Mtr Kelli Joyce

Friends in Christ,

Some of you may have heard me talk before about my desire to lead a forum series on “doctrines progressive Christians love to hate,” talking about original sin, atonement, the afterlife, the authority of scripture, and the like. If I ever actually wind up doing it, there will be at least one if not more days spent discussing the Revelation to John. Never especially popular among mainline Christians, the Left Behind book series turned it into a punchline for many. I, frankly, think that’s a shame.

I don’t have the time or space to tell you about the whole background of the book, but there’s one crucial detail that I think may help us understand how to read Revelation sympathetically: the Book of Revelation is, at its core, resistance literature. Facing violent persecution by a dictatorial government, the early Christians for whom this letter was written were in desperate need of something we all need. Hope.

“The nations raged,
but your wrath has come,
and the time for judging the dead,
for rewarding your servants, the prophets
and saints and all who fear your name,
both small and great,
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.’”

In today’s reading from Revelation 11, an angel declares the arrival of God’s direct reign over the affairs of the earth. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah.” The joyful song of those around the heavenly throne of God echoes things we say in the Creed - when Christ returns, it will be “in glory, to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

Revelation tells us that at the end of the story, God will have the final word. The suffering and cruelty that seems to flourish unchecked among us will not be forgotten. What we do now matters, even if it doesn’t seem to. This gives me hope - and inspires me to strive to be one of those who fear the name of the Lord, rather than one of those who destroy the earth.

In peace,
Mtr. Kelli