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Ever been to a circus? I mean a
big, super-duper, three-ring, Barnum and Bailey, Greatest
Show on Earth-type circus? Under the big top, there is
continuous activity, with performances in all three
rings—bands and barters, jugglers and gymnasts, all going on
at once. Let’s say you go to the circus, then come home and
try to describe it, or even better, try to write a letter to
a friend sharing “the circus.” The only way to talk about it
or write about it is one ring at a time—“I looked and
saw…then I looked and saw…”—even though the action in the
circus was actually going on all at once, concurrent,
synchronous, overlapping and side-by-side.
In the center of the three
rings, in the midst of the pageant and popcorn-sellers, the
musicians and magicians, there is one person who holds it
all together, one person who seems to understand all the
cacophony of animals and acrobats, performers and trainers,
stagehands and roust-abouts—the Ringmaster, who stands in
the very center calling your attention to the various acts:
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I now direct your
attention to ring number one.”
If you’ve been to the circus,
maybe then you can understand the Book of Revelation. John
experiences this incredible, overwhelming dream, an
apocalypse, a revelation, a vision of God’s kingdom set in
this real world. It’s actually a set of visions…seven
visions to be exact, like a seven-ring circus, all going on
at once with seven letters to seven churches, seven seals,
seven trumpets, seven bowls. The only way to describe it, to
write it down, to pass it on, is to write about one vision
at a time—“I turned and saw…then I saw….then I saw”—but the
action and the visions are actually going on all at once,
and together they create one experience of apocalypse,
insight, revelation.
And as we saw last week,
at the center of this seven-ring circus stands the
Ringmaster, the Risen Christ.
John’s vision says he is the
only one worthy to interpret the events swirling around him,
the only one worthy to stand at the center, the only one
worthy to break the seals on the scroll which tells the
human story, the only one worthy to give meaning to the
events of life. So he takes the scroll in his hands and
begins to break the wax seals, and as he does, the
performers make their march across the stage of human
history.
With that setting in mind, hear
now the reading, catch the vision of this amazing seven-ring
circus from chapters 5-7.
* * * * * * *
When the Ringmaster calls, the
great pageant of human history begins, like Buffalo Bill’s
circus parade, full of color and sound and splendor.
However, in this case, the first actors on the stage are not
the clowns or the calliope. They come like fire-breathing
sword swallowers, breathtaking, fearsome, frightful,
charging across the sawdust floor. They are the awesome
figures of stampeding horsemen who fill the tent with smoke
and dust and chilling sounds.
The Ringmaster takes the scroll
in his hands. He breaks the first seal, a voice cries
“Come!” and across the stage gallop the thundering hoof
beats of a white horse and a mighty conqueror with bow and
crown, the symbol of conquering might.
He opens the second seal and it
lets loose a fiery red horse and his rider carrying a sword,
the symbol of war and conflict destroying the peace.
The third seal sends across the
circus floor a stallion and rider all in black, the symbol
of famine, poverty, hunger and desolation.
And the breaking of the fourth
seal calls forth a ghostly pale, green-gray horse, the color
of a corpse, the shadow of death, which always follows in
the wake of the other horsemen.
Meanwhile, below the circus
stage, somewhere down in the orchestra pit, the martyred
saints cry out the eternal question which echoes through
history’s tragic saga: “How long, O Lord, how long?”
Or as those of us who grew up in the 60’s would sing: “When
will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?”
John’s vision shows the course of human history, a pageant
reenacted time and time again.
Conquering armies riding into
battle, wars raging, resulting in famine and destruction,
poverty and plague, which finally ends in the ghostly
shadows and ghastly shades of death, while the lingering
question of “How long?” rings out across the ages and
throughout the throng. Then the cycle repeats itself again
and again.
John gives us a graphic picture
of the cycle of human history. The vision is not so much a
prediction of some great cataclysmic event in some distant
“end time.” Rather it is an honest depiction of what goes on
now, in the real and living present, a drama which seems to
be reenacted in every generation when “Crash!—we are
moving at the speed of life and we collide with each other.”
As Christ breaks the wax seals
on the scroll, the ancient struggle of good and evil
unfolds, the cycle of conquering invader and the quest for
power creating upheaval and war, resulting in famine and
sickness, poverty and suffering, and finally leading to
death.
It’s the
ageless story —
- From
Cain and Abel to Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe
- From
Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler
- From
the conquistadors of Latin America and the colonization of
Africa to the embattled streets of our cities or the
suffering multitudes of Darfur
- From
genocide in Rwanda to the violence in our streets and the
racial divisions in our society
- It’s
as old as ancient Babylon’s aggression into ancient Israel
and as current as Hezbollah’s attacks and Israel’s
unacceptable response
We see the drama reenacted over
and over again when the horsemen of military might and
oppression ride through the scroll of history and down the
streets of Baghdad and Beirut, Afghanistan and Africa. In
the face of this seemingly unending cycle of violence and
turmoil, we cry out for one who can help us understand, one
who can help us find the way, one who can interpret history
and bring hope, one who stands in the midst and holds
humanity in the palm of his hand. And that leads us to the
primary theme of the Book, the key to the Revelation Code
which we identified last week....
Only Jesus Christ is worthy
to interpret the meaning of life.
The Risen Christ is the
Ringmaster who holds within his hands the scroll of history,
and in him we discover meaning and purpose in our human
story. Amid the crash and crisis of life stands the Christ,
the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.
Writing to
the Colossians, St. Paul says it this way:
Jesus is the image of the
invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him
all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or
authorities—all things were created through him. He is
before all things and in him all things hold together.
(Colossians 1:15-17)
Or listen
to the Eugene Peterson translation of this verse:
We look at Jesus and we see
God’s original purpose in everything created. For
everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible
and invisible, rank after rank after rank of
angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose
in him. He holds it together right up to this moment.
He was supreme in the beginning
and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the
end. From beginning to end, he is there, towering above
everything.
(Eugene Peterson, The Message,
page 290)
Now do
you see why this is such a subversive letter?
Do you
see why John chose the medium of fantasy and vision, the
code language of apocalyptic literature, to share his
vision? In a world where the armies of Rome, the only
Superpower in the world, held sway, to describe the might of
the marching military machine and the destruction and death
which follow in its wake was risky business. In a day when
the fledgling church was under persecution because of its
determination to say “Jesus is Lord” rather than “Caesar is
Lord,” this was a dangerous letter. In a day when pledging
allegiance to the Kingdom of God rather than the Kingdom of
Rome, or even to suggest there might be some authority
greater than the Emperor was considered treasonous, this
letter was a bombshell. In that kind of a day, to suggest
that there was another king, another Ringmaster who holds
the future in his hands, was a message that challenged the
powers that ruled the world.
Do you
see why in that kind of a day, this letter was subversive
and dangerous…and do you see why it is so applicable to our
day as well?
Yet,
John is bold to say that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all of
life, and greater than any other king or kingdom, ruler or
reign, any flag or nation; that Jesus Christ stands above
even Caesar himself as the Lord of history and the human
story; that in Christ alone we find meaning for our lives
and hope for the world in which we live.
In the
face of the eternal question which comes from the very
depths of the heart and soul of the saints,
“How long, how long?”,
he
hears
the anthem of hope and the promise of God’s coming kingdom,
an anthem already being sung by a multitude which no one
could number, from every nation, from every tribe and people
and tongue, standing before the throne, singing in the name
of the God who promises that one day:
Hunger
shall be no more, neither thirst any more,
the sun will not strike by day, nor any scorching heat.
The Lamb will be their shepherd and will be in the midst
and he will guide them to springs of living water
and wipe away every tear from their eye.
In the midst of the crash and
crisis of human history, when we are moving at the speed of
life, the Church of the Risen Christ lifts up the vision of
God’s shalom, God’s dream, God’s hope for the world. We
proclaim it every week when we pray for God’s kingdom to
come, God’s will to be done on earth, even as it is in
heaven. And if we aren’t willing to lift up the vision, then
we probably shouldn’t pray the prayer.
For our day, in the light of
Middle East conflict and corporate scandals, Jesuit priest
John Dear lifts up John’s Revelation as the vision the
church has to offer to our world when he writes:
In the wake of the U.S.
invasion of Iraq and our relentless pursuit of global
domination, in days of corporate greed and the oppression of
the world’s poor, I turn again to the great peacemakers of
history, from Jesus of Nazareth to Frances of Assisi to
Dorothy Day and Mohandas Gandhi for wisdom.
In these days, he says, the
church
…has to envision a new world to
come. If we can uphold that vision...we can make the dream a
reality. Only peacemakers can see the way forward to a world
of peace. We give our lives to that vision and trust that
one day it will come.
(John Dear, “Revolutionary
Nonviolence,”
Zion’s Herald, July/Aug
2003, p. xvi)
Well,
the circus goes on, moving at the speed of life. The crash
of violence, conflict and crisis continues to stampede like
horsemen across the stage of human experience. And in the
midst stands the Christ, holding the very scroll of history
in his hands, offering the vision, the dream, and the
revelation of God’s kingdom come. Only the dream has the
power to confront the stampede of violence, so we give our
lives to that vision and trust that one day it will come.
May
God’s kingdom come, may God’s will be done on earth as it is
in heaven.
Maranatha…Come, Lord Jesus, come.
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