Jeremy L. Berg

The climax of every Asian food experience is breaking open that fortune cookie to gain new insight our own imminent futures. I keep waiting to open the one that says, “Your love for deep-fried Cream Cheese Puffs will shorten your life.” But my fortune this time was:

YOU WILL BE A LION IN YOUR NEXT BIG ENDEAVOR.

Ah, yes. A lion! Strong and determined, regal and victorious in battle. The king of the jungle. On the prowl with its head held high, walking with a “Don’t mess with me” swagger. Everyone wants to be the lion when faced with any serious challenge.

Except God, apparently.

Which brings me to Palm Sunday’s royal procession featuring a King riding a donkey instead of a war horse, and the Book of Revelation with its own surprising twist on Lion-power. What does the Book of Revelation teach us about the CrossRoad we have been exploring?

A year ago I did a deeper personal dive into the Book of Revelation through Michael Gorman’s very accessible introduction Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship & Witness (2011). Considering our political climate in the days of Donald Trump, the numerous high profile scandals and moral failures among Evangelical megachurch pastors, the #MeToo movement, and all the rest, the message of Revelation continues to speak a much-needed word to our present cultural moment. That is, if we can learn how to read this book as it was meant to be read, and not as a cryptic map unlocking the secrets of the end of the world and the identity of the Anti-Christ, etc. if we can only crack the code.

I gave a lecture on Revelation a year ago, trying to cover a semester’s worth of material in 90 minutes. This was a mistake. I continue to feel an impulse to further unpack or review some of the relevant material I gleaned from Gorman’s book. So, here’s an attempt to draw out some major themes I find incredibly challenging and hope-instilling for today’s church.

If it’s not a road map for the End Times, what then is the purpose of this vision given by Jesus to John, which he was told to write down, and give to the churches scattered across the Roman Empire? Gorman suggests:

“Revelation speaks both to the accommodating segments of the churches and to the persecuted segments of the churches, as a truly pastoral-prophetic word always does, challenging the former and comforting the latter. It is a theopoetic, theopolitical text that provides us with an inspiring vision of the present and future reign of God and the Slaughtered Lamb (Christ); a powerful critique of empire and civil religion; and a challenging summons to follow the Lamb in a community of faithful resistance, liturgical living, and missional hope.

Revelation was written to “enable its hearers to control their fear, to renew their commitment, and to sustain their vision” (Metzger). It does this through a series of images and symbols that should not be over-interpreted (some would say they should not be interpreted at all, just experienced). Arguments about the meaning or cultural referent of this or that detail are inevitable, but such arguments should not inhibit the experience of the text’s theoretic vision… Above all, however, the details of the symbolism should not be handled as if Revelation were a script about the details of the end of history. Rather, the details serve a greater liturgical and theopolitical agenda” (Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly, 59-60).

Chapters 1-3 are pastoral letters sent to various churches, encouraging and warning them to remain faithful in these difficult times. The good news, which should cause our hearts to soar with hope today as well, is that Christ is present among the churches as symbolized by the “lamp stands” in each church. The 3 main messages conveyed to the churches in these letters are:

1. We have security – God will protect us!
2. We have hope – the one who was killed is alive again! So, even if God’s protection doesn’t prevent our suffering and death, we have the undying hope that Christ has conquered even death.
3. We are called to Discipleship – In Revelation, discipleship is ultimately about faithful witness in the face of trials and temptations to compromise.

Gorman summarizes the message of Jesus to the churches in chapters 2-3:

“Will these churches be faithful witnesses both to Jesus and like Jesus (and John!) by refraining from participation in the cultural norm of pagan religion, including the imperial cult, even if it entails serious consequences: social, economic, and political? Will they join the Nicolaitans, Balaamites, followers of Jezebel, and Laodiceans who are participating in various forms of compromise and accommodation, which John labels idolatry, or will they abstain—“come out” (18:4)—and be willing to suffer like John, like Antipas of Pergamum (2:13), and like Jesus himself?” (Gorman, 96)

“Christ desires a church characterized by the fullness of orthodoxy and orthopraxy, faithfulness and fearlessness, devotion to Jesus but not to the state, and a preference for the poor rather than the rich” (Gorman, 100).

G. K. Chesterton once said, “Though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.” What then is the “interpretive key” to unlocking the true intent of the Apocalypse? Gorman argues that the “centering vision” and “interpretive key” is found in chapters 4-5. We have here a jaw-dropping, hold your breath “symphony of Old Testament theophanies.”

In Jewish apocalyptic literature, one of the key ideas is that the future destiny of God’s people and the whole world is rolled up in a scroll, and the reader waits with bated breath to see if anyone is worthy to unroll the scroll. If not, it is feared, God’s plans cannot go forward as desired. The rest of the Book will largely deal with the unfolding plot in the human and cosmic drama, with judgments being poured out on evil and God’s faithful remnant persecuted and on the run, until the story reaches is grand (and hopeful) climax in chapters 20-22.

But before we get to the “opening of the scrolls”, if anyone is worthy, we pause in chapters 4 and 5. “Before John can see the future, he must see who holds the future, and who is worthy to bring about that future” (107). Who is the God orchestrating history? What kind of a God is he? What methods does this God use to conquer evil and rescue his people? Is he the divine equivalent of Caesar, ruthlessly squashing all who cross him?

Chapter 4 and 5 shockingly remind Christians that at the center of the universe is not a board room filled with politicians, but a grand cathedral filled with worshipers engaged in ceaseless praise of the One on the Throne. In Gorman’s words:

 “The worship of God is the heartbeat of the cosmos, even when we humans on earth do not see it, participate in it, or value it. Only God is worthy to receive what others, especially powerful political figures, may want or demand: our total devotion, our praise, our crowns” (Gorman, 107).

So we have 24 elders in white, and strange creatures with strange faces, all bowing down and praising the One on the Throne in chapter 4. Then in chapter 5 the reader is told that there is one worthy to open the scroll. We find ourselves leaning forward, standing on tip toes, awaiting the unveiling and identification of this powerful, conquering Lion. Then we come to what Eugene Boring calls, “Perhaps the most mind-wrenching ‘rebirth of images’ in literature.” As Richard Hays puts it, “The shock of this reversal discloses the central mystery of the Apocalypse: God overcomes the world not through a show of force but through the suffering and death of Jesus, ‘the faithful witness (Rev. 1:5)” (Hays, Moral Vision, 174).

Richard Bauckham drives home the artistry of this revelation as well as its theological significance for how we understand God’s way of exerting power, conquering evil and saving the world:

“It is crucial that we “recognize the contrast between what [John] hears (5:5) and what he sees (5:6). He hears that ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, had conquered’. The two messianic titles evoke a strong militaristic and nationalistic image of the Messiah of David as conqueror of the nations, destroying the enemies of God’s people… But this image is reinterpreted by what John sees: the Lamb whose sacrificial death (5:6) has redeemed people from all nations (5:9-10). By juxtaposing the two contrasting images, John has forged a new symbol of conquest by sacrificial death” (Bauckham, Theology of Revelation, 74).

This radical rethinking of power in terms of Lamb-power that conquered through suffering rather than the sword raises the question of a nonviolent witness. Should we be surprised that the Jesus we meet in Revelation should be so consistent with the Jesus of the Gospels who talked endlessly about a Kingdom not-of-this-world characterized by Enemy-love and non-violence? Should we be surprised that the Messiah who made his royal entrance into Jerusalem “humble and riding on a donkey” should be viewed as a conquering Lamb in the Book of Revelation? 

We might be able to wrap our heads around a God who can  somehow overcome Evil by letting it do its worst to Him in a singular event on the Cross, absorbing it and neutralizing its power, but what of His followers? How can they move his Kingdom forward in this dog-eat-dog world, red in tooth and claw, without resorting to violent force and occasional bloodshed? This difficult question, which must be asked not in the safety of theoretical essays and classroom discussion, but in the face of genocide, little girls being sold into sex slavery and Nazi death camps.

I confess, my heart and natural instincts may lead me in one direction in trying to grapple with evil, but my allegiance to Jesus and my high view of Scripture, demands that I walk the road he paved for his followers—a road clearly illuminated by the narrative and symbolic universe of Revelation. Some protest this weak-sounding warfare of the lamb by pointing to the scene in Revelation 19 that describes Jesus coming back on a White stallion, sword in his hand and ready to shed blood. Here’s the scene from Revelation 19:11-16:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

One popular preacher described this image of Jesus as a “prize-fighter with a tattoo down his leg, a sword in his hand and the commitment to make someone bleed.” Then he mocked those who challenge our Lionish assumptions of power saying, “I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.” But this is to completely miss the the sneaky and subversive message John conveys in this scene. 

Notice that the sword is not in his hand ready to strike down his enemies, but rather coming out of his mouth. That is, the message of the Gospel and the Truth will set the nations free from its slavery to endless chapters in the same old story championing the “myth of redemptive violence.” As for the blood in this scene, I agree with those who suggest his robes are dripping with his own blood he willingly shed on the cross to defeat evil and win the salvation of the world. Why? Because he is already bloody before the battle spoken of here even begins.

As for Christ’s followers, those armies “white and pure”: how shall they win the battle against the Enemy in all its earthly forms? They conquered not by military might or political maneuvering, but “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not love their lives in the face of death” (Rev. 12:11).

In drawing out the practical implications for the church in today’s world, Gorman contends that

“It is this modus operandi of faithful nonviolent action and speech, rooted in the life and witness of the Lamb, that is the way offered to, and ultimately required of, the Lamb’s followers. The false cult of civil religion entails the nationalization (or tribalization), and even militarization, of worship. In the true cult of God and the Lamb, however, worship is universal and peaceful. Its warfare is conducted with words, not weapons. Even the cry for justice is an expression of this kind of warfare, a verbal affirmation of God’s faithfulness with a corollary, uncivil pledge of nonviolence. This combination of a cry for justice and a commitment to nonviolence may be the most significant feature of Revelation’s liturgical theology and spirituality” (184).

Or, again, Richard Hays:

“A work that places the lamb that was slaughtered at the center of its praise and worship can hardly be used to validate violence and coercion. God’s ultimate judgement of the wicked is, to be sure, inexorable. . . . But these events [of judgment in Revelation] are in the hand of God; they do not constitute a program for human military action. As a paradigm for the action of the faithful community, Jesus stands as the faithful witness who conquers through suffering. . . . Those who read the battle imagery of Revelation with a literalist bent fail to grasp the way in which the symbolic logic of the work as a whole dismantles the symbolism of violence” (Hays, Moral Vision, 175).

Finally, John Howard Yoder helps us think through the cost of following the Lamb in a Lion’s world, of choosing the narrow CrossRoad that often puts one at odds with the crowds on the wide path:

“Christians whose loyalty to the Prince of Peace puts them out of step with today’s nationalistic world, because they are willing to love their nation’s friends but not to hate their nation’s enemies, are not unrealistic dreamers who think that by their objections they will end all wars. On the contrary, it is the soldiers who are unrealistic, thinking they can put an end to wars by preparing for just one more” (Yoder, He Came Preaching Peace).  

As we come back to the present day and ask what this means for us, I would have us linger on the idea that Christians are called to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony—a testimony that can apparently be spoiled if we are not willing to lay down our own lives like Jesus and resist violent retaliation in order to preserve our Christian witness or testimony. In our world today, just as in the ancient world, surrounded by empires and power-struggles, the CrossRoad will usually not appear to be the most practical road if you want to get certain results. While I could be very well be wrong, I currently believe the main thing the church of Jesus Christ is supposed to be doing is trying to lives according to the pattern of Jesus and bearing faithful witness to a non-violent, enemy-loving Kingdom totally at odds with the kingdoms of this world. If we overcome evil by tactics Jesus and his Kingdom forbid, we may achieve some good and advance justice in this world. But in doing so, are we worshiping the Lion instead of the Slaughtered Lamb? Are we bowing before the power of Caesar’s sword, or pledging allegiance to the Crucified King, humble and riding on a donkey?  

In closing, what I find most difficult about this message of Revelation is not how it challenges my concepts of power and seems to question the validity of some of most effective means to addressing evil and being a champion for justice in the world. As challenging as that is, what leaves me most unsettled is the fact that the early church actually believed this message and had the courage and faith to follow the way of the Lamb even unto death. “The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the early church,” wrote Tertullian in the 2nd century. 

I wonder if their blood cries out from the earth (or from Heaven’s Throne Room?) even now, calling the American Church to open its 21st century eyes to behold once again, or maybe for the first time, this ancient Vision of the King of Kings and the upside-down Kingdom we are called to represent amidst our own power-drunk empires. We are called not only to keep the benefits of Christ’s cross, but to heed Peter’s challenge to his church and the church of every century: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered on your behalf, and left you an example; it is for you to follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:20-21). The words from a man who was crucified on his own cross, upside down, because he felt unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord.

“Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 3:13).