by Zack Hunt
That’s what makes Revelation so hard for many of us to understand, yet so powerful for those to whom it speaks so clearly. You and I can still find hope and comfort in the idea of a new heaven and new earth—absolutely. But just imagine the overwhelming sense of joy that comes with the promise of peace from chaotic waters when you have had to watch your child drown in the sea as you fled a war zone. Imagine the joy that would come with rescue if rising sea levels meant the coastal village in which your family had lived for generations was about to be underwater. Imagine struggling with hunger for a lifetime but now getting to eat endlessly from the tree of life for all eternity. Or consider those unable to pay for a doctor, who have witnessed a never-ending stream of loved ones lost to disease and death—how they would rejoice at the promise that death and mourning and sorrow will soon be no more.
The reason I first turned to Jack Van Impe and folks like him is the same reason anybody first turns to people like that: Revelation is hard to understand, and these self-proclaimed experts promise to make it all clear and easy. And in their own, woefully incorrect way, that’s exactly what they do. They take mysterious images and give them not only a clear meaning but also a clear purpose. They make a foggy future clearer. Actual biblical scholars, of course, can do a far more accurate job of clarifying mysteries of Revelation. But the fundamental reason most of us struggle to understand Revelation isn’t our lack of fluency in biblical Greek or our lack of knowledge of specific apocalyptic imagery and tropes. The reason most of us struggle to understand Revelation is because it wasn’t written to us or with us in mind. And I don’t just mean readers in the twenty-first century. I mean any of us throughout history who were or are too privileged, too safe, or too comfortable to understand what John is trying to say. John is writing to real churches with real people who were suffering real injustice and persecution. And I don’t mean the kind of persecution that includes not hearing the cashier at Target tell you Merry Christmas.
John’s apocalypse is both a call for justice and a promise of liberation. On both counts, it is hard to fully appreciate or understand when we ourselves have little real need of justice or liberation. John could leave out the images of dragons and beasts and scrolls and replace them with bland, unimaginative, straightforward language, and it still wouldn’t fully resonate with most of us. He is simply speaking to a need we simply don’t have, or else don’t think we have.
So while books like the Left Behind series and the accompanying movies play up the fear and terror that can be mined from the pages of Revelation, that fear and terror is fundamentally misplaced. John did not write the book of Revelation to strike fear and terror into his readers. He wrote it to inspire hope. If anyone should be terrified of what John has to say, it is those in places of power and privilege who use their power to oppress the weak.
Revelation promises that the fears of the oppressed will soon cease as their oppressors finally face the justice of God. Those who have spent their entire lives living on the underside of history will finally move from fear to hope when the Lord returns.
But that hope isn’t a passive promise, an excuse to sit by idly waiting for God to act.
It’s a call to action.
The present kairos
The task of any biblical prophet, including John, is not simply to reassure readers that everything will be taken care of in the future, but to call them to action and repentance in the present. That way they will be ready for that future day, because it is coming soon. That future does ultimately depend on God. But, as Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, we have a role in bringing that future about in the present by living out God’s will and incarnating God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
The terrifying imagery of Revelation itself plays a role in that work. Like any prophetic warning, it’s intended, as my grandmother would say, to shake some sense into folks—in this case, the authorities it was criticizing and the people it was calling to repentance. Jesus was on his way back, and he was coming with swift justice. The message of Revelation isn’t that all hope is lost, but rather “There’s still time, but repent before it’s too late!” This is true both for the powers that be and for the laity, as we see in the open letters to the various churches, particularly Laodicea, who is warned to shape up lest Jesus vomit them out of his mouth (Revelation 3:16).
But this effort to call the people to repentance and conversion isn’t about simply getting them to say “I’m sorry.” Nor is it exhausted by the sort of intellectual assent to a list of ideas or beliefs that we often associate with repentance and conversion today. The sort of repentance and conversion that John the Revelator and the rest of the biblical prophets are concerned with is a call to justice, a call to love the least of these and to welcome and care for the marginalized and oppressed. It’s a call echoed in Isaiah 1, when God tries to rattle the people of God into repentance by telling them he’s disgusted by their offerings and will listen to their prayers no more—or at least not until they wash themselves clean by seeking justice, rescuing the oppressed, defending the orphaned, and pleading the case of the widow (Isaiah 1:16-17).
The biblical prophets weren’t just trying to shake sense into people. They were trying to teach people how to live the way God intended. That’s why, along with apocalypse and prophecy, Revelation also falls into another biblical category. This genre is often overlooked, but when it is understood, it helps to unveil not just the full meaning of Revelation but its call for the people of God. You see, while the book of Revelation is filled with all sorts of apocalyptic imagery, that imagery is wrapped up in the form of a letter. In the beginning of Revelation, we see seven real letters to seven real churches. John’s apocalypse begins the same way you would begin any letter: with a salutation. John greets the seven churches, giving them his regards before conveying the message, or revelation, that Jesus has given to him for each of them. John also ends his apocalypse like a letter, with a personal closing that gives further instructions.
Why does it matter that Revelation is written as a letter? Because it sets the framework for understanding the entire book of Revelation. Aside from being an apocalypse, Revelation also functions like an epistle. Epistles, like Paul’s letters to other churches of the time, gave practical advice for how churches should function and how their people were to live their lives as followers of Jesus. That’s exactly what John is doing at both the beginning and end of Revelation. He’s telling people in the seven congregations how to live in the end times. Just like Paul, John was convinced that the return of Jesus was imminent, and he shaped his guidance for the church with that in mind.
Revelation’s identity as an epistle can completely transform how we read and understand its apocalyptic imagery. Like the letters that frame the book, the Apocalypse of John is a story for the people of God now, not in some distant future. John is preparing the church for what is about to happen. He is calling them to repentance and transformation now, not later, because the apocalypse is already starting to unfold. John’s audience is already living in the last days because Jesus had been raised from the dead, ushering in the dawn of all things being made new.
The central focus of Revelation is the resurrection of Jesus, and like Paul, John understood the resurrection as more than a onetime event. It was this sense of ultimate deliverance that drove Paul’s apocalyptic imagination. In his theology, the resurrection of Jesus was only the beginning. For both John and Paul, Jesus was the “first fruits” of a new creation (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). His resurrection was but the beginning of resurrection for everyone. In keeping with their Jewish roots, Paul and John understood resurrection to be something that happened to everyone at the same time, much like the valley of dry bones the prophet Ezekiel watched come back to life individually, but all together (Ezekiel 37). Therefore, if Jesus had been raised from the dead, it had to mean the resurrection of everyone else and the end of the present age were right around the corner.10 Resurrection as John and Paul understood it
was a communal, not individual, experience.
So, if Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of the end times, then Revelation isn’t dealing with events in the distant future, though those events are there at the end of the book. Revelation is preparing the church for the present. John calls this present time a kairos, or an opportunity for grace and conversion, because, for all the graphic apocalyptic imagery, Revelation is calling the church to repentance so that through the redemptive grace of God, the church can avoid the punishment of the beast and his followers.
It’s this present kairos that Jesus is talking about when he addresses the seven churches at the beginning of Revelation. He isn’t telling them to wait to get things squared away. He’s calling them to repent and transform now because he is coming soon. In fact, he is already standing at the door knocking, waiting for them to let him in to complete the work of resurrection and re-creation. Ironically, that image undermines our idea of the second coming as the return of Jesus to be with his people. But it makes perfect sense when we think back to Jesus’ promise to his disciples at the end of Matthew’s gospel. Jesus promised his disciples that he would be with them always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). The cry of the church in Revelation isn’t as much a cry for Jesus to come back in the future as it is for Jesus to act in the present.
As we’ve seen, modern anticipation of the rapture has dispensationalists feeling free to ignore pressing problems like creation care and poverty, because Jesus will be back any day to make it all better. But for John, Paul, and the early church, imminent judgment didn’t mean abandonment of discipleship. Rather, it meant doubling down in earnest, because final judgment was at hand. They recognized that the time for repentance was almost gone, because the end of the age was at hand. The end of the age, not of the world or of history. Even in its promise of a new heaven and a new earth, Revelation is not describing the end of this world. Rather, as Paul puts it, the form of this world is passing away and being renewed, re-created (1 Corinthians 7:31).
This is why Martin Luther is said to have declared that if he knew the world were to end tomorrow, he would still plant a tree. He knew how invested God is in the here and now, and he knew that, as a Christian, he was called to that same sort of investment. Luther recognized that the promise of a new heaven and a new earth doesn’t absolve us from caring for the present one. Why? Because God’s promise is one of renewal, not starting over from scratch. As Paul said, it is the form of the world that is passing, not the world itself. We have a responsibility, a calling, to help usher in that new form now as it is promised in Revelation.
In Revelation, heaven is not so much a destination as it is a source of hope and inspiration. The New Jerusalem isn’t a goal as much as it is a way of life that is about to dawn on earth. It’s effectively an answer to the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In Revelation, Jerusalem is portrayed as a city “coming down” to earth. It is the job of the church to prepare the way of the coming kingdom: the new heaven here on the new earth. This is why Revelation shouldn’t be understood as an invitation to passivity. Revelation isn’t an excuse to sit around and wait for God to act. It’s a call to action and a guide for how to live in the last days, in preparation for the dawning of the New Jerusalem.
Revelation isn’t a road map to the future. It’s a model for how to live in the present. The transcendent utopia of its final chapters isn’t just a far-off promise. It’s something akin to the Lord’s Prayer. John isn’t just revealing what will happen one day. He—or more accurately, Jesus—is calling the people of God to live out that kingdom now on earth as in heaven. This is why it is so important that we not miss the role Revelation plays as a guide for life in the present, not just the future. This is, after all, why John’s apocalypse begins with letters to churches in the present, with instructions on how to live in the here and now. The apocalyptic life isn’t defined by sitting around and patiently waiting for God to act. It’s defined by living out the promised kingdom of God on earth as it is in the final chapters of Revelation.
This is what makes the book of Revelation not just an apocalypse but also gospel. It is truly good news to the poor, good news for the oppressed, good news for the hungry, good news for the lost, the least, and the dying. It promises that the dead will live, the broken will be healed, the first made last, the hungry fed, the oppressed liberated, and the poor crowned as royalty in a new kingdom. To understand the apocalyptic gospel better, we need to put down the dispensational charts and predictions, get out of our theological bubbles, and start serving and listening to those people we would otherwise ignore—the kind of people to whom John wrote his revelation. They weren’t the elite, the wealthy, or the privileged. They were the outcast, the marginalized, and the oppressed. They were outsiders in an empire where their faith made them a target for persecution. Their way of life ensured hardship, ridicule, and even the prospect of martyrdom. And yet they loved their neighbors and enemies in the empire anyway.
The key to understanding Revelation isn’t hidden in a secret code. It’s found in love for our neighbors. It’s found in loving the neighbors we forget even exist or, worse, blame for their struggles. It’s found in listening to the cries of Black Lives Matters activists instead of dismissing them as thugs and hooligans. It’s found in listening to the survival stories of immigrants instead of portraying them as rapists, murderers, gang members, and dangerous criminals. It’s in opening our doors to refugees in desperate need of saving instead of turning them away because we’re worried they might be terrorists.
It’s in imagining new and creative ways to bring justice to the poor and liberation to the oppressed that we will find a meaning in Revelation that’s worthy of God. The true wonder of Revelation is found not in the apocalyptic imagery but in its proclamation that God is already at work in the world. God is already healing, liberating, and reconciling everything in creation back to our Creator. And God invites us to do these things with him so that one day all these things will be made new on earth as it is in heaven.
9
Saved
Not long after my internship in the swamps of Florida, I moved to the Mississippi Delta to take a job as the director of student ministries at a Methodist church in Memphis, Tennessee. The church had a long-standing relationship with the United Methodist Church in Nicaragua. Well before I arrived, the Memphis congregation had been taking teams of adults to Nicaragua to build churches while sending money and other donations in the intervening time to help out however they could.
My second year in Memphis, our church’s Nicaragua team leader and I decided to make the annual Nicaragua trip a youth trip. I went to Nicaragua with him the summer before we planned on taking the teens. That way I could scope things out myself and get the lay of the land. Then together we spent the next year preparing and training our senior high students for the trip to Nicaragua. In many ways, it was your typical overseas short-term youth mission trip, though without the typical construction projects. We primarily led vacation Bible school programs for the children, feeding them and fellowshipping together over lunch each day. It was during lunch one of those days that something happened that forever changed my understanding not just of missions but of the gospel itself.
The lunch we served each day was typically the same—emphasis on served. We didn’t make the food. The women in the local church made it, which is why it smelled delicious and not—had we attempted to cook it—like a steaming pile of mystery garbage. The routine was the same every day. The women cooked the food while we sang songs, played games, and taught Bible lessons to the children. Once lunch was ready, all the children lined up to eat. It was always a bit chaotic at first, but the lunch line formed quickly, almost spontaneously. The kids knew the routine well, as we were hardly the first short-term mission team to come their way.
The food, usually some combination of rice and chicken or some other meat, was often served in
a bag. This may sound odd to you, but it’s fairly typical of Nicaragua. If you drive up and down the streets of any major city in the country and come to a stop at a red light, someone will likely approach your window with a dozen or so bags filled with various fruit juices hanging from a pole. It looks weird to outsiders like you and me, and obviously people in Nicaragua do use cups, but bags are a cheap and efficient way to store and drink juice on the go. The same is true with food. While you’re more likely to find juice being sold in bags, those same bags worked just as well for lunch. And at a vacation Bible school, bags not only make for easy prep; they cut down on some of the mess that usually comes with kids and plates filled with food.
One day we were hosting vacation Bible school at a half-finished church outside the small mountain town of Estelí. (Half-finished might be a bit generous; it was a concrete foundation surrounded by cinderblock walls whose exposed steel skeleton reached unimpeded to the heavens, as the church still lacked a roof.)
The church itself was nestled in the heart of a small neighborhood. The houses in the neighborhood were roughly constructed wooden shacks, made from hand-hewn planks and topped with corrugated steel. The modest homes were lined sporadically across a handful of dirt roads. Some had electricity running to them, but many did not. All had dirt floors that were conspicuously well maintained by the women of the neighborhood, who could regularly be seen sweeping the floors of their homes, stopping only to smile and wave as we walked by. They may not have had much in that little mountainside neighborhood, but they took great pride in what they did have, and it showed.
When the announcement was made to line up for lunch, the kids in our half-built church dropped whatever they were doing and ran to get into line. At the same time, countless other children we didn’t even know were there emerged from the shadows of nearby houses and joined the frenzy. There was only space in the church’s makeshift kitchen for a couple of students to help serve at a time. So those of us who weren’t serving lunch either waited in line, chatting with the kids, or sat down to talk with them while they ate their lunch. Or at least tried to talk. Most of us didn’t speak much Spanish and most of them didn’t speak English, but the kids politely smiled and justifiably laughed as we tried to patch together our limited Spanish vocabulary into a fully formed sentence. Which rarely, if ever, happened.
