Thanks for sticking around. This will be the final post in the series.
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Revelation 19:1-4 as applied text
19:1 After these things I heard a tremendous voice, like of a crowd of many people speaking;
Hallelujah! Salvation has come and glory and power belong to God alone;
19:2-Because of his true and righteous judgment He has weighed the great idolatress, who destroyed the earth with her idolatry, He rescued the blood of the servants out of her hand.
19:3 And a second time they said;
Hallelujah! The smoke from her city ascends into the eternity of eternity
19:4 And the twenty four elders and four living creatures fell and worshipped God who sits on the throne sing;
Amen. Hallelujah (6)
Entering into the heavenly vision of St. Johns Apocalypse in chapter 19, we come into the story late. The characters have already been long introduced and many of the cryptic elements have already taken place. We see an interaction between the redeemed church and the creatures of heaven that speaks to the eternal placement of those who are found in Christ. This is a great text for us to look at, because it allows us to think of heavenly worship, eschaton and an envisioned sacramental reality of participation in the throne of God.
A brief description of the heavenly creatures is needed. They are introduced in chapter 4 of Revelation and are woven throughout the narrative. Books have been written identifying these characters, but most agree that the four creatures represent the totality of creation wrapped inside the existence of the Father. Their role that has been played out since the beginning of time is one that identifies and protects the holiness of the Father. The twenty four elders have put themselves is a posture of constant submission towards who God is. They represent those who have passed through the salvific efforts of God into a new reality. These are heavenly creatures, full of the knowledge of the divine, but do not have an earthly home.
The interesting part of this reading is found in vs. 4, with the antiphonal response of the heavenly creatures; Amen, Hallelujah. Glossed, this is con temporarily translated as "we agree, Praise the Lord". These are two words that are heard in church often, and are part of the Christian vocabulary that many people might take for granted. But there is deep meaning in this response. G.K. Beale notes this response as a “formal expression of ratification”(7) by the creatures. These words are the endorsements of the truth spoken by Christ’s church. The creatures of heaven and operating in agreement with the redeemed church. The creatures, since they are holy beings, understand the function of the incarnation as rescue, and the activity of God recovering His world. It is a “reckless indiscrimination”(8), salvation as the action and the very make-up of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
God is also doing this with us, enlisting us in the saving action, by our entry into the kingdom through the sacraments.(9) We understand our Eucharist as a “Transporting Feast”, as Charles Wesley wrote, bringing us into a timeless reality of action with God.(10) The sacraments are the best vehicle of participation, a vehicle that God provided.
But what does this antiphon have to do with us today? Does it hold some sort of secret regarding our salvation? Gleaning contemporary meanings out of Revelation without diverting off into crackpot prophecy is a skill that is not practiced well by many church leaders. I think that our answer lies in the liturgical and textual analysis of v.4. Why are the heavenly creatures agreeing with the words of the redeemed? To think that the church holds more understanding of God than the creatures that have surrounded him in heaven for eons is bold. But to reference Dons Scotus again, the incarnation is a fundamental action that would have happened regardless of the fall. Christ came not because of sin, but because God desired a complete union with humanity that could only be finally realized by grace. This does not discount what Christ did regarding sin, or say that Adam and Eve were not truly perfect, but that the fundamental attribute of God is salvific. The creatures that have been responsible for naming and protecting the holiness of God are agreeing because as a saved people, we understand the things of God better than they do. The heavenly creatures can understand the idea of grace, but they can never understand it as an action because they haven’t received it.
This makes salvation not about perfection, but a deep holy love and desire for relationship. Sacrifice for the sake of salvation is in the very being of God. The twenty four elders and living creatures were saying to the redeemed, “This is now your song to sing, because of grace and that you now know God in a way we cannot. While me may understand the complexities of his holiness, you understand him through the radical, sacramental power of grace.” This provides a very Wesleyan way to look at the eschaton, as fulfillment that is couched in the marriage supper of the lamb. As humans we look towards this privilege with expectation.
Sacramental Vision today
At the heart of our sacramental vision is memory, the anamnesis, the constant active memory of the Church. We use our memory to locate ourselves not in the plight of postmodernity, but in the story of God. It orients us towards a narrative that is built out of rescue, renaming, and bringing the lowly to places of Holy prestige. It gives us coherence, meaning and a frame of reference that is built in the creator of the world. Because of this we “are not trapped and confined in the present moment but can locate it as the invention of temporal processes and actions, which gives us the wherewithal to transcend the limitations to which the here and now restrict us”.(11) We do know what has happened before us and we know the design of the world. In participation with anamnesis is prolepsis, the active engaging of the future. We know that our world is on a timeline, and that it is originated with the divine. Placing our worship in the language of eschaton allows us to give service to this idea that is able to stay away from the language of revenge and judgement. We know that these things will happen, but that more is written regarding how humanity will be eternally positioned in relation to God. The liturgical Sanctus of the church is a recognition of how creation and end are in relation towards one another, and that end does not mean a final point, but a reconfiguration. Schmemann says “This is the ultimate purpose of all that exists, the end, the goal and the fulfillment,because this is the beginning, the principle of Creation.”(12)
When we worship, we place ourselves on this timeline. We shift back towards renewal, and again think that our sacramental actions are a reality and sign of our communion with God. The baptismal waters and the Lords table re-members us back into humanities proper place with God. But unlike Adam and Eve, we live knowing the radical sacramental powers of grace. Worship ceases to become a spiritual filling station and returns to the chief story of the Church. An ancient-future practice both grounds us and thrusts us towards the Trinity.
The Church’s mission as an eschatological oriented people is one that understands we do have a storyteller. We tell of what happens when we will all know more about the story than ever imagined. Our Eucharist is the time in which we taste an appetizer of the anticipated heavenly reality. We are in between memory and hope, and we look forward to the time in which we will be able to do the things of heaven best; because we have a savior standing like a slain lamb that has brought us a redemption steeped with the grace that God gives his restored people.
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6 Authors own translation
7 G.K.Beale The Book of Revelation (Eerdmans,1999) pg 929
8 Eugene Peterson Reversed Thunder (Harper & Row, 1988) pg 153
9 Ibid 166
10 Daniel B Stevick The Altar’s Fire (Epworth, 2004) pg 129
11 Barry Harvey Can These Bones Live? (Brazos Press, 2008) pg. 47
12 Alexander Schmemann For the Life of the World (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973) pg.40
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