It all began when two young women received extraordinary visions of God and began to prophesy That is, to speak words they believed that came directly from the Holy Spirit A local clergyman joined them And some of the members of his congregation soon followed Within a few months congregations all over the city were being split as members decided whether to join this new movement Or to stay with the old ways of doing things Things reached crisis point when the two young women Now calling themselves prophets sent by God Gave their most alarming prophecy yet The final age had commenced they declared The return of Jesus Christ – as judge and ruler of the earth Was imminent The group and its followers withdrew into the desert to await the imminent apocalypse…. It did not happen A few weeks later they returned Most of them dispirited and disillusioned Slowly they drifted back into the congregations from which they had come The prophetic voices fell silent And the group’s leader, the priest Montanus Was discredited and forced out of the ministry altogether…. That pattern of events might seem familiar It might sound like a group you have heard of Or perhaps known someone who belonged to Or once belonged to It might sound like a story from a recent newspaper or current affairs program But it in fact took place in the mid second century Some eighteen hundred years ago In Phyrgia, in what is now Turkey… As one, genuine, biblical prophet said: There is nothing new under the sun On the eve of the first millennium As the year 1,000 arrived Fires were lit on hilltops all over Medieval Europe people gathered to welcome the return of Jesus Christ to earth Only a few years ago I heard a so called “prophet” proclaim that the end of the world would arrive with the dawning of the year 2000 No doubt you recall some of the hysteria that accompanied the transition from the previous millennium to this one And recall also how almost none of the catastrophic predications fantasised about actually occurred Except that a few library cards insisted some newly loaned books be returned by the year 1901 The Christian prophet – so called – who I heard speak a few years before the year 2000 advised the stockpiling of essential supplies and the building of bomb shelters I don’t know where that prophet is now But I do know that in the Book of Leviticus a prophet who gives predictions that are not fulfilled is to be taken out of the camp, beaten with rods, and sent off into the desert At least he would have plenty of flour and toilet paper stashed away somewhere… Generations of Christians have believed their age to be the last The writers of the New Testament themselves seem to believe this On several occasion St Paul says that the last days have begun St John writes: little children this is the final hour Christian leaders from Montanus, whose story I told as I began To Martin Luther and to numerous preachers and teachers today Have all believed that the end is near And all, without exception, draw their convictions from these words that commence the final book of the Bible The Book of Revelation “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near. This morning I’m beginning a somewhat staggered series of sermons based on passages from that most enigmatic and most fascinating book The Book of Revelation The schedule and the topics are set out in a brochure titled “Apocalypse Now” – question mark That is of course the tile of a movie Publishers – and preachers – are always looking for catchy titles that will draw peoples attention and awaken their interest none of the books of the bible originally had titles at all but in ancient times pieces of writing were known by the first few words The Book of Genesis, for instance, was known and referred to as “In the Beginning” This was so one could know what the scroll contained upon folding open a portion of it Titles were added to the books of the Bible by later scribes The word Genesis is of course not a Hebrew word at all but a Greek one added by a later Greek speaking scribe In the case of Revelation, the title is also a Greek word, Apocalupsis That word has passed into English as apocalypse and usually provokes in our minds images of unimaginable disaster Like a nuclear war Or catastrophic event of some kind Like the September 11 terrorist attacks But that is something of a false picture Or at least only tells part of the story The word apocalypse translates into English as Revelation In the Greek language it has the meaning of unveiling or revealing something previously hidden It conjures up an image, a word picture Perhaps something like that of a work of art or statue that has been kept hidden under a veil That is finally unveiled and revealed and can be seen and admired for what it is Or of the opening of the Olympic Games Where, in recent times, the person who lights the flame to commence the games has been a well kept and closely guarded secret Until finally, on the night of the opening ceremony, the lights come on and the person is unveiled and known as they stand in the stadium holding aloft a torch The Book of Revelation is an unveiling, a disclosure, a revealing of things previously unknown of things that are about to take place and it’s important to note whose revelation it is it is not the Revelation of St john the Divine as many English versions of the Bible have but the Revelation of Jesus Christ given to St John the Divine through the agency of an angel and now revealed and made known to all Immediately, in the first few sentences of Revelation and certainly in what follows We are presented with two problems The first problem is that of what one scholar calls “A riot of symbolism” Revelation is full of symbols Most of them of them highly esoteric – that is, other worldly and bizarre Understanding this book And interpreting these symbols is a bit like hearing only one side of a telephone conversation You all know the feeling I’m sure The phone rings and your spouse or someone nearby picks it up and says “oh hello, how are you” in delight And then carries on a highly animated conversation interspersed with lots of laughter with whoever it is on the other end of the phone And even makes plans to go out tomorrow night for a drink And all the time you’re standing there wondering who on earth it is and whether you want to have a drink with them at all Whether you’re even invited… You get the picture Understanding the Book of Revelation is a bit like that We hear and we read what John has written But we are not on the other end of the line We do not live in the world in which he lived and in which those to whom he wrote these words lived They knew what the symbols and what the word pictures meant The Book of Revelation is written in a sort of code language that was used to ensure that if the document, the scroll, fell into the wrong hands such as that of the Roman authorities then they would not know what on earth was being said but the churches to whom John writes knew, for instance knew what the symbols meant they knew, for instance, that Babylon was the city of Rome and the Beast was the Roman Emperor the Roman emperor did not know this and would not have been overly impressed by it either unfortunately, much of the code language in which Revelation was written remains unknown to us also to decipher it and understand fully we would really need to be on the other end of the line as john wrote and we are not… Finally, there is the problem about time John says these things are about to take place But some 2,000 years (almost) have passed since he wrote them That really is stretching the meaning of soon An answer to this lies in John’s purpose in writing John is not really concerned with time and dates And that is why we – and those who proclaim themselves to be prophets – ought not be either He is not writing out a schedule of the future A sort of prophetic time table of world events John writes to encourage the Christians of his day who are being shunned by their friends and neighbors, disowned, and persecuted In some cases dragged off to prison and even killed He writes to encourage them that the victory of God is imminent The world around them may be falling apart it may look as though evil is winning the day The godless and the greedy and the cruel are triumphant Sound familiar? Stand firm in the faith John says There is more than you can see around you in this world It won’t always be like this John says, I can see beyond the way things are now God will have the last word And that day may be sooner than you think The Lord be With You |