I wonder what you think Jesus looks like? Maybe like the 14th century Durer woodcut on the front of the bulletin? Or maybe like the beaded curtain in my office. When I was on sabbatical a couple years ago, when I returned some unnamed person (Tara Taylor!) had hung up this Archie McPhee beaded Jesus curtain in my office, complete with blonde hair, white skin and what one person said “those Middle Eastern blue eyes!” It’s still hanging in the corner of my office.

Last week we started a series on the Revelation, (remember, singular, not plural…one unified revelation, not a bunch of revelations), the book of the “end times,” by actually looking at the gospel of Matthew to see what Jesus Himself had to say about the end of time. It seemed that somehow Jesus held together both a sense of the need for Christians to be patient endurers as history unfolded within God’s plan, and to be people of urgency, because the time is short. The clearest statement Jesus gave was “Always be ready…because you don’t know the time” when He will come again.

Revelation is a funny book, with a funny history. People through the ages haven’t quite known what to make of it. It’s imaginative. It’s violent. It’s futuristic. It’s present day. It’s organized. It’s chaotic. Martin Luther was suspicious of it. John Calvin wrote commentaries on 26/27 NT books…skipping only the Revelation.

People have usually classified as one of three things:

• apocalypse--(revelation) a vision of the time between the writers’s and the end time that is full of visions, creatures and symbolism.
• prophetic--first and foremost, a message from God. Sometimes that can include predictions of future things, but more importantly “This is what the Lord says…”
• a letter—clearly, Revelation is a letter, with a writer and recipients and a context.

Written by someone named “John,” whom history has often thought was John the disciple of Jesus…but it doesn’t say that.

It’s most likely written towards the end of the first century AD to a group of small Christian churches. This is a time when the emperor of Rome was viewed as a deity, as God. And while there doesn’t seem to have been an empire-wide persecution of Christians at that time, there clearly were periodic and local arrests and trials and banishments and even executions. People could literally lose their life over a refusal to deny their Christian faith, or to bow down in worship to the emperor.

This was real, deadly stuff. For these Christians at the end of the first century, it was evident that they lived in a different time and place than Jesus, and the disciples in Palestine. Now they had to try to answer the question:

What does it mean to be a follower of Christ
in this dangerous time and place?

And so this morning from Revelation, from this last book of the New Testament, the last book of the Bible, the book about the end of time…we have the Last Word…on Christ.

Read Revelation 1:4-18

If we are going to read Revelation, we will have to become students of a number of disciplines. One is poetry. I’ve become a poetry lover.

Poetry is an art, a medium where a picture is worth a thousand words.

Poetry stimulates the imagination, and allows us to think differently about something that might seem quite mundane.

Listen to the difference, for instance, between these two descriptions:

“The dual-colored Canadian goose, like many other bird species, often gathers in large flocks in the early fall. Arranging themselves in v-shaped formations, these strong-flying birds head southwards on a migration journey to the warmer climates.”

Nice. informational. You can read this in any encyclopedia or science book.

Now listen to this poem, a haiku from Sally Andresen that is on my office door:

“The geese flying south
In a row long and v-shaped
Pulling in winter.”

Now, when I read that, my mind begins to soar. I’m transported to a place, on Whidbey Island. In my mind's eye I can picture those honking geese flying low over the beach, so low you can hear their wings rustle the wind. They’re silhouetted against the early winter sky, you can practically see the season of the year changing as they go. I’ve been there! I’ve seen it! It’s real! They pull in winter.

If we’re going to read the Revelation well, we will need to become poetry-readers. We will have the opportunity for our minds to be stimulated in new ways, to think of things we know in a new way.

Eugene Peterson in his book Reversed Thunder makes the point that there really isn’t much new in Revelation. You can find out the things about Christ, the church, sin, grace, brokenness, eternity in the first 65 books of the Bible. He says the intention of revelation, though, is “not to inform us about God, but to involve us in God.”

So we will need to be poets, because this writer John is a poet, and allow our imaginations to move us, and know Christ at the center of our beings.

In addition, we’ll have to become mathematicians. You no doubt noticed just in these few verses of chapter 1 how many times the number “7” is mentioned.

“7” is a special number in scripture, nearly always signifying “wholeness” or “completion,” like the seven days in creation. Here in chapter 1,

“John to the seven churches in Asia,”

“write…and send it to the seven churches (whom we will meet next week).

seven golden lampstands

seven stars

[if we read to verse 20, “seven” is repeated half a dozen more times].

We’ll learn that Christ is at the center of a whole and complete world.

And we’ll need to know something of Geography. The seven churches that John writes to are in Asia, modern day Turkey. They form an arc, a ring of church communities within about 100 miles of the city of Ephesus.

The isle of Patmos is off the coast of Ephesus. It is the same area evangelized by the apostle Paul a generation earlier. The people who live in these towns, who make up these churches are quite likely in trouble from persecution by the Empire.

John writes to these local churches. They are real. John knows them. He knows what their lives are like, the pressures of their culture, the pressures on their faith. It doesn’t get much more local. It’s as though the text says “You, Carol…or Jeff…or Dave…write to the people who meet at Bethany Presbyterian on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle..”

John knows these locals and their geographic locale. Yet there is also something far larger, even cosmic. John writes about the kingdom of God, writes to all churches, incorporates the universe, all the tribes of the earth, and the one who is and was and is to come.

Somehow, John’s Revelation will encompass the provincial small town and the cosmic universal and in fact help the church to find its place in the bigger picture. We’ll need to study our geography, and understand that Christ is at the center locally, globally, universally.

We’ll have to be Bible scholars, both Old and New Testament. Though John never once directly quotes from the Old Testament, there are over 500 clear allusions and phrases taken from the Old Testament.

When John sees the figure he calls the Son of Man in the vision with a head and hair as white as snow, he instantly connects us with the Old Testament book of Daniel chapter 7.

There are two mysterious and glorious figures, one called the Son of Man, who is pictured with another figure, the Ancient One.

The Ancient One sits on a throne, and gives glory and dominion and kingship.

Jesus, of course, later called himself the Son of Man.

And the Ancient of Days is clearly God Almighty.

We will find Christ at the center of both testaments of the Bible.

And we’d better be ready for a lot of Theology as well. Because what John does in describing the Son of Man…is combine the two figures, the Son of Man and the Ancient One from Daniel, into One figure. The one whom John describes, Jesus. It is important. It’s critical. He stands at the center of all John’s Revelation. Of everything. There is nothing more important than what we receive right here.

Listen to what John is doing. In the early verses 5 and 6, we are simply taught about Jesus.

• He is the faithful witness (pointing to God, reflecting, image of invisible God).
• He is the firstborn from the dead (the one who conquers death in his resurrection and therefore the first but not the last).
• He is the ruler of the kings of the earth (ultimately in control).
• Cosmic, eternal, theology simply told to us.

Then comes the singing. John’s doxology is sung to us, and it is intensely personal and local:

“To him who loves us. and freed us from our sins by his blood. and made us to be a kingdom of priests serving God. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

And finally comes the poetry, the picture. It is not for the faint of heart. It’s not my beaded curtain! Thomas Howard, in Christ the Tiger, says “Jesus is not…a pale Galilean but a towering and furious figure who won’t be managed.” Who won’t be managed! I wonder how much of our time we spend trying to manage Jesus?

“I saw one like the Son of Man.”

Feel the picture.

The clothing:

• the long robe of a priest, someone who brings people back to God.
• the golden sash of a king, in control of all the land.

The head and hair:

white as white wool, white as snow. white is pure and clean and unblemished. We’ve had snow in Seattle this year, and at least for a few hours, before we salt it and sand it and dig it and drive all over it…it transforms the world into this pristine wonderland.

The white hair of the Ancient of Days, of God Himself is here upon the Son of Man, the two figures are merged into One. Christ the exact image of God.

The eyes:

burning, not from anger or maliciousness but a purifying fire, one that cuts through the dishonesty, the impurity, that gets to the heart of a person. The same eyes that looked at the Pharisees, that beheld his mother, that held Pilot’s gaze, that sadly saw in Peter “You will betray me,” yet gladly sparkled “Peter, do you love me?”

The feet:

like burnished bronze. Not the clay feet, the weakness of the great statue in Daniel, but bronze, hard and strong and durable. No Achilles heel could fell Jesus, anything taken away from him was given voluntary. Like his life.

The voice:

like the powerful roar of the water. Like a waterfall, surprising in its power. Was it like the voice of Jesus that one day that shouted out to the crowd “Anyone who is thirsty, come to me!”?

The sword coming out of the mouth:

the Word of God. The two edges cutting left and right, judgment in action, unerringly parsing right from wrong, good from evil.

The right hand:

holding the seven stars, the known universe in the first century, the seven planets, the cosmos, easily held in one hand. The universe does not control Christ, he controls the universe. And if it all can be held in one of the Christ’s hands…then surely me? Then surely you?

the face:

shining with an unmistakable glow, with full force, like the power that made Moses’ face glow when he was near the Lord, the light that no darkness can extinguish, full of grace and truth.

This is the picture John paints for us. What he saw. Who he was with. Not Information, but a Person. It is so huge, mindboggling, cosmic. So overwhelming that John falls down as though dead, except that Jesus now places his right hand on John. The same hand that holds all of the universe gets set gently upon one man, from one island, at one point in history. It is so personal. And the voice of Jesus says “Don’t be afraid.”

I don’t know what John might have been afraid of, though the picture must have been amazing. Yet I also wonder, as John pondered his churches, his time in history, the persecutions, if he like most every one of was afraid of death. “Don’t be afraid,” Jesus says. “I am the first and the last and the living one. I was dead but now look! I’m here! Alive! Forever and ever!” Christ at the center.

One more thing. We just can’t miss this. Remember John’s picture began with this: “I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man.”

We already figured out that it is Jesus. And in verse 20 we are told what the lampstands are: they are the seven churches. Jesus Christ is standing at the center of the church. Christ is in the center of the Church. The messy, apathetic, wrong-headed, stubborn, sin-filled church. Not an institution but the people of God, Jesus stands in their midst somehow putting up with them. With us. If you want to find Jesus, despite all the mess, you can find him in the middle of God’s people.

And if he stands in the middle of God’s people, He stands in the middle of my life. Just as messy, broken and apathetic. When life overwhelms, when trauma strikes, when we’re out of work or out of energy, Jesus stands with us.

It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who talked a lot about Jesus “Christ the Center.” At a time when the Nazis were bulldozing most of the Christian church in Germany into acquiescence, Bonhoeffer reminded people that Jesus is the center and meaning of history. Not “was,” but “is.” The center of history, of humanity, of nature.

Seeing Christ is the only thing that can make sense of history. It is all that can make sense of me. What matters, Bonhoeffer says, is the encounter with the risen, living, present Christ. You see,

If Jesus becomes a philosophical construct, all is lost.

If Jesus becomes a rational idea, all is lost.

If Jesus becomes a moral compass or example, all is lost.

If Jesus Christ is alive and with us…there is hope.

Let me give you one picture as we close. A picture from Bethany’s session meeting, our elders and leadership. You always wondered what we do at these meetings! Well, when we meet once a month our goal is that at least half of our time is “content” (scripture, worship, small groups, prayer). The business always seems to get done.

This month, we sat in a circle for worship and in a couple ways, reflected on the simple faith statement “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.” We turned lights down, had the Christ candle from the Advent wreath in our midst, and each person had small candle, like Christmas Eve. One at a time, as each person received the light they simply declared out loud “Jesus Christ is my Lord…and Savior.”

It felt like we were huddled together in the first century, where it was dangerous to speak outside. If you haven’t heard yourself say those words recently…I encourage you to speak them aloud in a prayer time, or on a walk. “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.”

As we read through this book, it will be critical to remember this first picture. The one thing we know about the future, the past, the present is that we are not alone. Christ is at the Center.

Let us pray.