“This is a revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the events that must soon take place. He sent an angel to present this revelation to his servant John, who faithfully reported everything he saw. This is his report of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. God blesses the one who reads the words of this prophecy to the church, and he blesses all who listen to its message and obey what it says, for the time is near.”
Okay, let’s face it. 2,000 years was a while ago. Some people have wondered if we are living in the “last days.” I don’t see how we aren’t, since 2,000 years ago THEY thought they were living in the last days. Either the Bible is wrong on that or we misunderstand how God and time go together.
A lot of people have a lot of thoughts about the book of Revelation. It’s known as “apocalyptic” literature and there are plenty of apocalyptic movies that you can lean on to get the genre. End of the world and all that stuff. Jesus said he’s coming back and we’re all waiting for that moment. It strikes me that the passages that we read in Isaiah during the Advent series were written in a time quite like this one. Prophetic messages speaking of a coming Messiah. What’s more striking to me is that the religious leaders of the day missed Jesus entirely. They had the Scriptures memorized and taped to their foreheads and they didn’t recognize him. What does that mean for us today as we read a book like Revelation?
I can’t say that I’m going to offer a whole lot of answers in this Revelation devotional series. Scholars have argued over this for a very long time. What I can say is that I want to approach this series with as blank a slate as I can find and just simply look for God. We see in today’s verses that God’s heart is for us to listen to these words. Some of the direct events they described have already happened in certain earthly ways, yet their ultimate fulfillment is probably beyond our grasp until we reach the other side. For now, let’s just start with an openness to what God wants to teach us about himself. If we look for answers that we want to find, we just might miss him the second time around too.