A reflection on Revelation 1:1–4 and 2:1-5 for Monday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time.
If you give some people a frightening headline and a verse from Revelation, soon after there will be a video explaining how the two fit together. There may also be a chart. I am skeptical about the chart, but I might still watch long enough to get some anxiety going.
But look at today’s reading. Its first words are “The revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Jesus. That’s a better place to start.
True, Revelation speaks about judgment and the fulfillment of God’s purposes. Its images are frightening, and I can’t pretend I understand them all. But John addresses real churches whose people need to hear from their Lord. They are being asked to endure, repent, worship, and remain faithful.
I can think about that for a while instead of trying to identify a beast in the evening news.
The beginning of the passage is a blessing to those who read, hear, and keep its message. Keep its message. I can spend a good amount of time trying to guess if something is being predicted. Keeping its message means I am supposed to do something with it.
Today’s reading continues with Christ’s message to Ephesus. He sees the church’s hard work and endurance. He also knows it has abandoned the love it had at first. He calls it to repent.
Well, that is considerably harder to put at a safe distance than a theory about some future catastrophe. I have work to do there.
I love that Revelation is full of liturgy and worship. Amid its strange visions, heaven rings with praise for God and for the Lamb. The Lamb is Jesus, crucified and risen. His victory gives us Christians reason to keep going even when evil seems to have the upper hand.
I need that hope. Anxiety makes me restless and then I am impressed by anyone who sounds certain. Prayer helps me stay close to Christ, even when I still have questions about what I have read.
So I need to read Revelation with my Bible open and the prediction videos closed. I can ask what it teaches me about Jesus. Then I can sit with His words to that church in Ephesus and consider how that message can change me now.
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