November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Texts: Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19, Zechariah 13:1-9, Revelation 14:6-13

The vision offered in Zechariah and in Revelation return us to the texts which proclaim hope for the faithful and torment for the unfaithful. I am not sure how these texts follow the texts from yesterday, logically speaking. There is certainly commonality in that it is God who acts in both, but in one God acts for the purpose of our being made righteous (apart from our efforts) in God's sight and in the other it seems it is our action, our righteousness, upon which our eternal reward or torment depends.

If God is the source and object of our life, of our faith, and of our end, then how can these contradict one another? Out of love we were created, out of love we were saved, but out of wrath we shall be destroyed?

With the Psalmist, we cry:

⁷Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved; it forms our refrain even as it forms the refrain of the Psalmist. This our litany, our empty hands uplifted, physically inviting the presence of God to descend upon us.

7 He said in a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water." 8 Then another angel, a second, followed, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." 9 Then another angel, a third, followed them, crying with a loud voice, "Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands, 10 they will also drink the wine of God's wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image and for anyone who receives the mark of its name." 12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus.

This is a call for endurance? Likely written between the fall of Rome in 70CE and the end of Domitian's reign and persecution of Christians in 96CE, the Christians of this time were likely experiencing intense persecution. Christians were being martyred for their witness (see: Ignatius of Antioch, who died in 108 under the reign of Trajan for insights to this); in Greek, the word "martyria" means "witness," and the two definitions became linked in today's understanding of the word. Read in light of this, I wonder if these words were heard entirely differently by Christians who were growing in number despite the persecution of the church during the first three centuries of Christianity. In a place where we have never had state-sposored persecution of the church, perhaps these words are difficult for 21st Century American Christians to read. Many claim it forecasts what is to come, others leave the book alone altogether, but I wonder if, peering behind the veil, we see words of encouragement to the church in its infancy who knew the realities of torture and of death but for whom the reality of salvation and resurrection were far more compelling. So often we live as though death is the final answer, rather than holding fast to the promise that - through Christ - life is the final answer: to sin, to evil, and to death itself.