The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
May 6, 2007
Vol. 10 no. 18

Everything But...
           I am caught between Revelation and Acts, between apocalypse and apostles. It is rare for mainliners to even peer into the last book of the Bible, misused and misunderstood as it has been by some segments of Christianity. What is really rare in my experience is to hear a good number of people in our congregation wishing they could hear Revelation preached because its ideas and language are so beautiful. Peter’s picnic in Acts is too compelling to ignore, but let’s do Apocalypse Now.
           The Book of the Apocalypse or the Revelation had a lot of trouble being accepted as part of the Bible. It was generally the last book received by many a church in the early centuries and there are still churches in some traditions that do no include it. No wonder it was tacked on at the end.
           It is written as the report of a vision received by John, exiled on the island of Patmos off the coast of modern-day Turkey. He wrote at the very end of the first century and many believe that John the Beloved Disciple was the author at a ripe old age. He also wrote in a style and language that was intended to be obscure and hard to understand. He succeeded. Within a generation or two no part of the Christian remembered the allusions and metaphors John was making about the hostile Roman government. All along, Christians could feel the power and poetry of John’s visions in the midst of persecution. Some interpretations have been, to be kind, eccentric.
           I saw a new heaven and a new earth - the first earth had passed away. Lo, I make all things new. For this world, that’s pretty eccentric, but the Patmos author has the Gospel right. Once more, we need to start again from the beginning and allow the world to be recreated and renewed.