This weekend was assembly weekend for the Northwestern Synod of Wisconsin (ELCA). The usual business was handled, and several resolutions were acted on. But I won’t bore my readers with details of such matters. (Is that a collective sigh of relief I hear?) The keynote speaker, Craig Koester (from Luther Seminary in St. Paul), centered his presentations on passages from the Gospel of John.  He also did a couple or workshop presentations on Revelation, a topic he is very good with and provides a reading worth much more than the roadmap-for-the-end-of-the-world variety. That later reading, which has so captured how a great many if not most people think of the book, seems determined to scare the be-jebus out of people (or is it into people, it’s really not clear). But Koester’s reading keeps firmly in mind that its intention is not to scare but to give comfort in a time of trouble. Over a decade ago, I had taken a mini-course on Revelation from Dr. Koester while I was at Luther Seminary. It was good to again hear him talk about the book, and hear some things I don’t remember hearing all those years ago.

We took a look at Armageddon in chapter 19:

Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” (Rev 19:11-16)

 

The Four Housemen by Albrecht Drürer

The Four Housemen by Albrecht Drürer

We talked of the horseman on a white horse. (No, it’s not Gandalf!) It was noted that his robes were dipped in blood. Now, if you had been in brutal hand-to-hand combat with swords and spears and shields, you would be covered in blood by the end of the skirmish. But this robe is dripping with blood before the battle even begins. What gives? The captain arrives already having fought and won the battle! The outcome is not even in question. The Living Crucified One already has destroyed the forces of evil. After noting this, Dr. Koester asked us to be weapons inspectors as he read the passage quoted above. One quickly notes that there is only one weapon. There are no scud missiles or tanks, no nuclear warheads or suicide bombers, just a single sword, and a very peculiar one at that. It proceeds from the mouth the rider of the white horse. Again, it may not be all that it seems, certainly not a literal vision. Certainly it is not that the rider has an actual sword flashing from his mouth. The Word is the weapon. The promise of God will be that which will “strike down the nations.” He needs no great battle, his weapons are that which comes out of the mouth, the word and truth.

 

Dr. Koester then arrived at “the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God.” Many are familiar with this image:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

Julia Ward Howe wrote these words in Washington, D.C. during the American Civil War, about as close to Armageddon as anything that can be found in the history of the United States. It was decidedly abolitionist, cheering on the rightness of the cause. It soon was adopted by the women’s suffrage movement, in which Howe went on to play a key role. It was used in the Civil Rights movement. It was used during the World Wars, and it came to be tarnished in the Vietnam era as the idea of fighting for a righteous cause came under such tremendous strain.  But it is, as Craig Koester termed it, a musical version of Armageddon.

Dr. Koester told an interesting story. At one point he had worked with a nursing home, presiding at Sunday afternoon worship services. There was a woman who had accompanied the singing for some time and she introduced herself. She was over 100 and played every Sunday, as she had nearly ever Sunday for over 80 years. It was clear, he said, who ran the services. And each Sunday after the service ended, she’d play a postlude. Every Sunday it was the Battle Hymn of the Republic. He wondered about this. Why would she play this each and every Sunday, not just Memorial Day weekend or other national holidays? Then it occurred to him that she lived in a battle zone. When you get to be 100 years old, you’ve seen many people die around you. People in the nursing home die on a regular basis. A couple of floors above, was the Alzheimer’s ward, where people were loosing the battle with keeping grip on the reality we share and losing themselves to the ravishes of that terrible disease. It’s a virtual war zone.

See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying an pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away. (Rev 21:3b-4)

The promise of Revelation is that God has already won and will continue to win. His weapon is not sword and shield, but word and truth. The comfort is that even as evil, death, and suffering wages its war around us, the fierce but comforting Lamb of God, the terrible Lord of gentile power, triumphs and brings us to the New Jerusalem, where the pearly gates (there are 12 of them, not the one closed gate of the cartoons) will never be shut by day and where there is no night.

Rather than a book that terrifies or induces anxiety, Revelation is supposed to be a book of comfort. And if you don’t get bogged down in figuring out “what will happen in the last days” (which, frankly, is to misuse and abuse this text) and approach it as one that speaks, first to Christians at a time of persecution, and second to us in the midst of a world that brings suffering and pain and death, all of which we cannot escape in this life, then it can become a comfort and a source of hope from the God of life and promise. Even while the battle goes on.