The Last Book of the Bible: Revelation 22:1-8
There are at least two senses in which Revelation is the last book of the Bible:
Literally, the Bible runs from Genesis to Revelation , Revelation is the last book
and metaphorically, metaphorically Revelation is the last book of the Bible (or at least
one of the last books) because it's one of the books that we open most seldom.We open
it seldom because of what Laurie Guy (my colleague) calls the Goofy stuff, all that nonsense that
people claim to find in the book of Revelation. And the book has been blamed for what people
claim to find in it. Take this example that Laurie found from 2003,
at the height of the SARS epidemic, it purports to claim that the book of Revelation predicted
SARS. It all looks a bit stale and old-fashioned now, doesn't it?
But take a look at this one. It's even more stale and old-fashioned. Yes, the world is
going to end at 4am on October the 29th 1992 (Auckland time). Is it? Oh dear! I missed
it :( Yep, there is lots of Goofy stuff in people's
interpretations of the book of Revelation, and notice that this is all based on the book
of Revelation, unlike Harold Camping's more recent claim.
But you see, we should have known that this stuff was goofy because Jesus told us it was.
There at the beginning of Acts, just before the ascension into heaven,
'while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but
wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.
For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit."
So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore
the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them: "It is not for you to know
the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."'
You see? It is not for us to know the times or the dates, so don't bother studying Revelation
trying to find them! But, it is for us to receive when the Holy
Spirit comes and to be Jesus' witnesses. Focus on the important stuff and don't try
to do what Jesus told us we couldn't do! And, in case you think he only told us once,
back in Matthew: 'Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words
will never pass away. No-one knows about that day or hour, not even
the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.'
Yes, the one thing Jesus told us about the day, is that we don't know when it will be,
it will be a surprise. Though I suppose, whichever day is currently
being predicted is the one day we know it won't happen ;)
Or something! If Jesus told us that that kind of approach
to the book of Revelation that looks to it for predictions of the end of the world, is
wrong.How can we understand it? Well, like we understand any writing.We ask
who wrote it, and who they were writing to and what was going on. John wrote it to Christians
in what is now Turkey, along the coast of the Agean Sea, at a time of persecution. We're
not quite sure whether it was the time of Nero or of Diocletian but it doesn't really
matter. Because either way if you were a Christian you could be demanded, by force, to offer
a pinch of insence to the Emperor as god, and if you refused because you did not believe
the emperor was God, only Jesus, you could be put to death, or imprisoned.
So, what did people at that time need? Christians at that time in Asia Minor needed hope and
encouragement. That's what we should expect to find in Revelation. Otherwise, the book
was useless to them, and why did John bother to write it?
And then there's the bigger question of what the Bible is all about.Because, you see, the
Bible is not all about us :( Bad news, I know, but it isn't! And all those people who try
to find predictions of the end of the world happening in a few days time in the book of
Revelation are assuming that the Bible is about us.
It's not. But it is about God. And so what we should expect to find in the book of Revelation
is hope and encouragement for Christians living in a time of persecution that tells them about
God! And so gives them hope and encouragement. Now let's turn to our passage, the last chapter
of the last book. 'Then the angel showed me the river of the
water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down
the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of
life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the
tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne
of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.
They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the
sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
The angel said to me, "These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits
of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place."
"Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book."'
Yeah, I'm cheating, it's an easy passage. But look at this passage, there's lots of
picture language in it. There's even more in most of Revelation. But picture language
is not the same as pictures that artists draw. Did you notice? "On each side of the river
stood the tree of life." How does that work? And how would you draw it if you were an artist?
Or to make this point more firmly, look back at Hebrews 6:19
"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the sanctuary behind
the curtain." O K ...
An anchor in those days was a bloody great lump of rock with a hole in it that you put
ship's hawser through. So we have this dirty great lump of rock with a hole in it that
you put ship's hawser through being shoved through the curtain in the temple. As a visual
picture it doesn't work. But as a word-picture it does. At least for those of us who have
sung that old hymn "We have an anchor that keeps the soul, steadfast and sure as the
billows roll..." and all that. You see, drawing word-pictures, the ones in
Revelation for example, is about as difficult as drawing pictures from the Song of Songs.Here's
the beloved as described in the Song of Songs How beautiful! "Your hair is like a flock
of goats, your nose is like a tower, your tongue drips honey, now I'm not sure how Winnie-the-Pooh
got there but he gets in all over the place ;)
You see you can't as an artist draw the beloved from the Song of Songs because she is described
in word-pictures and not in picture-pictures Word-pictures work differently because in
word-pictures the focus is on the words. And the words, especially in Revelation very often
echo other texts, especially Bible texts, but not only Bible texts, sometimes they echo
pop-culture, and in general they work more like cartoons than like diagrammes.
Here's a recent cartoon from the Dominion Post
What do you make of it? What's it about? Is it about a giant pair of shoes? Dan isn't
the book of Daniel but who is he? And, what's that stuff about the sorcerer's
apprentice about? Well, if you know anything about NZ rugby
could probably guess that Dan is Dan Carter and that the reference is to someone trying
to fill Dan Carter's shoes and failing. And the sorcerer's apprentice? Well that's
probably a reference to the old story that quite often crops up in cartoon films of the
trainee sorcerer who tries to do the magic that his master shows and fails.
You see? Lots of references to things going on around. That's how the pictures of word-pictures
work. That's how the pictures of Revelation work. And that's how cartoons work.
Echoes of other texts, echoes of pop-culture, painting pictures with words point to ideas
rather than drawing them. And they're not usually, though sometimes they are, allegories.(An
allegory is where each item in the picture stands for something else. and occasionally
the word-pictures in Jesus parables are like that.but most often in the Bible the word-pictures
are not allegories.) Like cartoons it's the big idea and not the
detail that matters. And so in the book of Revelation, if we look
at the detail all we'll see is the fungus that grows on the trees and we'll miss the
forest completely :( So, how can we understand the book of Revelation?
(And avoid the goofy stuff :) Well remember John was writing it for churches
in Turkey (Asia Minor), at a time of persecution, they needed hope and encouragement. And the
Bible is all about God. So, we read the book of Revelation looking
for the big picture not the detail, and looking for a message of hope and encouragement that
gives us hope and encourages us because it tells us about God.
Back to our passage: "Then the angel showed me the river of the
water of life" Where have you heard about the water of life
elsewhere in the Bible? You find it in both Testaments. And where do you find such water
flowing "down the middle of the great street of the city"?
And what about the tree of life? Where have you heard about that before?
And did you notice that now, in this city, the tree will give twelve crops one for every
month. And the leaves are for the healing of the nations. Not just of one nation but
all nations.
And where in the Bible have you come across a curse? And where in the Bible have you come
across a name on the forehead? Writing on the flesh?
You see our passage is full of echoes of other parts of Scripture.The sum total of all those
echoes is to say that here, at the end of the book of Revelation, what's being described
is the big picture of the time when Jesus will come... and all will be put right! The
curse from Genesis chapter 3, will no longer be. Because God's throne and the Lamb's throne
will be in the city. And everything will be put right!
Revelation says to those Christians under persecution, and to us, that one day all this
will end, and when it ends, everything will be put right. Because God reigns!
Hope and encouragement in a message about God that's what we expect in the book of Revelation
and not the goofy stuff we see if we only look at the fungi.
Today, well here we are, or here I was a couple of years ago in Thailand on the border of
Burma. That river dcown there in the valley is the border. On the left hand side of the
river a brutal military dictatorship has for decades been persecuting people of the minority
groups. Among them the Karen A couple of years ago the village that these children lived
in was destroyed and they moved into the jungle, to live in a hide site, to escape the soldiers.
You may think that trouble is now ending because Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy leader has
been freed from the house arrest, but as have many other political prisoners. But the generals
are still in control. And in some parts of Burma there are still homes being burned by
the army. As the army still tries to push the minority peoples out of Burma.This home
was burned on the 28th May this year. And still along the beautiful border between
Burma and Thailand there are tens of thousands of refugees. And among them are the members
of the Bible School taking me through these beautiful hills.As we headed up into these
beautiful hills of Thailand we came at last to a secret valley. There hidden in the valley
is a clearing and in the clearing there are buildings, and the buildings are dormitories
for boys and girls to attend the local Thai school.They've recently been built because
the guy who owns the valley was recently converted, because the students of the Bible School go
out on mission during the holidays - at risk of being caught by the Thai authorities and
being sent back to Burma.There to become porters for the army and perhaps killed. They go along
the border preaching the gospel. And the owner of this valley was converted and he then built
these hostels, but that's not what I want you to see. What I want you to see is the
church. At the end of the valley. Because the church at the end of the valley
dominates the valley, not the church itself but the huge white cross that rises three
or four storeys above the church. Thoise little windows in the cross show you that the cross
bars are rooms big enough to hold a prayer meeting in. That huge cross stands there because
the military junta chased the Karen people out of Burma.
The message of the book of Revelation, like the message of the book of Genesis is that
what human beings intend for evil God intends for good.
God rules. That's the message of Revelation.
And it's a message of hope and encouragement for Christians in Turkey in a time of persecution,
Amen, come Lord Jesus!