https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=Y7tcBt5Qe2o
this holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Okay, so, people came back, that’s good news, I’m happy about that. So hopefully, we’re gonna be able to get through just a basic outline of the book of Revelation, and then chapter one. And so I see y’all brought your Bibles, that’s good stuff. But before we get started with that, I just wanna point out some of the resources that I’m using, just so you don’t all think that I came up with this out of all my own head. This right here is the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, the New Testament version. It’s really useful, it’s got the favorite notes, so I usually like to go here first if I can go anywhere. I also like this New Oxford Annotated Bible, it’s ecumenical project, so it’s got whatever scholarly consensus that you can get everybody to agree on, mostly. And then, this book is really useful, The Lamb’s Supper by Scott Hahn, as you can see, it’s a friendly little book. It’s not terribly scary to look at, and it’s got, you know, not tiny print on it. So, and that really, this one really covers kind of the liturgical worship aspects of the book of Revelation, which we’re gonna get a lot into today. And then finally, you know, some child abused this Bible, and so I’m trying, there was like marker all over the cover of it, so I’m trying to show it some love and some respect. So anyway, yeah, I’m using all of these things. So, one of the problems that lots of people run into when they’re reading the book of Revelation is that it doesn’t really have a plot, right? Like, things are not organized into a coherent narrative. There’s not a story arc, there’s not like characters running through the whole thing, and that’s how we’re accustomed to reading large amounts of the Bible, because that’s what you have. You have lots of narratives and lots of story arcs. And we just don’t get that, we just don’t get that. And so, kind of the organization is all over the place. But you know, you can see a basic structure. You’ve got kind of this intro portion in the first chapter. And then the next two chapters are these letters to the churches, where John is writing to these various churches that are under his charge, and interpreting signs of the times and all that kind of stuff for him. The third is the biggest portion of the book. It’s the main story arc of Revelation, the main section of the vision, right? And some of the things that can get confusing is that you just kind of keep on going down deeper, especially when you get into all these sevens here, right? All these sevens here. So it’s like the seventh seal is the seven trumpets, and then the seventh trumpet is the seven spiritual figures and the bulls, and so it all, like you’re just kind of going down deeper and deeper. And so, it’s helpful to kind of understand that the book of Revelation kind of operates more on dream logic than it does on kind of narrative logic, where you just have these sort of images and figures which sort of blend into each other, kind of blend together, and there’s a meaning behind it, but you’re not going to find it in a straightforward logical procession. It works a little bit differently. So you can imagine watching Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, he wrote kind of in that dream logic sense, and when you see the Red Queen and you see the cards and all the symbolism, you get a sense of what’s going on, right? It’s not like this is something that’s completely irrational and doesn’t mean anything, but it’s not like a straightforward story. It’s not like watching a Marvel superhero film or something like that. It operates kind of a little differently, a lot more imagistically, a lot less linearly. So yeah, you just got to get used to that. So anyway, and then you’ve got this short epilogue on there. So anyway, let’s dive into it. Where’d my mouse go? Come back here. All right, and so, yeah, this first chapter of Revelation and verses one through eight kind of sets the whole tone for the whole book, so it’s worth our time. And a lot of things that happen later are referenced earlier, and so you could actually, I think, spend a lot of time just on like kind of this intro portion, maybe more than we’re actually going to spend, and I can’t cover everything at once. So we’re just going to have to leave some things for later. I’m sure that’ll be just fine. All right, so, verses one through three. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show his servants what must happen soon. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who gives witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ by reporting what he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud, and blessed are those who listen to this prophetic message and heed what is written in it, for the appointed time is near. I just let everybody know I’m using the New American Bible translation, because I figured that would be the one you would most likely bring in. That’s kind of the standard Catholic translation that we use, so in case anybody was wondering. So we’re coming back to this idea of revelation again, and this unveiling of just kind of showing things the way that they are, and kind of the fundamental revelation is Jesus Christ, and he’s sort of the center of all of this, and so that’s why it’s the revelation of Jesus Christ. He’s the one who’s revealing it. And there’s kind of this deep principle in Christian reading of the Bible, that Christ is the key to the Old and the New Testaments. He’s the one who unlocks everything, and so a lot of what’s the true meaning of the Old Testament would be found in the figure of Christ, even if it wasn’t immediately apparent beforehand, and so you could think of the way things come together in like a mystery novel, or a detective movie, or one of those movies that kind of has a central mystery, and how a lot of these facts don’t really come together until you get that final aha moment, and everything else gets put into place. If you’ve ever seen Memento, that’s a Christopher Nolan flick. If you’ve ever seen Shutter Island, they’ve both got kind of these mysteries, and a lot of strange things that are happening, a lot of things that are difficult to put together until you get kind of to the end of the movie, and then there’s this revelation that places everything right where it’s supposed to be, and so that’s kind of the way Jesus himself functions in the entire Old Testament, is that he is that final interpretive key to unlock everything inside of it, and to bring it all together. So, yeah. Now, another book of the Old Testament that we’re gonna be getting a lot of is the Book of the Prophet Daniel. Much of Daniel is apocalyptic literature, and kind of was in the mind of John’s contemporaries, his scripture, inspired scripture, and Daniel was kind of like the original revealer of these mysteries, and yeah, so I’m just gonna read this quote. It’s from Daniel chapter two, and Nebuchadnezzar has asked Daniel to interpret his dream form, and has offered him all sorts of rewards, and Daniel says, There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has shown Nebuchadnezzar what is to happen in the last days. This is your dream, your vision, as you saw as you lay in your bed. To you in your bed there came thoughts about what should happen in the future, and he who reveals mysteries showed you what he is to be. So there’s a sense that God shows these things to us, and the final revelation comes to us in Jesus Christ. Now, says all this stuff must happen soon, and obviously these very strange visions didn’t like literally happen in history. We didn’t literally have a third of the waters turning into blood, so anyway, God just has a very interesting use of the word soon, really, but that’s a lot of what I was hoping to explain last week when I was talking about all of these symbolic patterns and how these symbolic patterns repeat themselves, and how they repeat themselves in little ways, and how they repeat themselves in big ways on different levels across time. And if you look at it like that, if you’re able to see how this symbolism kind of stretches across time and pulls everything together, then it is happening soon. In fact, it’s happening now, all of this stuff, but it’s not happening maybe exactly the way it’s imagistically portrayed, but the way it actually happens without the symbolism. Now, there’s a lot of debate on dating when John would have written this, and it’s really not that big a deal because it’s not that time-bound of a text, right? It’s so visionary, it’s so different that it doesn’t really matter the dating of it, but the scholars will give you anywhere from the late 60s AD to the 80s or 90s AD. All right, now, verse three, something very important, a very important key to reading this entire text is present there. Blessed is the one who reads aloud, and blessed are those who listen to this prophetic message and hear what is written in it, right? So when do we read scripture aloud? At mass, right? And so the context which John envisioned his letter being read was in a liturgical context, right? That he basically envisioned this being kind of a public thing. So that is important, that’s really important. First off, it’s not some kind of secret knowledge, right? This isn’t like an esoteric text, which is just for sort of an elect few, something that we don’t wanna have broadcast around. This isn’t something that you’re gonna get placed under a veil of secrecy to read. This is actually for the whole church, right? And even though people are a little intimidated by it, it really is for the whole church, that’s why I can post a video of this on YouTube, and we can try and spread the word as much as we can. Right, so this liturgical setting, right? And this is supposed to be done together, and yeah. And then prophecy, you know? Prophecy has always brought together past, present, and future. So I’m going to read, this is from the book of the prophet Amos, chapter two. And we’re gonna see how God brings together past, present, and future in his prophecies. So, Amos chapter two, verse six. Thus says the Lord, for three crimes of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke my word, because they sell the just man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals. They trample the heads of the weak into the dust of the earth, and force the lowly out of the way. Father and son go to the same prostitute, profaning my holy name, upon garments taken and pledged, they recline beside any altar. And the wine of those who have been fined, they drink in the house of their God. So that’s condemnation of something that’s happening in the present. Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorites before them, who were as tall as the Cedars, and as strong as the oak trees. I destroyed their fruit above and their roots beneath. It was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt, and who led you through the desert for 40 years to occupy the land of the Amorites. So that’s reflecting on the past. I did this previously. Beware, I will crush you into the ground as a wagon crushes when laden with sheaves. Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong man shall not retain his strength. The warrior will not save his life, nor the bowman stand in his ground. So in this one oracle of Amos, you’ve got kind of past, present, and future all being brought together. So that’s kind of the Book of Revelation’s relationship to time, is that it wants to pull everything together, right? Give everything a unifying vision and bring it all together. Now here we go, I’ll move on to Revelation 1, four to six. John to the seven churches of Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth, to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who has made us into a kingdom and priests for his God and father, to him be glory and power forever, amen. So traditionally, the book has been ascribed to John, the son of Zebedee, the apostle of Jesus, but that was even contested in the ancient times in third or fourth century, people, various church fathers who were acknowledged as authorities would say that the style of the Book of Revelation is so different than the gospel according to John, that it couldn’t have been written by the same person. So that was even an ancient argument made against the Book of Revelation, was eventually included in the canon. But ultimately, it really doesn’t matter who exactly was putting pen to paper, who exactly saw this vision, whether it was John the apostle or some other John who was known to the churches at that time. We believe that all scripture has been inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that’s ultimately the author we really need to be worrying about. So while you can find whole articles and books about who this John really is, it doesn’t really matter. Now, you may look at the seven churches in Asia, and you may wonder, isn’t Asia a lot bigger than it’s gonna be able to be covered by seven churches? And nowadays, we use the word Asia to refer to this entire gigantic continent, but at the time, Asia meant a province in what is modern day Turkey and the Roman Empire, right? So it’s not even the whole of that kind of Turkish subcontinent, I don’t even know. You guys know what Turkey looks like, right? We’ll see a map later. So that’s what’s meant by Asia. All right, and here’s this really interesting formula, who is and who was and who is to come, all right? So that’s kind of a way of talking about God, pointing to the fact that he transcends time. I remember the first time hearing about how God wasn’t bound by time, it really blew my mind, and I couldn’t, I still haven’t gotten my head around it, but this idea that God’s above time, very much present in this book here. All right, so here we have one of the first subversive messages in the book of Revelation, right? Talking about Jesus as the ruler of the kings of the earth. Now who might contest that? The kings of the earth. Kings of the earth. There’s one in particular I have in mind. Who would contest that claim that Jesus would be the ruler of the kings of the earth? Satan. Satan? He might. I’m really thinking of Caesar though, right? Now the Roman Empire was the one that had conquered most of the known world at this point, you know? And all of a sudden, you’ve got these Christians saying that Jesus is actually the king, right? And so that really puts into perspective why early Christians and the Roman Empire had so many disagreements. It was because they were elevating this person that Caesar had actually killed above the Caesar, you know? Elevating him above. And then he’s talking about first one of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth, who has made us into a kingdom, priests, for God, his father. All right, so what is this? What is this idea of a kingdom of priests? Well, if you go back to, so first off we have to cover this. What is the fundamental identity of any priest in any religion? What is the one thing they do that makes them into a priest? Offer worship? Little even more specific than that. Sacrifices, right? That is the whole identity of a priest is one who offers sacrifice. And so you go back to the book of Genesis. So Noah would offer up his own sacrifices, right? Noah would offer up his own sacrifices. You have accounts of Abraham offering up his own sacrifices on his own behalf, right? Isaac offering sacrifices, Jacob offering sacrifices. So these patriarchal figures took that office of priesthood upon themselves and would offer sacrifice to God. So there wasn’t much distinction then. Now, when you get to the book of Exodus, it seems like that plan is going to continue. As you get to Exodus chapter 19, God has pulled the Israelites out of the grasp of Pharaoh. They are in Sinai, they’re at the base of the mountain there. And God says to the people, you will be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. That is what you must tell the Israelites. Okay, so did that happen? Was it a nation of priests? Does anybody know when that changed? It was the incident with the golden calf, right? Moses is up on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights in communion with God. And the people down below are like, we don’t know what happened to Moses, so Aaron, you do something for us. And Aaron puts together this golden calf, right? And then Moses comes down, he’s like, what the heck is going on? And he’s trying to like fix the situation. And only the tribe of Levi will rally to his cause, right? And only the tribe of Levi will help Moses restore order by use of violence. It was a pretty bad day. And at that point, the Levites were now the priestly people of the kingdom of Israel. But you see, that wasn’t God’s original plan. In that very first covenant that God had given, they were all supposed to be a kingdom of priests. They were all supposed to offer this sacrifice, right? And we see in the book of the prophet Isaiah, right? So you get to the end of the book of the prophet Isaiah, there’s a lot of prophecies about the Messianic era, right? What’s going to happen when the Messiah comes? And so when we get to Isaiah chapter, let’s see, 61, Isaiah chapter 61, it says this, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me. He sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and to release to prisoners. Have you ever heard that passage before? Who applies that to himself? Jesus applies that passage to himself, right? He’s in the synagogue in Nazareth when he applies that passage to himself. He’s basically saying, guess what guys, the Messianic age is here and I’m the anointed of the Lord, right? And so we’re gonna skip forward a little ahead. You get to verse six, right? Still within this Messianic age, you yourselves shall be named priests of the Lord, ministers of our God you shall be called. You shall eat the wealth of the nations and boast of the riches from them, right? And so now we’re in the Messianic age. The Messiah has come, has freed us from our sins. All right, so how do we offer sacrifice? Moreover, it’s like, okay, am I the only priest in the room? All right, now that’s a question. And how can I have a priesthood, right? We can read in the letter to the Hebrews, those priests were many because they were prevented by death from remaining in office. But because he remains forever, Jesus has a priesthood that does not pass away. But this one offered one sacrifice for sins and took his seat forever at the right hand of God. So all of a sudden we’ve got the letter to the Hebrews talking about how Jesus is the one priest. And so how do we put these two things together? How do we understand that? And I think what we have to always have central in our mind is this idea that the church is the body of Christ, right? And like, okay, what does that actually mean? That means that we are actually Christ together, right? We’re members of his body. And so when we act according to our baptism, when we act according to this regenerated state in life we have, which comes to us from Christ, which unites us to Christ, then we actually share in the work that he did. Share in that work. And so how do we act this out ritually and how do we act this out? So for months during COVID at Mass, we didn’t have procession of gifts, right? We didn’t have the bread and the wine coming forward from the back of the church carried by members of the community. And what that did is that actually made Mass go faster, right? And isn’t a faster Mass better? Don’t answer that question. I made Mass go faster because I didn’t have to wait for the little kid with his little legs. He’s getting confused and wandering off. So why is that symbolism of bringing the gifts forward important? Well, have you ever heard that you should place your own prayers and intentions on top of the patent as the priest is offering that up in sacrifice, right? So that is how we, in a ritual manner, act out this idea that we are a nation of priests, right? That all of us offer up these spiritual sacrifices acceptable to the Lord. All of us offer up our sufferings. We offer up our whole lives. We offer up anything you have. Do you have something good? You offer up Thanksgiving, right? Do you have something painful? You offer up your sufferings to fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, as St. Paul says. And then we bring that all together at the Sunday Mass, bring it forward to the priest, offer it up on the altar. So that’s the symbolism. That’s why we do this offertory process. That’s why it was restored to the Roman rite in the reforms after Vatican II. And it’s like, that’s great. It was missing for that time. It was in the ancient church. It kind of got lost along the way, and now we’ve recovered it. We’ve pulled it back. And I think it’s absolutely wonderful symbolism to show how what I’m doing up at the altar isn’t somehow disconnected from what’s going on with the entire body of Christ. I’m presiding at this, and I’m offering the sacrifice of the Mass, but it’s not like you’re just spectators. You are part of this action. You are acting in accord with your royal priesthood to bring this all together. And St. John, he put that all in there with just a single little reference, single little reference to the book of Exodus, right? Just boiling that all in there. It’s so compact. It’s amazing. Like the Bible is just the most amazing book in the world. Can’t get over it. Yeah, okay. All right, I don’t know what I was gonna talk about when I put down, to him be glory and power forever. So hopefully it wasn’t that important. All right, Revelation 1-7. So here we’ve got a lot going on. Behold, he is coming amid the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. All the peoples of the earth will lament him. Yes, amen. So that yes, amen part, why would he put that into his letter? And I wonder if that wasn’t like part of the liturgy he was expecting this to be a part of, right? So I say, the word of the Lord, you say, thanks be to God, right? Okay, we’re a little fish out of water there, but you know, this call and response, yes, amen. So some people thought that’s what’s going on there, but since we don’t have access to those ancient liturgies, we can’t prove it. So behold, he is coming amid the clouds. Early Christians had a very acute sense of Christ’s return, right? Like this idea that he is coming back was very much on the forefront of their minds. You get the sense when Paul is writing his letters that he’s really expecting it to be any day now, right? Now, 2,000 years down the road, obviously what God means by soon isn’t what I would refer to as soon, and we just have to be present to that. But it’s very much on the forefront of his mind, right at the beginning of this letter. This reference to the clouds, you know, Jesus says that he was going to return the same way he came, right? Or he’s going to come the same way he left. And so we’ve got the mystery of the ascension. He’s taken out of their sight by the clouds. He’s going to return in that very same way. And so St. Paul and the Gospels are both very clear on this coming back from the clouds as a cataclysmic event. And then in this very first verse, John references these two different Old Testament prophecies, one from Daniel chapter seven and one from Zechariah 12. I’m actually going to look at Daniel seven first. As the visions continued through the night, I saw with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man. When he reached the ancient of days, he was presented before him. He received dominion, splendor, and kingship. All nations, peoples, and tongues will serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away. His kingship, one that shall not be destroyed. So this figure of the ancient of days is in the book of the prophet Daniel. Yeah, so it’s pretty clear that this ancient of days is sort of this representation of God the Father. And then, you know, John, Daniel saw one like a son of man. So son of man in the book of Daniel and in the book of Ezekiel just refers to a human being. Just refers to a son of a man. We’re all sons and daughters of a man. That’s just kind of an idea. So it’s just kind of a Hebrew idiom there. And so it’s like this prophecy about Jesus bringing his human nature in the ascension into heaven to his father in heaven. And so coming amid the clouds of heaven, it’s that John is calling to mind his faithful listeners, calling to their minds this prophecy, right? He’s just given that small verbal cue to remember who’s going to return to the heavens among the clouds of heaven. And then we’ve got Zechariah 12. I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of mercy and supplication, so that when they look on him whom they have thrust through, they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and they will grieve for him as one grieves over a firstborn, right? And so the soldiers break the legs of those who had been crucified, the one on the right and one on the left, but when they came to Jesus, they saw that he had already dead. But the soldier thrust his lance into his side and outflowed blood and water. And so even those who pierced him. And so just in that very, very quick reference to Zechariah 12, he links this story, links this figure Jesus all throughout, right? And so it’s like John contemplating his savior is the one who ties the Old Testament together, starts showing us all these different threads, which without the figure of Christ were previously hidden, right? But you couldn’t put this all together with the same person until you see the figure of Christ. And ah, yes, yes, it all comes to it. So it’s like that mystery novel where at the very end, you’re finally able to put things together. John is the one who was putting things together. And so this is kind of our first introduction to kind of this book of Revelation, central paradox of who Jesus is, because we see him simultaneously as one who is crushed, afflicted and suffering, and also triumphant and glorious, right? And that image is gonna come up again and again, this absolute paradox of how in his defeat, in his suffering, in his death, that’s how we see the kingship and the glory of Christ, how he pulls all of that together. And that is not the way that ancient people thought, right? This really was a revelation, right? It was assumed that if you were wealthy, successful, good looking, powerful, you had status, that meant that that’s, you were the one who was blessed by the gods, right? You were the one who was favored by the gods, and anybody who was poor, who was deformed, who had any kind of disadvantages like, well, that’s tough, you know? And then we see this figure of Christ burst onto the scene and triumphing through suffering, right? Utterly new, just an utterly revolutionary idea, took over the Roman Empire, no matter what the Roman Empire tried to do to get rid of it. I’m really liking this water right now, thanks, Joan. You’re welcome. Okay. All right. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. So Alpha and Omega, right? That’s the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet, showing how Christ kind of occupies the fullness of everything. He’s not just the king of a particular section, he’s not just the lord and ruler and prince of the world, he’s not just the lord and ruler and principle of a particular section, but he just kind of fills up everything. And you can see that precisely in how he is the suffering king, right? So the gospels make it a point to mention that Jesus was crucified kind of outside of the town, right? That Jesus was crucified outside of the city gates. And so what’s outside of town, especially in those days, you didn’t have waste management coming to pick up your garbage and to drive that away for you. You had to haul all of your garbage yourself, you had to have somebody haul it. And so getting things out was important, right? And it’s still important to us, right? How many of you would really be excited to live near the dump up in West Fargo? Right, no. We put that kind of way out in West Fargo so we don’t have to deal with it. We live in South Fargo, miles away from it, right? And so that which is outside of the city gates is rejected. It is pushed to the edge. It is no longer wanted to be a part of the community, wanted to be a part of what we’re doing here. And that’s where Christ is, right? And Christ is also at the center of everything, right? After having been crucified, he goes up to the highest heavens, right? He ascends into heaven and is seated at the right hand of his father, reigning as king. And so kind of the two extremes of reality that you can imagine, you know, in the nastiest place that nobody wanted so that we’re gonna use executions. He’s way out there, he’s way far away, and he’s also at the center of reality, right? He fills up everything. There’s no portion of reality that he doesn’t rule, that he’s not a part of. We also, you know, we talk about God as being infinite, right? Everybody agree that God’s infinite? Okay, what do you mean by that? Right, it’s really easy to say God is infinite, yeah. And we’ve got, you know, kind of a decent idea of a temporal infinity, right? That he’s not bounded by, you know, space and time. But another way we can look at God as being the alpha and the omega is, you know, you could even look at, you could just break it down, right? We’ve got the prefix in and then the word finite. So the prefix in, as you remember from your grade school grammar classes, is a negation, right? It tells you what this isn’t. And then finite, okay, so it’s telling us that God is not finite. What that means on an ontological level is that God isn’t bound to any particular form of being. Each and every single one of us, we’re a particular kind of being, right? We’re all human beings. And so we can’t go around acting like a giraffe, right? That is outside kind of the scope of our being and that’s just how beings work, you know? So we’re all finite in that way. We don’t have everything. We’ve only got a part of powers and abilities and space and all that kind of things. Once we say that God is infinite, it means that he contains all of this within himself, right? That he’s not limited to any particular mode of being but is sort of above all of that. It contains the fullness of everything within himself, which is why he’s able to create everything. Because we’re all images of his perfection. We’re all reflections of the perfections that already exist in him. And so almighty, you know? Caesar is not the almighty. It’s the alpha and the omega, the Lord God who is the almighty. Amen. All right, let’s move on. I John, your brother, who share with you the distress, the kingdom and the endurance we have in Jesus, found myself on the island called Patmos because I proclaimed God’s word and gave testimony to Jesus. I was caught up in spirit on the Lord’s day and heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet, which said, write on the scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches. The Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. So, we’re getting that very geographic sense. Now, the tradition says that John the apostle was kind of that bishop in Ephesus, right? And he founded, or at least took over, ruling that church in Ephesus. And so Ephesus was kind of the principle, the principle city on this bit of Asia Minor, right? And so over here, over here you would have Greece and then over here you would have Italy and then down here you would have Palestine, you know? And kind of the way it happens now is that you’ve got kind of one central church in kind of the biggest town in the area and these other churches he would also kind of have a responsibility for. And so, there he is exiled and he’s a lawyer, he’s a lawyer, and he’s away from his churches. And so he’s sending this letter. Somebody would carry it around to these various different churches. Maybe they would make copies at that time. They kind of go on a circuit from Ephesus, all the way around, visiting these various churches. All of them who were kind of under John’s pastoral care. All right, where’d my mouse go? We’re back, okay. Now, the line about being caught up in the spirit is kind of tricky to translate. It could also mean I came to be in the spirit or I was in the spirit. The New American Bible is actually pretty unique in talking about being caught up in the spirit. So, so I, so I, kind of what that line is just trying to signify is that there’s something, there’s a vision going on here. There’s something supernatural going on here. Don’t try and read this book like a regular narrative. John’s letting us know that that’s all I can figure out with being caught up in the spirit. And he makes it a point to say that he was caught up in the spirit on the Lord’s Day. So which day is the Lord’s Day? Sunday, right? And so, again, we have this linking of this vision of heaven and earth. We have this linking to the Sunday liturgy, which we still have to this day. Now, all of this is given to us in symbols, right? And it’s really necessary that things be given to us in symbols because you can’t see heaven with your eyeballs, right? Like, we’re talking about God who is a pure spirit being ministered to by angels who are pure spirits. And so it’s like, how do we communicate this vision of heaven to somebody who’s on earth? We’ve gotta have some kind of intermediary. And so that’s where this symbolic vision, to get us behind the veil. That’s why it’s so necessary there. Hmm. Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me. And when I turned, I saw seven gold lampstands. And in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, wearing an ankle-length robe with a gold sash around his chest. The hair of his head was white as wool or as snow, and his feet were like a fiery flame. His feet, his eyes were like a fiery flame. His feet were like polished brass refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing water. In his right hand, he held seven stars. A sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth, and his face shone like the sun at its brightest. All right, so this is very clearly a reference to this ancient of days who we alluded to earlier from the book of the prophet Daniel. You’ll find this in Daniel chapter seven, verse nine. Daniel has a vision. Thrones were set up, and the ancient one took his throne. His clothing was snow-bright, and the hair on his head was white as wool. His throne was flames of fire with wheels of burning flame. A surging stream of fire flowed out from where he sat. Thousands upon thousands were ministering to him, and myriads upon myriads attended him, right? And so, in context, it is very clear that Daniel is talking about God, you know, that he is making a reference to this almighty on his throne in heaven. And as we’ll see when we get, what’s this, get to verse 18, who John is talking about, he’s actually talking about Jesus, right? John is actually talking about Jesus here as using the exact same imagery as the ancient of days. And so, it’s hard to imagine that John would not have had a sense of Christ’s divinity here, and more in using this particular way of talking about Christ. And so, I think that’s a really big deal, that he had this sense of this divinity of Christ, associated with the ancient of days, specifically, you know, the name of this figure from the Old Testament, specifically being eternalist, specifically being pre-existing, as we believe that Jesus was. So, you know, it’s not too great a stretch to see the same guy who might have written this in late 60s AD, later writing, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The word was in the beginning, and God created all things through the word, and without the word, nothing was made that was made. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. It’s like it’s the same theology just being expressed in rather different ways. We’re talking about the gold lampstands in the next slide. Yes, yes we are. All right, just put a pin in the seven gold lampstands. We’re gonna get back to that. Now, who wears an ankle-length white robe? This guy, right? Ankle-length white robe. I put one on just about every single day. I haven’t missed a day yet, so putting on an ankle-length white robe. So once again, we’re hammering in this liturgical context. Where did the Christians get the ankle-length white robes from? We got that from Jewish worship. That would be what the high priest wore. If you look at the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the exact same word for robe is used as is used here. And very many of the early Christians read the Old Testament in Greek, not in Hebrew, so it has a big effect on the New Testament, those Greek translation idioms. All right, and then I love kind of the juxtaposition between white hair and brass feet, right? So you see white hair, you see wisdom, you see experience, you see somebody who has lived through life. It’s a sign of age, and you know, back in those days, like age was revered. It wasn’t a matter for joking. If you saw your elder, you were expected to stand up in their presence. Very traditional societies are like that. So we’ve got this juxtaposed with brass feet, you know? So still on his feet, right? Not somebody who’s become feeble, but you know, brass, what does brass look like? It’s smooth, it’s heavy, it’s hard, right? We all kind of know what that looks like. And so despite the age, despite the years, still strong, still a symbol of power. It’s old, but has not become feeble. We look at fiery eyes, right? Do we still use fiery eyes to signal things? Would Superman’s eyes start glowing? Does that mean you’re about to have a good day? No, we still use that fiery eye symbolism. And it’s like, why do we do that? Have you ever actually seen anybody’s eyes glow? Like maybe, I don’t know, if you’ve seen a bizarre medical situation, you would have, but that’s not kind of how people work. But there’s this deep intuition and this connection between light and knowledge, right? And Jesus even speaks this way in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, the eye is the lamp of the soul, but if the light within you is dark, how profound is that darkness? And even if you get to like medieval theology, they’ll talk about kind of the light of reason, right? As something that comes out from you and illuminates the world, that puts things together, right, that makes sense of the world, right? And so this idea of the flaming eyes with light coming out of them shows this wisdom beyond anything that we can end and just this perfect vision of the world. Voice like rushing water. Well, Niagara Falls, you know, that’s just really loud. So you’re going to hear his words. You’re not going to be able to get away from it. It is powerful things going on right there. And then, let’s see, we’ll go down to two-edged sword, right? So out of his mouth comes a two-edged sword and his face shown like the sun at its brightest. So that’s, is he a sword swallower? Is that what’s going on here? Well, what comes out of your mouth? Words, right. What’s the very first thing that God does? He speaks existence into existence. He speaks the whole creation, right? How do we know that we are made in the image and likeness of God? Because we have speech, right? Adam was given the position of naming the animals, right? Of distinguishing the cats from the dogs, from the snakes, from the bugs, from the cattle, all of that, right? And so God creates with his word, he speaks habitable order into existence. And so when we speak, we’re actually sharing in that creative action of God, that we actually have the ability to create habitable order out of chaos, right? So like when a big news story happens, right? We’re talking about one of those, where were you when this happened kind of moments, right? Like what’s the first thing you’re gonna do, right? Do you remember seeing kind of that, I think it was people standing on Battery Park or Liberty Island in New York City, right? And somebody had a camera out, this is September 11th, 2001, was filming these people watching what was going on with the Twins World Trade Center. And back in the day, you know what they had already? They had cell phones. So somebody was on the cell phone talking to people, right? And all of a sudden, we’re all talking, we’re all talking. This crazy thing has happened. What do we do about it? How do we handle this? Let’s move forward. How do we do it? And how would we do it cooperatively? We do it together. We use our words in order to create habitable order amidst the chaos, right? So anyway, a sharp two-edged sword, that’s powerful words coming out of his mouth. And finally, he holds seven stars in his right hand. Right. So, one of the not good things about living in 21st century America is that we can never see the stars anymore, right? And we put all of this artificial lighting outside, and it’s really useful, right? It prevents car accidents. And we’re all in love with our cars because we’re Americans. We just love, love our cars. But we don’t get to see the stars anymore. And so, why does he hold seven stars in his hand, right? What does that have to do with anything? And we miss kind of like the fundamental images of the ancient world, is this interplay between heaven and earth. So let’s just imagine that we’re not 21st century Americans. Let’s imagine that we spend a lot more time outside, that there’s no Netflix, there’s no movie theaters. All we have are each other for company and entertainment. So you spend time outside when the weather’s nice, you know? Because being inside isn’t always great. You don’t have near as much inside. Our houses are way bigger than ancient people would have lived in unless they were fabulously wealthy. And so at night, you see the stars, right? And every night, you see the exact same stars. And you see them in the exact same arrangement. And it’s always in the same order. And they kind of rotate around slowly. You’ve got lots of time to observe this, but it doesn’t change up there. And the sun comes up and it comes down in a predictable routine, right? And you’ve got these seasons of the sun, more sun, less sun. The moon’s got their cycles. Moon waxes and it wanes. You’ve got the new moon, the full moon on that cycle again. It’s all regular. It’s all predictable. And then you look around at Earth, right? There’s always activity on Earth. There’s always things changing on Earth. Some days, the weather’s wretched. Other days, the weather’s very nice, you know? Some days, there’s animals around and then there’s not animals around. The plants are growing up. The plants die. Everything on Earth is always changing. And so there was this deep intuition among ancient peoples that the heavens were in charge. The heavens were the place of order. The heavens were the place of governance, right? So why we naturally associate kind of this ruling order, placing things in their place, organizing things. We naturally associated that with heaven. And Earth was the place where things were changing, right? Where things were always getting moved around. It’s the place of more chaos. It’s order up there, chaos down here. Those who are capable of bringing order are the ones who are in charge, right? So, you know, somebody who’s going around smashing shop windows, lighting things on fire, are they in charge? I sure hope not, you know? The people who are in charge are the ones who are cleaning things up, the ones who are keeping things in order. That’s at least what they’re supposed to be doing. So the symbolism of heaven and Earth, it’s like the heavens are the place that is governing, the Earth is the place that is being governed, right? This is why God’s divinity has always been associated with the heavens. It’s that stability, it’s that predictability. Yeah. So holding the seven stars in his hand. If he’s got the stars in his hand, then he governs the place that governs, that he is in charge, he is on top. You know, even as late as the Middle Ages with the sophisticated theology that they had developed by that time, Thomas Aquinas, my favorite theologian, he very plainly, in this kind of Aristotelian, this ancient view of the world, said that the events of Earth are influenced by the movement of heavenly bodies, right? And there were these principles, these deep underlying principles of reality that express themselves on Earth in the movement of the heavenly bodies being expressed on Earth. And if you could understand these laws, the movement of heavenly bodies and how they timed things on Earth, then you could get an advantage on that, right? So that’s kind of like a pre-scientific, scientific view of trying to understand the movement of the universe and trying to understand how things work. But now we have a scientific view of things, right? And so when we’re trying to figure out if it’s gonna rain, we don’t consult heavenly bodies, but is it really so different to say that, you know, the uneven heating of the Earth’s surface, our weather forecasts, these ways that we try and understand these fundamental laws of how the weather works, it’s like this thoughts about the way heaven worked, that was like the dream out of which our science proceeded. That and alchemy, if you ask Carl Jung, but we won’t ask him. All right, getting to the end of chapter one here. When I caught sight of him, I fell down at his feet as though dead, naturally enough. He touched me with his right hand and said, do not be afraid, I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. I hold the keys to death and to the netherworld. Write down therefore what you see and what is happening and what will happen afterwards. This is the secret meaning of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and of the seven gold lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. So first we have John falling on his face. Daniel fell on his face too in his book and then also I recall Joshua chapter five. When Joshua was near Jericho, he raised his eyes and saw one who stood facing him, drawn sword and sword, and when he was facing him, drawn sword in hand, Joshua went up to him and asked, are you one of us or one of our enemies? He replied, neither, I am the captain of the host of the Lord and I have just arrived. Then Joshua fell prostrate to the ground and worship and said to him, what has my Lord to say to his servant? The captain of the host of the Lord replied to Joshua, remove your sandals from your feet for the place on which you standing is holy and Joshua obeyed. So this standard posture of worship. So you know how we said that this apparition, that’s much like the ancient of days is actually Jesus, it’s not the father, well how we know that is the line, once I was dead but now I’m alive for the Lord. Once I was dead but now I’m alive forever and ever. So John’s making that pretty clear for us. Now we’re talking about these seven lamp stands. Oh, we’ll talk about holding the keys. I knew I was starting to get places in the church world when people started giving me keys to the building, right? Started giving me trust and so if you’ve got keys, you can get into places and you can also prevent other people from getting into those places. So here’s another way that we see how Christ fills up everything is the Alpha and the Omega is that he has the keys to death and to the nether world. So the farthest places away from heaven is the nether world, that’s what’s underneath and death is the opposite of the heavens because the stars are up there forever. In the ancient mind, right? In the ancient mind, the stars were up there forever, they didn’t change. The exact same constellations that your dad taught about, his dad taught about those constellations and as far back as anybody could remember, the stars were always the same, the same constellations. And so that’s just another way of showing how Christ fills up everything is the Alpha and the Omega at the center and all the way to the place farthest away from the center. And we’re talking about the seven stars. Seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. Does anybody know what the word angel means? Messenger, right? So messengers, does this mean that the seven angels of the seven churches are supernatural beings the way we commonly use the word angel now or does it mean the bishops, right? The ones who had bishop, that means overseer, the ones who were in charge of the worship and would spread God’s news. I think it means both, right? We’ve got this sense that every human being has their guardian angel, we hear about that in Matthew’s gospel. Why can’t a church have a guardian angel, right? Have this kind of principality in charge of it. And we talk about a lampstand. We don’t really think much about lampstands anymore but it’d be the place where you set a lamp so the light could shine. Matthew chapter five, you are the light of the world the light is set on a lampstand where it gives light to all in the house, right? And John is drawing this connection between the churches, the assemblies gathered in Christ’s name. We are called to be this light of the world. We are called to let that light shine out. So the churches are the lampstands and the light is Christ and we give that light out now. That’s kind of our role. And then finally, I think something that’s really cool in our tradition is what masses do you see? Seven candles specifically. You should know this answer well. Masses with the bishop, right? They keep this tradition alive in Fargo. And especially in the old mass, it was like, okay, if you’re gonna have a low mass, you only have two candles lit. If you’re gonna have a high mass or a solid mass, you have six candles lit. And if you’re going to have pontifical mass, you’ve got seven candles lit. So the church kind of hung on to this symbolism and we have three candles here. So I don’t know what’s up with that. You can all ask Father Dale why we only have three candles. And that’s the end of chapter one. I hope that was helpful. Now you have this on YouTube also? Yes, yes. How do you get that? I’ll post it on the parish Facebook page. And if you ask, I can show you it. Yeah, but I better stop this recording here.