Year 6, Day 347: Revelation 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

There is a deep chord struck by the opening of Revelation.  In this chapter, we hear a great perspective on the identity of God.  He loves us.  He has freed us from our sins.  He has made us priests of His kingdom!  He wants us to be a part of what He is doing!

However, look at what had to happen in order for this to happen.  We are bought by His blood.  Jesus came and died for our sake.  Yet, through His death, Jesus also because the firstborn out of the dead.  Jesus came to show us what we have to look forward to in the eternal!  What another glorious message.

In that context, look at how John identifies Himself.  He is a companion in suffering.  He is a companion in the patient endurance (read: dealing with the persecution as best as possible).  He is exiled to Patmos.  Sounds glorious, doesn’t it?

This is the deep chord that is struck within me.  So often I get a glimpse of the church in the world around me.  I see a church that is painting a fun and happy time.  I see a church that adopts the ways of the world around it under the guise of making God relevant to the world.  I see a church that is about allowing people to try and be of the world and of God at the same time.  That feels so fake and shallow so often.

I feel a certain depth of belonging when I read John’s words here.  To John, Christ leans embracing persecution.  John was despised by the world around Him because of His faith.  He was persecuted and exiled.  People around him, people that he loved, were being persecuted and even killed.  John waited patiently for the coming of a Messiah, a coming that would remove the ways of the world and allow us to finally live fully in the ways of God.

God doesn’t love us so that we can be in the world and of the world.  He certainly didn’t die so that we could keep on living as we want to live!  He died so that we could be different, and likely hated – or at the very least, misunderstood – by the world around us.  That’s the deep chord that is struck when I read these opening words of John in the book of Revelation.

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