Hard Texts:  The Revelation and the Middle East

Revelation 11:7-15

October 22, 2006         (Click the date to see the bulletin)

 

1.  Winds blew hard yesterday afternoon!  As I stood there by the window, watching the trees bend first one way and then another, I heard chattering.  It was a squirrel scurrying along the power wire.  He stopped right in front of me, made a 45-degree turn, and leapt onto a tree branch.  He was headed home, to the safety of his nest high up in the birch tree behind us, chattering as he went, warning all the other squirrels that  change was a’comin’.  There is a lot of “chatter” over the airwaves these days, too – chatter about the end of the world.  All summer long religious shows, and even some national news programs, have talked about how near Armageddon is.  It may be one of those reports that inspired the person who requested today’s topic, because this chatter is about . . . the Revelation!

2.  The Book that contains Jesus’ revelation to John begins with an open letter to the seven churches (which represents the whole church).  He tells them their strengths and their weaknesses.  Then he reveals vision after vision, graphically describing the cosmic myth that has been played out in dramas since the beginning of time.  This drama reveals opponents battling out that eternal struggle between good and evil.  John’s vision has prompted generation after generation after generation to claim that theirs was the end time, because they had the wars and rumors of wars, the plagues and death that the Bible claims will precede the day when Christ comes again.  John sees that those who are on the side of God and the angels will battle those who are on the side of the dragon and the beast.  He sees them engaged in a final battle, and then he sees another series of seven plagues and another series of seven responses that will carry out the vision to its natural end.

3.  Because of the vivid but vague images in The Revelation, interpreters feel free to fill in the gaps.    And, with so many time-saving devices available to us now, there is lots of time available for people who love to spend their time making up answers to “Who?”  “What?”  “When?”  “Where?”  “Why?” and “How?”   Someone even tallied the death count envisioned in the Revelation and projected it on a more modern world with five billion people and came up with maybe four billion people them dying of hunger, war, earthquake, plagues.  Horrible picture!  And with the advent of the internet, now all kinds of people post their points, people who may or may not know what they’re talking about!

4.  In addition to the battles in the Eiddle East, there are battles between Christians about what those battles mean.  One is Jack Van Impe, a televangelist and self-proclaimed Bible prophecy expert.  He, along with his wife Rexella, co-host a show that analyses current events in light of biblical prophecy.  On July 18, Jack said that “the Bible does not predict the end of the world.”  Then he added, “But you know why Jesus comes?  He comes to put an end to the fighting that is going on in the Middle East.  But Armageddon is not the end of the world. [The world] is never going to end.”  And he tells about a video they made with hundreds of verses promising that the world will never end.  He quotes Isaiah 45:17 and Ephesians 3:21, both of which say it’s a world without end.”^[i] 

5.  Others weigh in somewhere else along the spectrum between “the world will never end” all the way to “the world is going to end soon.”  The 700 Club host, Pat Robertson, seems to consider the possibility that the world will end soon, but ultimately rejects it.  Talk show host Janet Parshall said “the war in the middle east is like a Sunday School lesson played out before us.  Hal Lindsey says  “Armageddon looms large before us.”^[ii]

6.  Generally speaking, Presbyterians and other “main-line” scholars agree more with Jack Van Impe than Janet Parshall and Hal Lindsey.   One scholar is Barbara Rossing, who teaches at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.  She wrote a book called The Rapture Exposed – The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation.  It deals with domestic and foreign policies, and the impact that false and unbiblical interpretations of The Revelation have on those policies.  She analyzes that popular Left Behind series, and points out how destructive the distorted visions of a “rapture” and “countdown to Armageddon” have been on these policies.  Thousands of born-again Christians believe this interpretation of the Revelation.  Many are in Congress; many more regularly write to their congressional representatives.  However, she believes that Revelation’s vision is one of God’s love and redemption.  John’s vision was written to early Christians to give them hope in the midst of terrifying Roman imperialism.  Rossing wants us to reclaim the heart of the Bible’s Christ-centered call for justice.^[iii]   Although I haven’t read her book, her position seems to be more nearly my own.

7.   “Reclaim the heart of the Bible’s Christ-centered call for justice.”   It won’t be hard to reclaim that heart if we do what Jesus asks us to do, if we ‘get our work done.’  We can do that if we work like the young man who applied for a job as a farm hand.  He told the farmer about his previous work experience, and then added, “Oh, and I can sleep when the wind blows.”  That comment puzzled the farmer a bit, but he needed the help, so he hired young fellow.  During the next few months, the hired hand did everything he was supposed to, and the farmer was satisfied.  Late one night, one of those horrible Oklahoma windstorms roared across the plains.  It was two in the morning, but the farmer woke up and went outside to fasten whatever was trying to blow away.  First he checked the barn.  The doors were shut tight, all the shutters were closed and latched, and the animals were all tied in their stalls.  The he checked the springhouse, the pump, the storage shed, all the machinery, and the truck.  Everything was secured.  The farmer frantically ran from place to place.  He just knew something had to be loose, or uncovered, or rattling.  But everything was as it should be.  With a smile one his face, he stuck his head into the bunkhouse to thank the new hand – but he was sound asleep.  Then the farmer remembered that curious statement, “I can sleep when the wind blows.”  He grinned, realizing that the young man had done everything he was expected to do.  He could, indeed, sleep when the wind blew.^[iv]     New York, 1994, anonymous story  “Do What Needs To Be Done,” page 5.

8.  The winds are blowing – some days it seems as if they’re howling.  But we needn’t worry.  As long as we’ve done our work – loving God, loving neighbor, loving self – we can at least relax.  We may not actually go to sleep, but we don’t have to worry about whether or not it’s the end of the world.  There will always be wars and rumors of wars, famines, diseases, but God is still God.  And God’s love never ends!