They had problems that were
very similar to the problems churches have today. In Chapters two
and three of the Revelation John is instructed to write something
specific to each of the Seven Churches addressing particular problems
they each had. Ephesus had lost its first love meaning their
Christian fellowship had fallen second place to doctrinal witch
hunts. The Christians in Smyrna were already facing intense
persecution and impoverishment because the synagogue authorities were
very persistent in hunting out Christians. Pergamum was a capitol
city and for that reason the Imperial Cult was strong, but that
wasn’t the problem with the church there. They were tolerating
among themselves a group of Christians who taught that it was okay to
feast with pagan worshippers and participate in their orgies. In
Thyatira, you could not work unless you were a member of a trade
guild and each trade guild had their own god to worship. Therefore,
Christians couldn’t work unless they participated in their trade
guild’s pagan feasts. The problem in Thyatira was not being unable
to work for reasons of faith but that there was a woman leader who
claimed to have had a word from Jesus saying that it was okay for
them to participate in the trade guild feasts and thus a large
portion of the Christians there followed her. The church at Sardis
was a perfect model of inoffensive Christianity in much the same way
as Oprah-anity is today. There apparently was nothing that
distinguished the Christians there in belief and practice from any
other religion. Philadelphia was the only church to receive no
correction. They had recently been through a wave of persecution and
remained faithful. Finally Laodicea; their wealth had blinded them
to their need for God. That’s a snapshot of the church on earth
back in that day and I would say even in our day. A snapshot of the
inner life of every Christian congregation today can be found in the
letters to those seven churches.
In
our passage today we find the church as it is in heaven and is coming
to be on earth. It is the church of the faithful, the church of
those who remain faithful amidst the persecutions and temptations to
cultural compromise that we Christians face. The New Jerusalem is
what we are at heart as the church, the Body of Christ, the Bride of
Christ. It is humanity, humans, you and me in community and the
Trinity, in whom “we live and move and have our being," is in
our midst. The New Jerusalem is Holy Spirit-filled human community.
People in union with Jesus, the Son bound to one another in his
resurrected humanity. Our congregational communion with one
another in and with Christ Jesus by means of the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit is community in which the image of the loving communion
of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is growing like fruit on the
branches of the Tree of Life. Our leafing, our visibly being New
Life, is for the healing of the nations.
This
leafing is important to note. The church transcends the boundaries
of the nations and thus we, you and I and our congregations, are part
of a grassroots kingdom of priests, a holy nation set apart by the
Trinity for his purpose of blessing and healing the nations. We are
a trans-national entity to which national, ethical, cultural,
economic, and racial boundaries do not apply and therefore we should
not use them as excuses among ourselves preventing us from being bond
in unconditional love with one another globally and acting towards
one another accordingly. We do globally among ourselves the healing
work that the nations do not, will not, and indeed cannot do among
and between themselves for love of power and greed. Our New Life
leafs forth as peace, truth, justice, equality, equitablility, and
reconciliation globally among ourselves which effects the nations now
prophetically and indeed will one day heal the nations. Our work in
the Lord is not in vain nor should we consider ourselves to be or let
ourselves be consigned to the realms of "religious",
"private", or "spiritual".
We
are"prophetic". We are "public". "Religion"
has nothing to do with us. We are in Christ being the new humanity
of his resurrection. Our life in communion derives from his
resurrected human being. Its orientation is the future uninhibited
reign of the Lord Jesus Christ breaking forth into our present
through us. Because the Holy Spirit is with and in us we are living
in the presence of the communion of the Trinity and thriving on it.
(At moments I catch a glimpse of the staggering enormity of what we
are as the Church, the Bride of Christ, and what we are here to do
and how beautiful we could be. And yet in the same breath I find
myself stepping back and scratching my head in disbelief and saying
to myself, “What a whore” because of the way we go at one another
over styles of worship, the sex and sexual orientation of ministers,
whether a minister should wear a robe, whether AA should be allowed a
room because they smell like stale cigarettes, whether we should be
involved with international ministries of peace and justice because
they don't preach the old time religion and aren't supported by the
conservative regime, and the way we go about personally pursuing
wealth and power at the expense of the poor, and the list could go
on.)
In
the world of the early church Christians used to have to gather at
night and secretly. They were not safe in the cities in which they
lived. Yet, when they gathered for worship the light of the glory of
God was with them and in the New Jerusalem they were safe. Darkness
was no more. In the early church they had to meet behind closed
doors, but in the New Jerusalem the gates are always open. The Holy
Spirit-filled worship behind those closed doors then as it is today
for us is the New Jerusalem breaking through from heaven into earth.
When we gather for worship the breaking through of the New Jerusalem
is what’s going on. The loving community that is being created in
our midst by the Holy Spirit’s work on our hearts and by our own
efforts to love one another as Jesus has commanded us is the fruit
and the leaves on the Tree of Life which is for the healing of the
nations. It is here. It is coming. And it will come to its
fruition on the day when all things are made new. To say it again
plainly, the New Jerusalem is what is happening in each of us and in
this fellowship when we are at worship both here together and then as
we walk each step of the way through our day because the Holy Spirit,
the River of Life, is at work in us preparing us to be the Bride of
Christ.
I
feel as if I’m blubbering a bit here in trying to describe this
metaphor of the New Jerusalem. So maybe I should just finish. The
New Jerusalem shows us what the church at heart is and ought to be
and what humanity will one day become. The church is humanity
indwelt by the God the Holy Spirit who unites us to and together in
Christ Jesus and thus we are partakers of the living and loving
communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; a life/way of life and
a love/way of love which never die and thus the church is and ought
to be a community that is safe and secure for all peoples, a
community whose doors and gates do not exclude people, a community
where people are healed. A river of life flows forth from the
church. The Tree of Life grows here. The Trinity has chosen us,
called us, and by the blood of Christ redeemed us to be a kingdom of
priests set about on the work of healing the nations through prayer
and the proclamation of forgiveness and reconciliation, and
challenging people to forgive and to risk being wastefully
compassionate. As a church on earth if we are faithful about our
task we will be persecuted. We walk the way of the cross after all
don't we?. On the other hand, if we compromise with the idolatries
inherent in our culture we will only be ineffective in the work we’ve
been called to and there will be no light of the glory of God shining
on earth. The stakes are high, my friends. The stakes are high.
Amen.
