Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 06/12 – (8) The New Jerusalem

Posted on December 6, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the eighth of twenty-six short reflections.

Remember Genesis? Not the book, the band. They started off as teenagers in the late ‘sixties doing the usual Beatles covers. Peter Gabriel was the lead singer, and played flute, and his schoolmates Michael Rutherford and Tony Banks played bass and keyboards, respectively. After their first album Steve Hackett joined on guitars, replacing one of their school chums who felt he really did not know how to play well enough. They went through a number of drummers and finally got the jazz trained Phil Collins. This was the classic lineup of the early ‘seventies that, along with Yes and King Crimson, defined Prog Rock back when it was cool.

One of the songs that they did for over a decade was 1972’s Supper’s Ready, which took up a whole album side of Foxtrot, their fourth studio album. As is typical with Prog Rock lyrics, it is a bit opaque, but according to one source it was based on the nightmare Peter Gabriel’s wife had while sleeping in a purple room. The Wikipedia article quotes Gabriel saying that it is “a personal journey which ends up walking through scenes from Revelation the Bible… I’ll leave it at that.” Somewhere I read that it was related to a group of people taking a lot of drugs and one person having a bit of a bad trip.

It’s a lot of pretty bizarre imagery, very little of it actually from Revelation, but the last section goes like this (from a concert in 1976, when Gabriel had left the band and Collins had taken over the singing – remember when Phil Collins had hair? I think Bill Bruford is playing drums, but I’m not sure):

There’s an angel standing in the sun,
and he’s crying with a loud voice
“This is the supper of the mighty one”
Lord of Lords, King of Kings
has returned to lead his children home
to take them to the new Jerusalem

The New Jerusalem is a powerful image, so powerful that a bunch of otherwise apparently agnostic Prog Rockers used it for one of their greatest songs. It has been used by others, of course:

This is William Blake’s poem “And Did Those Feet In Ancient Times” published by that strange poet and printer in 1808 in his book Milton. It was pretty much unknown until Hubert Parry set it to music in 1916; it’s the hymn setting used above in the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Many of us remember that its theme and music played a major part of the Danny Boyle’s opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. As well, it inspired the title of the Academy Award winning “Chariots of Fire.” Over the past century it has become sufficiently popular that some consider it to be the national anthem of England.

Here is what it looked like when Blake engraved and printed it in the preface of “Milton”:

The poem is inspired by the myth that Jesus came to Glastonbury as a young man, as an employee of Joseph of Arimathea, who supposedly was a tin merchant; it was first described in the 13th century. When my colleagues and I would sing it occasionally in the Diocese of Niagara we would always insert am emphatic “No” after the second line.

Of course, Blake probably knew this. His interest was less in the myth than in the establishment of a better England – one less of satanic mills and one more like what is described in Revelation 21 (see below). Blake was inspired by the French Revolution, and while not a fan of the Terror or war, he still wished some of the egalitarian impulses had reached England. So he dedicates himself to the challenge of building Jerusalem in England. This meant that the hymn became an anthem for other Christian socialists as well – regularly sung in Canada at meetings of the CCF and NDP.

John the Divine describes his vision thus:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

This image is not original with John the Divine, though. It comes from Ezekiel, who wrote in the middle of the Babylonian exile, roughly five centuries earlier than John. He describes it at great length in chapters 40-48:

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on that very day, the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me there. 2 He brought me, in visions of God, to the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain, on which was a structure like a city to the south. 3 When he brought me there, a man was there, whose appearance shone like bronze, with a linen cord and a measuring reed in his hand; and he was standing in the gateway. Ezekiel 40.1-3

That same angel shows up in Revelation 21:

15 The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. 16 The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal.

The main difference between Ezekiel and John is that John’s New Jerusalem is much, much larger – a vast home for God’s people who have suffered so much.

Second Isaiah, writing at the end of the Babylonian Exile, picks up on the image of the New Jerusalem, and describes the city as bejewelled in Isaiah 54:

“11 “Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted,
    I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise,
    your foundations with lapis lazuli.
12 I will make your battlements of rubies,
    your gates of sparkling jewels,
    and all your walls of precious stones.
13 All your children will be taught by the Lord,
    and great will be their peace.
14 In righteousness you will be established:
Tyranny will be far from you;
    you will have nothing to fear.
Terror will be far removed;
    it will not come near you.

I do not take this passage literally. This is largely an extended metaphor for a transformation that is beyond words. Why do I say that? Because in Revelation 21.1 it says, “and the sea was no more.” Why would the sea disappear? Does this make sense literally? What does God have against the sea?

The central panel of the stained glass window in the Chapel of The New Jerusalem, Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria BC Canada. A very literal interpretation.

However, if we read it symbolically we see the sea as a symbol. For a landlubber like John, the sea was terrifying and chaotic. When he writes that “the sea was no more” he means that there is no more terrifying chaos. There is order and redemption. In the new creation, however we understand that, mourning, death, pain, and crying is no more.

The New Jerusalem, like the new heavens and the new earth, is something inaugurated by the death and resurrection of Jesus. It already is, was, and will be. What Christ is in his resurrected glory we will become. In the meantime, we work to create a piece of that New Jerusalem, a foretaste of that [lace with the heavenly banquet, here in our green and pleasant land, whether that be England, Canada, or Greece. So let us work out our salvation in fear and trembling, following the one who “has returned to lead his children home to take them to the new Jerusalem.”

Tomorrow I will talk a bit about time in Revelation.

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Comfort Ye

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

A Sermon Preached Online on
The Second Sunday of Advent, December 6, 2020
With the People of The Anglican Church of St. Thomas the Apostle, Kefalas, Crete

The readings used were Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, and Mark 1:1-8.

It is sometimes said by that, “We are called to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable.”

If you had to put John the Baptist in the first or second of those, he would definitely fall into the second category. He was called to afflict the comfortable. After all, if you proclaim a baptism for the repentance of sins, you are going to upset some people. Some are going to say they have no need to repent, because they have not done anything wrong, or, at least, nothing significantly wrong – but I suspect they will still feel somewhat guilty.

Then there are those who reacted to John as a challenge to their authority. This would be the priests in Jerusalem. They ran the Temple there are claimed a monopoly on access to God, and through control of the Temple and influence through their allies among the scribes and Pharisees, they sought to control the behaviour of the common people. They cooperated with the Roman overlords – indeed, the Romans appointed the individual who would be the High Priest – and the priests, Pharisees, and scribes were all hopelessly compromised in collaboration.

So along comes John the Baptist. Who gave him the authority to proclaim a washing away of sins? He was outside their control, but undeniably popular among the people, and so the powerful dared not do anything to him. They did not care for this, but were imobilized by this populist, charismatic, religious leader.

John afflicted Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great and ruler of Galilee and Perea. He pointed out that his marriage to Herodias was incestuous, as she was his half-brothers wife, and she was also Herod’s niece. For this, he was put to death. Affliction has its price.

And so we have people like this today. Martin Luther King is revered today in the United States, but in his life he was hated by many, and thrown into prison. Even good white liberals were ambivalent about his tactics, asking him to leave Birmingham Alabama, to which he replied with his Letter from Birmingham Jail, in which he pointed out that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” Desmond Tutu, revered in South Africa today, was condemned by the white South African government and their American allies such as Patrick Buchanan and Jerry Falwell, alleging that he was a communist sympathiser. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, marched with Extinction Rebellion this past September; was this right? And we have many more examples.

But balanced with this is a message of comfort. From Isaiah we hear:

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!

What the priests and scribes, the Pharisees and King Herod, and ultimately the Roman governor heard was condemnation – but to the people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem it was a message of good news – the forgiveness of their sins, and the advent of the kingdom of God. Similarly, the segregationists and cautious white liberals of the American South, the white supremacists of South Africa and their American supporters, and those ignoring climate change – they all hear condemnation; in their comfort they are afflicted. Yet those who believe in equality, in the care of God’s world, hear good news and a coming liberty.

George Frideric Handel understood this. You can see it in his music.

After receiving the libretto he fashioned The Messiah into one of the most popular pieces of music ever written in the English language. It was first performed in Dublin in 1742, then in London the next year, and I believe it has been performed every year since 1749. It is absurdly popular.

  • There are literally several hundred performances each year at Christmas and around Easter around the world.
  • In December 1993 there were in New York City alone twenty-one performances.
  • There are old-fashioned mass orchestras and choirs of hundreds, more suitable for Wagnerian opera than this piece.
  • There are sing-along Messiahs, where everybody brings a copy of the music and sings along with the organ or orchestra.
  • Starting in the 1970s we saw a move towards “authenticity”, with smaller orchestras and choirs of perhaps twenty, and musicians playing period instruments.
  • More recently we have seen staged presentations, with soloists and choir on sets and wearing modern clothes, rather than the usual white tie and tails (see the first video below).
  • And, of course, because of the pandemic there has been an on-line performance, with instrumentalists and singers all making music over Zoom.

It is a large piece requiring a chamber orchestra, four virtuoso soloists, and a choir. If done in full it usually takes about three hours, including two intermissions.

The beginning of Part One is an instrumental, followed (starting at 3:11) by words from Isaiah 40.1-3, in the Authorised Version/King James Version translation of 1612:

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: . . . The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

This is the recitative, with an unusually rich string accompaniment. The tenor’s line is gentle, reassuring, and calming.

It is then immediately followed by an aria, and the tenor paints word pictures with the music:

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

The way the notes rise on “exalted” makes you feel as though the valleys are being lifted up, and he drops down to sing “low”, the notes for the word “crooked” sound like they bounce around compared to the ones for “plain”, and the rough places sound, well, a bit rough. It is all quite wonderful.

This is a time, I suspect, when we could all use some comforting. It has been a rough ten months. Many of us are missing the opportunities of getting together. We are sad at the departure of friends, some of whom are moving away permanently. We miss our families.

My hope and prayer is that perhaps this year we find that comfort in the Christmas gospel, that the first announcement of the good news about the kingdom of God coming with Jesus will prepare us now for his second coming – whether in the distant future of the Day of the Lord, at the hour of our deaths, or right now, in our hearts. May we see the glory of the Lord being revealed in the lives of God’s people and in the story being told, once again, of a child born in Bethlehem. May the Holy Spirit descend upon us, so that we may ascend high mountains and proclaim the good news we have in Christ Jesus.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 05/12 – (7) Beasts

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the seventh of twenty-six short reflections.

Almost every image in the visions of John in Revelation are derived from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Two of my favourite images are those of the New Jerusalem and the Four Beasts. Let’s deal with the critters today.

Up above are the four beasts from the Sutherland Tapestry in Coventry Cathedral, Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph; I talked about the tapestry two weeks ago in my sermon back then. The four beasts surround the throne of God in the vision that John has in chapter 4, after he finishes addressing the seven churches in epistolary fashion:

1After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! . . .

Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human face, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing,

“Holy, holy, holy,
the Lord God the Almighty,
    who was and is and is to come.”

This passage refers back to two of the prophets: Isaiah and Ezekiel. Isaiah writes about his calling in chapter six of his book, where he has a vision in the Jerusalem Temple:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The Temple, especially the Holy of Holies, was the earthly equivalent of heaven, and so it is not surprising that Isaiah sees God there. There are four seraphs in the Holy of Holies – two standing over the Ark of the Covenant, and two on the cover of the Ark. Below is one artist’s idea of what it might have looked like this, although I always imagined the seraphim looking a little more Assyrian. You can see their six wings if you look carefully.

The four beasts go back to the calling of Ezekiel.

. . . as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God . . . As I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber. In the middle of it was something like four living creatures.

This was their appearance: they were of human form. 6 Each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus: 9 their wings touched one another; each of them moved straight ahead, without turning as they moved.

10 As for the appearance of their faces: the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle; 11 such were their faces.

Their wings were spread out above; each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. . . . 15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. 1the rims of all four were full of eyes all around.

This is pretty weird stuff, but the import of this fantastic image is that the throne of God being carried about by these four creatures. Each with four faces: a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. John in Revelation turns them into four different creatures, each with just one face. In Ezekiel that have only four wings, but Revelation uses the six wings from Isaiah 6.

Christians tried to make sense of what these creatures were in Revelation, and eventually decided that they must represent the authors of the for gospels – Matthew is the human, Mark the lion, Luke the ox, and John the eagle. It is a good answer, but probably not the one John the Divine was thinking of; there is no evidence that John was aware of the four gospels as a set. They may simply represent all creation acknowledging Jesus and worshiping him.

The hymn that the beasts sing comes from Isaiah 6. It is sung in the Eucharist after the preface of the Great Thanksgiving. It also gave rise to this hymn:

1 Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

2 Holy, Holy, Holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

3 Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man, thy glory may not see:
Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power in love, and purity.

4 Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty,
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

As a child I was part of Bethel United Church in Grand-Mère, Quebec, and we sang the first verse of this every Sunday as an introit. It was written by Reginald Heber, sometime between 1807 and 1823 when he was the Vicar of Hodnet, Shropshire. He was consecrated Bishop of Calcutta in 1823 at Lambeth Palace, and after arriving in India in the autumn of that year he died less than three years later. It may seem strange to us, but hymn singing was not a normal part of Anglican worship in the early 19th century; it was considered a mark of Evangelicalism, and was, strictly speaking, not allowed by the rules of the Church of England. Heber’s advocacy for hymn singing did much to advance this now regular part of our services.

The tune is called Nicaea, written by John Bacchus Dykes for the original Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861. I like the harmony, especially the bass part – put it up a tone or three and it makes for a nice descant. It has an unusual metre – 11.12.12.10 – and apart from the tune Nicaea, I am not aware of any tune to which it can be sung.

Tomorrow I will discuss the New Jerusalem.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 04/12 – (6) A Very Jewish Text

Posted on December 4, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the sixth of twenty-six short reflections.

A modern icon of Jesus as the Ancient of Days, seated on the throne of justice, in a mandorla, and with white hair.

When I was young and had not read The Book of Revelation one of my brothers suggested that John was on some kind of drugs and had a psychedelic experience – and probably a bad trip, at that. After reading it, though, it is pretty clear to me that Revelation is actually a creative melding of images and themes from the Hebrew Bible in the context of a charismatic experience of Jesus as the risen Lord. It may not be the kind of thing that my brother or I might come up with, but for John, steeped as he was in the prophets and being inspired by the Spirit, it was a natural result.

As mentioned in earlier posts in this series, John the Divine, author of The Book of Revelation, was influenced by both Paul and the Community of the Beloved Disciple. However, arguably the greatest influences came from the prophets, especially Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. There is hardly an image or metaphor in the whole of the book that cannot be traced back to the Jewish scriptures. Indeed, it is likely that, like Paul and the Beloved Disciple, that John of Patmos was originally a Jew from Judea or Galilee, someone who could read and speak Hebrew at the synagogue, spoke Aramaic to his neighbours, and learned Greek as the language of the colonizing Greeks and Romans.

Jesus is portrayed as the Son of Man ben-‘adam in Revelation. We are introduced to this vision of Jesus in the first chapter:

12 Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. 14 His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.

This echoes the vision of Daniel:

9 As I watched,
thrones were set in place,
    and an Ancient One took his throne,
his clothing was white as snow,
    and the hair of his head like pure wool;
his throne was fiery flames,
    and its wheels were burning fire.
10 A stream of fire issued
    and flowed out from his presence.
A thousand thousands served him,
    and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.
The court sat in judgment,
    and the books were opened . . .

I saw one like a human being
    coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
    and was presented before him.
14 To him was given dominion
    and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
    should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
    that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
    that shall never be destroyed. Daniel 7.9-11, 13b-14

In the gospels we are told that Jesus identified himself as the Son of Man, so the the Christian interpretation is that the one who is “like a human being” is Jesus. The identity of the Ancient of Days in Daniel is less clear; it is God, but which person? In some interpretations he is God the Father. Certain authors in Orthodoxy argue that it is Jesus in his role as the divine judge. In Revelation the two are conflated, and Jesus, like the Ancient One, has white hair and is attended with what looks like flames.

This is but one example of how John uses the Jewish traditions he received. John, like Paul, was Jewish, and knew his Hebrew Bible. Like Paul and the author of the Fourth Gospel, John did not see himself as creating a new religion. Christianity was not a faith replacing Judaism, but rather a continuation and its fulfillment. The extension of salvation to the non-Jews was an exceptional grace that built upon universalizing trends long present in Judaism.

Tomorrow I will note a few more of these images derived from the prophets.

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Resources for Worship on Advent II 2020

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

These are resources for the Second Sunday of Advent on , December 6, 2020. The resources are gathered from a variety of sources and, while assembled mainly for The Anglican Church of St Thomas the Apostle, Kefalas, on the island of Crete in Greece, others may find them useful.

Highway 10 in Saudi Arabia, the longest straight road in the world.

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Greece is still in lockdown and probably will be for the next two Sundays. This means we will be on Zoom for worship on these days, December 6 and 13. We will have our usual Service of the Word at 11:00 am EET (9:00 am GMT) and you can join us by clicking this link or by entering the following into your Zoom application: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Passcode: 010209.

I have prepared a PDF of a Service of the Word for Advent II. You can download it here:

an-order-for-the-second-sunday-of-advent-2020Download

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The readings this Sunday are rich and powerful: we will be using Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, and Mark 1:1-8. Many churches using the full choices from the Common Worship Lectionary/Revised Common Lectionary will also read 2 Peter 3:8-15a.

Reflect

I have written up some thoughts on the Isaiah passage, and its relation to the gospels’ use of it, in a post from last December, Highways in Isaiah and the Gospels which was Day Twenty of “Through Advent with Isaiah.

Father Leonard Doolan of the Anglican Church of St Paul. Athens, has prepared and recorded a sermon for this Sunday:

Pray

Collect
O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power and come among us,
and with great might succour us;
that whereas, through our sins and wickedness we are grievously hindered
in running the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honour and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

(or)

Almighty God,
purify our hearts and minds,
that when your Son Jesus Christ comes again as judge and saviour
we may be ready to receive him,
who is our Lord and our God. Amen.

Biddings
I bid your prayers for the leaders and people of the nations; especially

  • Katerini Sakellaropoulou, President of Greece, and
  • Elizabeth, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and her other realms, and also in her role as Governor of the Church of England;
  • In the European Union,
    • Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission;
    • Charles Michel, President of the European Council; and
    • Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy;
  • for the closing negotiations around Brexit;
  • for the peoples of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland facing uncertainty over the fate of the Good Friday Accord;
  • the peoples of Belarus, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Peru, and Thailand as they continue to demonstrate for democracy and justice;
  • for the maintaining of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and between Russia and Ukraine, Palestinians and Israelis, North and South Korea, and for a final, just resolution to their conflicts;
  • for the President-elect and peoples of the United States;
  • for advocates of Indigenous rights and the adoption and implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
  • prisoners and captives, especially the over one million Uigers being held in detention in China;
  • the over 79.5 million refugees and nearly 4 million stateless person, remembering especially the crucial situation of Greece, and the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”);
  • for a lessening of tensions between Turkey and Greece; and
  • for peace in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ethiopia.

I bid your prayers for the sick and suffering and all who minister to their needs;

  • remembering the 18.4 million active cases of the novel coronavirus, and mourning with the families of the over 1.5 million who have died in the pandemic;
  • for the 1.684 million people in the UK who have had covid-19 or are recovering from it, the nearly 60,000 who have died of it there, and the 97,000 active cases here in Greece, and the families of the over 2600 dead here;
  • remembering those ill with other diseases, and those whose operations have been postponed;
  • all those having issues with mental health;
  • those suffering from addiction, and those in recovery;
  • those who have been affected severely by the economic effects of the pandemic, especially in food services and tourism;
  • and giving thanks for the efforts of researchers in finding vaccines.

I bid your prayers for the Church:

Intercessions
In joyful expectation of his coming to our aid we pray to Jesus.

Come to your Church as Lord and judge.
Help us to live in the light of your coming
and give us a longing for your kingdom.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Come to your world as King of the nations.
Before you rulers will stand in silence.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Come to the suffering as Saviour and comforter.
Break into our lives,
where we struggle with sickness and distress,
and set us free to serve you for ever.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Come to us as shepherd and guardian of our souls.
Give us with all the faithful departed
a share in your victory over evil and death.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Come from heaven, Lord Jesus, with power and great glory.
Lift us up to meet you,
that with Isaiah, John Mark, Thomas our patron and the rest of the Twelve, Paul, Nicholas, Mary of Magdala, Mary your mother, and all your saints and angelswe may live and reign with you in your new creation.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Silence is kept.

Come, Lord Jesus, do not delay;
give new courage to your people,
who trust in your love.
By your coming, raise us to share in the joy of your kingdom
on earth as in heaven,
where you live and reign with the Father and the Spirit,
one God for ever and ever. Amen.

Sing

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 03/12 – (5) Seven Churches

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the fifth of twenty-six short reflections.

The Seven Churches of Asia Minor Tempera colors, gold leaf, colored washes, pen and ink on parchment, English, about 1255–1260, from the Getty Museum.

The Book of Revelation is addressed to seven church churches, and each church gets a unique charge from Jesus. The first, from Ephesus, goes like this:

With some variation, all of the addresses follow this format. The address is always, “To the angel of the church in . . . write”. Jesus, who is ending the message, is then identified with an image. Jesus then usually says something praiseworthy he “knows” about the church. He often knows something not so praiseworthy, which he introduces with a “But . . . “. He then gives a command or instruction, followed by a blessing. The variation is in the middle. Smyrna, for example, comes in for no criticism, whereas Laodicea gets no praise. (See below for the other churches.)

The seven churches are all relatively close to each other in eastern Anatolia, in what in now Turkey; the cities furthest apart, Laodicea and Pergamon, are about 265 km or 165 miles, which could be comfortably walked in seven days or less. In John’s time the seven cities were majority Greek speaking, but also majority pagan – the churches in these places were presumably small, several dozen or perhaps a hundred or so.

What can we say about Christianity in these seven cities at the time John was writing?

First, it is evident that faith in Jesus Christ was already spreading in the cities of Asia. While some of these cities might claim to be founded by Paul, most of them were started by unknown Christians, probably ordinary people whose names are lost to us, who simply moved from one place to another in search of work or for family reasons. There may have been some travelling evangelists among them, and thy might have made a circuit. The church was not centralized as yet.

John give no evidence of being aware of bishops or deacons, although he does mention presbyters in the twenty-four elders around the throne of God in chapter 5. The word seems to be being used in its Jewish sense, which is to say, a leader in a synagogue. At the time the word “church” did not quite have the technical, religious meaning it does now; in those days, it simply meant “something called together,” or “convocation”, and “synagogue” – literally “something brought together” — is a synonym.

Something that seems quite evident is that there is a significant amount of conflict. John praises the church in Smyrna and has no qualifying “but” comment, but even there he talks of conflict with the “synagogue of Satan” who are “those who say that they are Jews, but are not;” this is also a problem in Philadelphia. The folks in Ephesus are not particularly loving, suggesting that they may be the survivors of a schism – perhaps the one described in the Letters of John? Someone named Antipas appears to have been killed for being a Christian in Pergamum in the past, but now the congregation tolerates those who eat food sacrificed to idols and what John sees as fornication. These practices are also taught by a woman in Thyatira. The church in Pergamum also holds to the teachings of the Nicolaitans, whatever those are. The church in Laodicea do not seem to understand the perpetual need they have of God, and so rest on their riches (which may actually be spiritual powers).

So Jesus, through John, is challenging the churches. They are followers of Christ, but they are all over the map with issues, conflicts, and problematic members. This is the problem of the Body of Christ in a broken and fallen world. On the one hand it is like Christ, pure and spotless, but on the other hand, when we as individuals enter the church we do not cease to be creatures capable of sinning and failing to repent. At best a church is an icon of Christ, the lamp shining in the darkness, that city on the hill, to use gospel metaphors. At worst, we have lost the ability to love, we have allegiances to things that are not of God, we are lukewarm, we are dead.

In the past many commentators have identified these seven churches as archetypes, and in some cases identified them with eras in church history. I think these are the all-too-frequent cases in the history of the interpretation of Revelation where people are taking as metaphorical that which John meant to be taken literally. These were real church communities at the time John wrote. He knew them well. For the most part they were falling short of the glory of God. And so, for the same reason that Paul wrote letters, John is trying to admonish them to a higher righteousness, one based in the faith of Jesus Christ and the higher righteousness he espoused.

Once this is acknowledged, then we can try to apply these challenges to ourselves as a community, or as a collection of churches. Where are we most like one of these seven churches? What is the suggested remedy? Why would that work or not work?

Below are the messages to the other six churches. I hope the print is not too small! Tomorrow I will look at the continuity of the Book of Revelation with its Jewish antecedents.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 02/12 – (4) Structures

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the fourth of twenty-six short reflections.

The Book of Revelation is a constructed text. While emerging out of a spiritual experience, the written text shows a definite structure and influences that were both ancient and contemporary (much as Julian of Norwich (1343? – 1416?) had a spiritual experience that produced, after many years of contemplation, in the Revelations of Divine Love).

One of those influences was Paul and his letters; by the time John had his visions the letters of Paul were already circulating in western Anatolia. Like Paul, John is not very interested in the earthly life of Jesus. Like Paul, he calls himself a slave of God, and not a prophet. Like Paul, he is in conflict with other Christians, and is subversive of the Roman Empire. Like Paul, he derives his mission directly from Jesus. And, like Paul, he is oriented towards the Day of the Lord. So, not surprisingly, like Paul’s Letters, Revelation is cast in the form of a letter to seven churches – although it is hardly a conventional epistle.

So, as it is like a letter, after the brief introduction in the first three verses of chapter 1, we have a salutation from John and Jesus:

4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

He then describes the circumstances of his vision, which is both auditory and visual:

9 I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

12 Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest . . .

Chapters 2 and 3 are particular messages for each of the seven churches in western Anatolia, and each one bears the same structure. This may be evidence of oral preaching by John, as structures such as found here assist in the memorization and delivery of oral address. On paper it looks repetitive, but when delivered orally and hear by ear, it builds up in power.

Chapter 4 is a vision of heaven, and in chapter 5 is introduced seven seals on a scroll. Seals were used in ancient times to authenticate not only documents, but shipments of goods such as wine and olive oil. One could only read the scroll or gain access to the goods by breaking the seal, so they were an effective means of making sure that one had tampered with them.

After the seven seals are opened we have seven trumpets in chapters 8 and 9, and after a multitude of visions and portents, chapter 15 has seven golden bowls. The end of chapter 20, all of Chapter 21, and most of chapter 22 introduces the vision of the new heavens and the new earth, and the New Jerusalem. Chapter 22 finishes off with something that looks like the end of a letter.

The construction is not absolute – the centre of the book is a bit messy in terms of what follow what. You can go online and find a plethora of diagrams outlining the “chiasmic” structure of the book, or the different section, but to a certain degree all of these seem to me a bit forced. In truth, the impression one gets is that John started off with a definite structure in mind and then kind of got carried away with digressions from that format. It might be better to say that there are structures in The Book of Revelation, mnemonic and literary devices on which John hangs his message.

Tomorrow I will discuss the seven churches, and what we might say about them.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 01/12 – (3) The Other Author

Posted on December 1, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the third of twenty-six short reflections.

St. Matthew and the Angel (c. 1661), oil on canvas painting by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)

Who wrote The Book of Revelation? Yesterday I said that the answer was clearly “John”, but it could just as clearly have another author:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Revelation 1.1-2

This other author is Jesus Christ, as the first words suggest. As Christians we read the scriptures as inspired text – but what does that mean?

For some people it means that every word of scripture, as written down in the original manuscript, was inspired by God. The image above of Matthew writing his gospel while an angel is whispering in his ear is a literal image of this. For some Fundamentalists the divine inspiration of scripture is so great that the human authors fade into the background, and what we have is the Word of God written, practically equal to the Word made flesh. One might call this the “strong” form of divine inspiration.

A weaker form of divine inspiration is that the Bible contains everything necessary for salvation, and nothing that cannot be argued out of scripture can be imposed on Christians (this is the position described in the Thirty-Nine Articles). As well, some place the church in the position of being the body which authorised the texts of scripture – the canon – and therefore has the right to authoritatively interpret it.

Of course, others simply see it as human artifact, an historical document; this is the denial of divine inspiration. One can still acknowledge it as a set of texts which have been deeply influential, and may contain pearls of wisdom, but it is not the literal words of God.

My own approach is to say that the Spirit of God rested on the authors. However, they were very human authors, and the message of God became historically conditioned, sometimes in ways that should no longer be seen as binding on us. Thus we 21st Century Christians are in a theological dialogue with the 1st Century authors of the gospels and letters, and the challenge is to apply the good news of Jesus Christ to our present conditions. Divine inspiration continues today, as we wrestle with scripture and try to figure out what God is calling us to do today.

John the Divine believed that the message he was proclaiming came from Jesus, sometimes directly, sometimes through angels. He may have had one flash of spiritual insight which he then worked out in the words of the text we call Revelation, or perhaps it was a series of visions. I do not think he imagined an angel dictating to him, especially since the language he uses is almost always of angels showing him things. He was undoubtedly aware of his own remarkable creative abilities and the way in which he gave form to those experiences. That said, I suspect that when he finished the text he probably thought that he had done something that transcended his own human skills – that he may have been the author of record, but what he had done had come from God. It is not like it is one or the other; it is both.

When I read scripture my method for interpretation is to read the text and then ask three questions. First, “What was the author trying to say, in his/her context?” A subsequent question is, “How has this been read over the centuries?” In both questions it is important to see how the text relates to other texts, and to use historical-critical methods. I am more likely to answer certain detailed queries with, “It is probable that X is the case, but we really don’t know” rather than come down hard on an answer. Finally, I ask, “What is God trying to say to us now through these texts?” Answering this last query is usually a more imaginative exercise than the first two, but it is also the most meditative. If the answer to this final question does not suggest some form of action, then I am not sure I have understood it correctly.

Tomorrow I will talk a bit about the structure of the text, and why John the Divine probably knew the letters of Paul, and was probably as equally influenced by him as much as by the Fourth Gospel.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 30/11 – (2) The Author

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the second of twenty-six short reflections.

The Orthodox Monastery of St John the Theologian, towering over Chora, the main village of Patmos. Te population of the island is about 3000. The monastery was founded in 1088, and it has such massive defenses because of the threat of piracy in the 11th century. About forty monks live there. The cave where, supposedly, St John the Divine received Revelation, is some two km away.

Who wrote The Book of Revelation? The answer is “John”, as is clear from the first two verses:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Revelation 1.1-2

In the original Greek the name is Ἰωάννης Iōánnēs or Ἰωάνης Iōánēs, and somehow over two thousand years via Latin, French, and Old English that became our English “John” – although I am fuzzy on how “I” became “J”. The Greek is derived from Yohanan “Graced by Yah”, or Yehohanan, “Yahweh is Gracious”.

But who was John? Revelation 1.9 states that

I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

So John is a Christian who was exile on Patmos. Patmos is an island in the Agean Sea belonging to the modern nation of Greece, very near to Anatolia, or what is now Turkey. In ancient times and right up until 1923 much of Anatolia was populated by Greek speaking peoples who had settled there over three thousand years ago. John is writing some time after Jesus’s death and resurrection, probably several decades after, because he mentions churches in a variety of places in western Anatolia – Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. It would have taken some time for these churches to be planted and grow, so we can assume that this is written later than Paul’s letters.

There are several texts in the New Testament that are similar in many ways to Revelation – three letters and the Fourth Gospel. Although these letters and the gospel are all pseudonymous – the author or authors do not identify themselves in the text – the earliest of traditions identified them all with John the Apostle, the brother of James, and one of the fishermen called by Jesus. It may be that the similarity of style of Revelation with the letters and gospel assisted in the argument that they were all written by John, and so we know them as the Gospel according to John, and the First, Second, and Third Letters of John.

However, ancient tradition is not unanimous about this. John is a not uncommon name in the New Testament. There is John the Baptist, as well as John Mark. The letters and the gospel are pseudonymous; was the author of Revelation a different John from that of John the Apostle? As the Wikipedia article on it says, summarising the ancient reports,

Other early Christian writers . . . such as Dionysius of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, not[ed] the differences in language and theological outlook between this work and the Gospel.

The eminent Catholic Biblical scholar Raymond Brown suggested the following relationships.

Raymond E. Brown 1928-1998

First, there was a community assembled around an individual identified as “The Beloved Disciple.” This person appears to have had direct contact with Jesus and was his disciple. He himself started a community or church, which Brown calls “The Community of the Beloved Disciple.” This Community may have begun in Judea or Galilee, but in time it made its way to Anatolia and either founded or took over a Greek language church, perhaps in Ephesus. While this person might be identified with John the Apostle, the Gospel according of John does not make this explicit.

Second, during the Beloved Disciple’s life a book was written down consisting of the things he preached. Brown discerns two editions of this text. The two edition theory explains why so often a topic in the gospel seems to have reached a natural conclusion, and then is picked up again for many verses or a whole chapter. These second edition probably came out soon after the first, and before the gospel was widely circulated outside of the community of the Beloved Disciple. The second edition itself probably had some light editing done to it, so one may speak of a “redacted second edition.” This is the gospel we have now, which tradition later ascribed to John. It is likely that the person who wrote the gospel and edited it was not the Beloved Disciple himself, but one of his followers.

Third, we have the three Johannine Letters. These letters, particularly the first, describe a church in schism. They are written in the style of the gospel, but not necessarily by the same person, and not by the Beloved Disciple, who had probably already died.

Finally, we have the Revelation of John. Brown is of the opinion that while there are many similarities in theme between the gospel and the letters, there are still too many differences in style and content to ascribe them to the same literary tradition. The author of Revelation was probably influenced by the Community of the Beloved Disciple, perhaps by reading the Fourth Gospel, perhaps by knowing leaders from the Community, or both. However, he had his own unique style and concerns, which were not the same as the Beloved Disciple’s.

John of Patmos, author of Revelation is often referred to in the Western tradition as “John the Divine”; “Divine” here is a noun meaning “theologian”, and it is not the adjective suggesting that he is somehow Godlike. There is a great, unfinished Episcopalian cathedral in New York City called “St John the Divine”, as well as many other places with that dedication. In Eastern Orthodoxy the author is known as “John the Theologian”, although most Orthodox would identify him with John the Apostle.

There is anger and judgement in Revelation, and this undoubtedly expresses the character of John. We will get into that later. But the author also has hope and faith, and a concern for the oppressed. Let us not forget that, eh?

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 29/11 – (1) The Title

Posted on November 29, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the first of twenty-six short reflections.

A screen capture from the British Library’s website for the Codex Sinaiticus.

Let’s start with the name of the book.

Some people call it Revelations, others The Revelation to Saint John the Divine, and some simply Revelation. You will also hear people (often Catholics and Orthodox) refer to it as The Apocalypse.

Of course, the real title is there in the first two verses. In the Sinaiticus it is

αποκαλυψιϲ ιυ  χυ  ην εδωκεν αυτω ο θϲ  δειξαι τοιϲ αγιοιϲ αυτου α δει γε>νεϲθαι εν ταχει και εϲημανεν αποϲτειλαϲ δια του αγγελου αυτου τω δουλω αυτου ϊωανει οϲ εμαρτυρη>ϲεν τον λογον του θυ  και την μαρτυριαν ιυ  χυ  οϲα ϊδε

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

That’s is a little unweidy, so you can see why a shorter title is helpful. Above in the picture is the beginning of the book found in one of the great 4th century uncial manuscripts, the one known as Sinaiticus. There the title is Αποκαλυψις Ιωανου, Apocalipsis Ioanou. This is probably best translated at The Revelation to John, because Αποκαλυψις means “revelation” or “unveiling”.

As I have argued elsewhere in this blog, “Apocalyptic has negative connotations in English, but in Greek it is simply the ordinary word for revelation, or exposure. Think of the unveiling of a plaque or a statue – that is an apocalypse, a revelation.” Of course, part of the reason people have such a negative connotation is because of the contents of this book – readers read of death and destruction, judgement and punishment, and and the end of the world. This is terrifying to many people – perhaps they like the world as it is, or themselves as they are, and the changes that God will bring about on the Day of the Lord is perceived as a threat. As well, they see many innocent people being destroyed and punished through no fault of their own. We will deal with this in the days to come.

Revelation is a word derived from Latin through Anglo-Norman and Middle French, and seems not to have the negative connotations of Apocalypse, perhaps because the adjective “revelatory” is used differently from “apocalyptic”.

Other manuscripts expanded the title. Bruce Metzger in his Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament refers to a scholar named Hoskier who found sixty different variations on the title. Calling it Revelation or The Apocalypse will do for us.

But who is this John? I’ll deal with that tomorrow.

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