Jude, Revelation 1 – 17

Jude

When did the archangel, Michael, argue with the devil over the body of Moses? I don’t remember that part. How many named angels are there in the entire Bible?

Revelation

The book of Revelation looms large in the psyche of the Western world, even – or perhaps especially – among non-believers and people who do not study the scripture. It has such a reputation for containing bizarre and abstract representations of evil and war and bloodletting, and the antichrist, and the day of judgment, and the beast with ten horns and ten faces, etc., etc. I think some people, particularly the ungodly who are unduly attracted to evil, are unnaturally drawn to the idea of it, despite what it’s reality may be. Revelation is alluded to in our pop culture. Tombstone’s Johnny Ringo quotes Revelation’s “and Hell followed with him.” Hunter Thompson frequently relied on the more gnarly quotes from Revelation. So-called Devil Worshippers revel in the ideas of the mark of the beast, etc. I haven’t read the first word yet (this time), and already, all of these associations come to mind.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6160167

Jesus addresses seven churches, or the churches in seven cities. But it strikes me that we don’t know these seven churches. Why these particular ones and not others? What does he address the angels of those churches and not the people of those churches?

3:14 “The Amen.” I am pretty sure this is another name for Jesus.

I am totally jazzed by the description of worship in heaven that appears in chapter five. This is one of those sections that I want to read standing on a chair in with the clenched fist of victory.

The four horsemen are given authority over one fourth of the earth, and the people will be killed by one of four methods: the sword (they will be killed outright), famine (starve to death), plague (death from disease), and death by the wild beasts of the earth (wild animals will attack and kill them). Fascinating.

Purely from a dramatic standpoint, chapter eight contains a masterstroke of drama and suspense. When it can’t get any climactic, any faster, higher, or louder, the only thing to do is go the other way and make everything stop. The seventh seal is opened, and there is silence in heaven for half an hour. Nothing happens, but the tension is held, and everyone holds their breath. That’s incredible.

As I am reading, it occurs to me that there is nothing in all of scripture (and being here at the end I can fully compare) that is anything like this portion of scripture. None of the prophets have used this kind of description with these kids of images.  

In chapter ten, John writes that the seven thunders spoke. “I was about to write down what they said, but a voice from heaven said, ‘Seal up what the seven thunders have written and do not write them down.’” That makes me all the more curious, what did the seven thunders say? If we are not to know, why then was it mentioned in the first place?

In chapter eleven, John looks up and sees that the heavens are opened, and God’s temple in heaven is opened, and there in the temple is the Ark of the Covenant. I have wondered about the ark and about how it is absent in the accounts of the looting a destruction of the temples. Could it be that the ark of the covenant was lost to history because it was so special to God that before the temple could be destroyed, God brought the ark up to his heavenly temple in an example of the blurring of the lines between the spiritual and the material?

What I am seeing here is simply a flash of images, not one cohesive story, but a succession of images. When a new one appears it is viewed for a moment until another one takes it’s place, and the first one fades almost immediately.

In 16:15, the words of Jesus appear in red. But in 16:17, the words from the throne, “It is done,” are not in red. Aren’t these the words of Jesus, similar to the words he spoke on the cross? Or were these words of God the Father?