November 26, 2006

Susan Gilpin

TRIBULATION

Revelation 1: 4b-8

 

The new, 2007 car ads have begun appearing on TV. They promise cars and trucks that are shinier, sexier, faster, and safer than ever before. They promise that we will be, too, if we buy one. The ads appeal powerfully to our longing for renewal.

 

The human longing for renewal is universal. In Greek mythology, the goddess Persephone returned from the underworld every spring and renewed the seasons. In Mayan culture, the blood of human sacrifices was believed to renew the earth.

 

In the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, it is God who renews the earth, most thoroughly at the end of time. The book of Revelation describes the arrival of God’s renewing power. It is long, loaded with symbols, and frequently misunderstood. Over the years it has given rise to many controversial theories and practices.

 

Right now, the Left Behind books and videos are popularizing one particular theory of God’s renewing power, known as tribulationism. In the Left Behind series, to pave the way for renewal, God sends seven years of trial to the earth. All the really good people are raptured immediately, lifted up out of daily life in the twinkling of an eye and taken directly to God’s heavenly realm. You’ve seen the bumper sticker, “In case of the rapture, this car will be unmanned.” Airlines, hospitals, entire countries must suddenly function without them.

 

Those who are “left behind” struggle against evil for seven years. Some of them will turn to Christ and redeem themselves. Others will persist in their old ways and be “left behind” again. The plot revolves around who will, and will not, enter the pearly gates.  

 

So should we be worried about being Left Behind or not? What does Revelation really say about the purposes of history, the second coming of Christ, and the ultimate rule of God?  

 

History

The best way to begin to understand Revelation, and any book of the Bible, is to look at the historical circumstances in which it was written. It comes to us from John of Patmos – a Christian who lived in the Roman Empire during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, from 81 to 96 AD. During the end of his reign, Domitian became cruel and paranoid. Since the followers of Jesus refused to worship him and his idols, he persecuted them severely, including one John, whom he exiled to the island of Patmos.

 

On Patmos, John received a vision of people being persecuted, and of God ultimately defeating their persecutors. So that he would not be persecuted even more for writing the vision down, he wrote it in code. He disguised the Roman Emperor and his administration as strange and powerful beasts, and Jesus as a lamb. Borrowing language which Greeks and Romans applied to Zeus, the king of their gods, he talked about the Christian God as the one who “was, and is, and is to come,” and the “Alpha and the Omega,” the beginning and the end of the Greek alphabet. He called God the ruler of the kings of earth, and he saw that at the end of all the battles, the Lamb, that is Jesus, will take the throne.

 

After the defeat of the beasts, John’s vision showed him a new heaven and a new earth. John saw God dwelling in the earthly capital. He saw the river of life running through the city, and beside it, a tree of life bearing 12 kinds of fruit, one for each month of the year. The tree bore leaves which miraculously healed the nations.

 

When John shared his vision with other Christians whom Domitian was persecuting, it gave them comfort, and hope, and strength to endure terrible trials. It assured them that God is stronger than any emperor, any army, any persecution.  

 

Comparing the two

John’s vision of the end times is called the apocalypse, the time when the curtain which hides the truth is pushed away, and the truth is revealed. The main differences between the Left Behind version and the Biblical vision concern earthly life. In the novels, the point is not to renew earth but to escape from it. In Revelation, God renews the earth. Earth becomes a place of fresh water and plentiful food, of healing and of peace. In the novels, salvation is for individuals. In Revelation, the new earth is for all the nations.

 

Living in harmony with God

Revelation has meaning for the time it was written, for the end of time, and for every generation in between. Every generation has the chance to be part of God’s creative work, to work in harmony with God’s renewing powers.

 

The persecuted Christians continued to gather in each other’s houses to study and worship and support each other. More and more people joined them. Eventually in 325 AD the Emperor Constantine himself became a Christian, and the persecutions stopped.

 

The Pilgrims set out for America to build a city ruled by Scripture. They thought the end had arrived in 1632, when a great hurricane devastated Plimoth Colony, Cape Cod, and the Massachussetts coast. But it wasn’t the end. Eventually they rebuilt from the hurricane, and they went on trying to live faithful lives. We are their descendants. Their church was the Congregational Church, which joined with three other denominations 50 years ago next June to become the United Church of Christ.

The symbol of the United Church of Christ, which is on the front of our bulletins today and in the center of the labyrinth, symbolizes God’s rule over the earth. The bottom is a circle, the globe, the earth. On top of it is a cross with a crown on top of it. The cross stands for Jesus, and the crown is his. Jesus rules, it says. The earth matters to God.

 

Now it’s our turn to figure out how to cooperate with the God who was and is and is coming to renew the earth. Here’s what one person did.

 

Barbara Rossing majored in geology in college. She loved the mountains, and she spent summers as a park ranger at Mesa Verde National Park. Then she went on to write her PhD thesis on the book of Revelation. As a geologist, she sees that the world supply of oil is running out. As a student of Revelation, she sees that things do end. She says that one challenge of our age is to learn to live with less oil.  She says we have four choices:

We can ignore the problem and do nothing.

We can compete for the oil that is left.

We can learn to conserve oil, to live with less, or

We can step out of the oil economy all together, live off the grid.

 

Conserving energy, reducing global warming, ending wars over oil, may look hopeless. It may look like we’re up against the powers of Empire. Revelation tells us that God is on the side of those who work to renew the earth. Fear not! it says. There is something stronger than empire – it’s the God who was and is and is about to renew the earth. “God is not going to leave it behind and neither can we.” (Christian Century, Nov. 14, 2006, pg. 25)

 

This December, as we look forward to Christmas, we’re looking forward to more than the birth of a baby. We’re looking forward to the second coming of Christ, the renewal of our fractured earth.