https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=KEZaFEVrm4g
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Saint John the Evangelist. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. All right, so we’ve made it through kind of the introductory chapters and now we’re getting to Revelation chapters 4 and 5. So a line that we’re going to we’re going to see here right here at the beginning of chapter 4. Come up here and I will show you what must happen afterwards. And so this is kind of where we get to that future prophetic part of the book of Revelation, what it’s kind of most known for, right? And you know you could see why people have tried to, one of the more common approaches to the book of Revelation, especially recently, is to try and like map out individual events onto like you know this beast is Hitler, you know, or this beast is Napoleon and try and make things really really specific. And you know Saint John’s the one who says this is what must happen afterwards, right? But he starts at, he starts at the end, right? And so these next two chapters that we’re covering tonight is this heavenly liturgy, it’s this worship of God at the end of the universe. And that’s actually the final destination of the whole world, of the whole universe, is to offer up this fitting worship and praise for God, right? And so it’s like when we’re getting to this this prophetic part of the book, he starts right at the very end. What are we all aiming towards? We’re all aiming towards the kingdom of God where we offer up that perfect worship and that perfect praise in his honor. So we’re gonna see a lot of Isaiah chapter 6, you know, with the six-winged seraphim and Lord I’m not worthy, the coal for the altar purifying his lips, a lot of Ezekiel 1 to 2 and Daniel 7, which we’ve already seen a fair bit. And then starting in chapter 6, you know, we kind of start at the end here, the heavenly liturgy, what the final destination of everything is. When you get to chapter 6, you kind of get to the end of the world, what happens before we get there. And the end of the world is a very, very curious thing. And then finally, just want to give a, we’re gonna start diving into numerology a bit tonight, right? So that’s just the study of how numbers function in a symbolic way, right? And it can seem kind of arbitrary initially, right? So it’s like you always hear that seven is the number of perfection, right? Well why? What is it about this particular quantity that signifies perfection? And so, you know, I think numerology is such where if you’re just studying how numbers show up, you’re just gonna find weird patterns everywhere, right? All sorts of numbers, you know, it’s just white noise and you’re trying to read meaning into it. The thing about doing numerology in the Bible is this definitely, especially as the very end of the Bible, as one of the last books to be written, drawing on this tradition beforehand, is it’s basically reflecting on how these numbers have been used throughout the tradition, right? And so it’s no longer just like an arbitrary, you know, assigning the number 16 to something, but it’s, it really is grounded in kind of all the books of the Bible that come previously. How this number is used, how it’s used over and over again, and what this number comes to signify in the Bible, right? So it’s not, you know, you couldn’t just like find a list of numbers, you know, like convert every letter on a page to a number and on a page of a newspaper to a number and try and find patterns there. It’s the fact that this is kind of a unified Bible, that this is a unified context that we’re working out of where these numbers come up over and over again, that it can start to have a deeper meaning rather than just, you know, learning how to count. So anyway, that’ll hopefully become clearer as we go on. So let’s start in Revelation chapter 4. After this, behold, I had a vision of an open door to heaven and I heard the trumpet-like voice that had spoken to me before saying, come up here and I will show you what must happen afterwards. At once I was caught up in spirit. A throne was there in heaven and on the throne sat one whose appearance sparkled like Jasper and Carnelian. Around the throne was a halo as brilliant as an emerald. All right, so we’ve talked about the symbolism of heaven and earth, right? So at this point, St. John is caught up in the spirit again and I added in that behold because it’s there in the Greek, but it’s not there probably in your new American Bible. So this is obviously, you know, John trying to tell. I think it’s a nice addition, you know, it’s like and it’s in the Greek. Why don’t we have it? We’re talking about the symbolism of heaven and earth here. So heaven is that place that does not change. It’s the place of order, right? You look up to the sky, generation after generation, you see the same constellations, generation after generation. We look at essentially the same sky that Jesus would have looked at, that Moses would have looked at, that Abraham would have looked at. And so in a symbolic way, heaven symbolizes that place of perfect rule, that place of perfect order, right? That place where God’s throne is and that heavenly influence comes down to us on earth, the place where things change, the seasons change. Some days the sky is cloudy, other days the sky is clear. You know, some days there’s a lot of sunlight, other times there’s not much sunlight. We have storms, we have earthquakes, you know, rivers erode their banks, all sorts of stuff is changing here on earth. And so heaven sets this pattern of perfection. And what Christ coming down to earth does is try to help us to imitate this pattern, right? This place where, you know, God is ruling perfectly, that we’re supposed to come into alignment with that and start to be ruled perfectly by God, right? So that’s what this image of the heavenly liturgy is, is the way things are supposed to be and are in heaven, the way things they are on earth. Now I like the way that this is phrased, what Jesus says, that’s the one who’s spoken in this passage, what must happen afterwards, right? And so there’s this real sense in Christianity that the battle has actually already been won. Like Christ has already trampled death. He has already stormed the gates of hell, released those bound to sin, and opened up the gates of heaven and led a triumphal procession in. And so what we’re just kind of dealing with here is sort of the reverberations and the final completion of what Christ began when he was on earth, right? So it’s what must happen. It’s like, it’s like, it’s not really dependent on us whether or not all this stuff is going to happen. God’s the one who’s in complete control here. God’s the one who’s in charge. Now God’s throne is mentioned 40 times in the book of Revelation. All right. And so this, this is, you know, the more you study it and the more you realize these things, you notice how elegantly crafted this book of the Bible is when you see just how many times particular words are used. It’s absolutely an incredible thing. You didn’t even have Microsoft Word, right? You know, where you could go and like automatically count how many times you use this word, it’ll all just, you know, it’s like he had parchment and his brain and a pen. That was it. Pretty amazing stuff. So 40 times the first time the number 40 is mentioned in the Bible. Can you guys try and guess when would be the first time the number 40 was mentioned in the Bible? The 40, 40 days of rain, right? 40 days of rain where, you know, Noah’s Noah in the ark that represents kind of a new creation, right? So you go back to the seven days of creation, God speaks this habitable order out of the chaotic waters, right? He pulls, he separates the dry land from the waters. We go back to Noah, the world has become corrupted through sin, and God decides that he is going to wash everything away and start over again with Noah, the just man. And then there’s another fall story with Noah getting drunk and all of that. So that’s like the first time that 40 is mentioned in the Bible. And there’s all sorts of 40s, you know, and we’re not going to cover it all because there’s like probably 20, 25 times it’s mentioned in the Bible. Another famous one is that Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with God receiving the law, right? 40 days and nights fasting and praying. And then Israel spends 40 years at the desert after having refused to enter the promised land. Jesus spends 40 days in the desert doing battle with Satan and then spends 40 days on earth with his disciples after having risen from the dead before the ascension into heaven. So what the number 40 kind of signifies is just these manifestations of God’s power and God’s judgment, right? And that is, of course, linked very naturally with the notion of the throne, right? That’s where you sit and you hand out your judgments. That’s where you sit in the big seat and you’re the one who’s in charge. Everything else in that room is organized around the central throne. You’re the one who is commanding here. You’re the one who is ordering things here. And when we’re looking at the Jasper and Carnelian, those are just just red gems. I don’t know if the number the color red actually signifies anything here. And then, you know, it says around the throne, there was a halo, but the exact same word is often translated as a rainbow. Right. So then you get that sense of that covenant that God made with Abraham, with the rainbow promising not to flood the earth again. Right. So I wonder if that’s got a connection with the 40. It’s probably a little tenuous there, though. All right. Moving on. Surrounding the throne, I saw 24 other thrones on which 24 elders sat, dressed in white garments and with gold crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Seven flaming torches burned in front of the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. In front of the throne was something that resembled the sea of glass like crystal. All right. So this is something really, really interesting here. So we’ve got these 24 elders sitting around on these thrones. Right. So why would we choose the number 24? Two times 12. Right. So what’s significant about 12? Twelve tribes of Israel and 12 apostles. Right. And so that shows what the church is constituted out of. Right. The people who make up the church. You have the original the Jews who are the first bearers of the covenant joined by the Gentiles. Right. So you’ve got this this people of the old covenant, 12 people of the new covenant, another 12 coming up to 24. So that’s pretty cool, I think. Now, does anybody, these elders, these elders, if you know a little bit of Greek, you know that the word for elder is presbyteroy. Right. And so if you derive it through the ages, the etymology of the word presbyteroy, you end up with the English priest. Right. And so now in English, the word has become a little bit confused because it also would mean those who offer sacrifices. Right. But if you go back to the original Greek, it’s just the elders. And so this idea of having the one seated on the throne surrounded by the elders actually would recall to the mind of Jesus, of John’s hearers, ancient liturgical context, that very early Christian worship. Right. So, you know, we’ve got Bishop Fulda up in Fargo. Right. And he’s got his priests scattered all over. The diocese, you know, and we’re all participating in his work of trying to build up the church, of running things. You go back to the early church, you know, how many priests would you have? You wouldn’t need that many. You’ve got maybe 300 believers in a large city. Right. So you would have these house churches. Right. And you’d have the bishop sitting there conducting the liturgy. And then he would have these elders around him and then the deacons assisting with the liturgy. Right. Now, as the church grew, the elders, the presbyteroi, the priests would be sent to conduct the liturgical services at different houses. Right. This especially started happening in Rome, happening in Alexandria, which was bigger than Rome, happening in Antioch, happening in Jerusalem, where there was large numbers of believers. The bishop couldn’t be at absolutely every single one of those places. And so these elders were sent as the bishop’s representatives. Right. And so it might not seem obvious that the liturgy, the way we do liturgy now with just me or just Father Dale up on the altar there is the same pattern as this, but it really is. Every Sunday, you know, the bishop is presiding at the cathedral up in Fargo or wherever he happens to be. And then all the people participating in this same liturgy and offering up this same sacrifice, all of us priests are doing it all across the diocese. But who do we pray for every time we have mass? For our bishop, John and Francis, our pope, you know. And so it’s just this pattern, this pattern of the heavenly liturgy. You know, it’s like we’re still copying that. Right. We’re still copying that here on earth. We’re still trying to be that image of that perfect worship that’s offered to God in heaven, trying to be that here on earth. And there’s this idea of throwing gold crowns on their head. Right. This idea that we participate in the not only just offering up worship to God, but also ruling with Christ. Right. And so even these 24 elders seated around the throne, they also are rulers with Christ in subjection to them, but truly in a real way. Now, we’re talking about this lightning rumblings and peals of thunder. I mean, that’s a real manifestation of God’s power. Right. Like it doesn’t matter who you are, you can’t control the weather. Now, we’ve tried all this cloud seeding business. It’s just a complete waste of money and does nothing. The weather is, you know, just in a very primal way, a way we get this sense of God’s power. Right. He’s the one who’s in control here. There are things that no matter how clever we get, no matter how much technology we get, that we’re not going to be in charge of the weather. It’s far too big of a system for us to even hope to control. And this is also another sign of a revelation. Right. When God appears and his glory appears on top of Mount Sinai, there’s smoke, there’s fire, there’s thunder, earthquakes, all that stuff. Right. This power that Christ is, God is revealing himself. So let’s talk about the number seven finally. You’ve probably been wondering why does seven mean perfection? So what’s the first instance of the use of seven in the Bible? The seven days of creation. Right. Seven days of creation. And this is a really important thing. And it’s going to, we’re going to have to understand how seven and six are closely connected, but they’re not quite the same. Right. So we’ll just talk about seven. Now God manages, what is the universe done being created? On the sixth day. Right. So that’s when all of the work has been accomplished. Right. But we don’t, we don’t end on this sixth day in the story. Right. We don’t end with just this well-ordered creation having put together, but we also have this extra thing at the end. Right. This idea of this seventh day. And the seventh day is, is in terms of creation, in terms of strictly the logic of putting things together, it’s useless. Right. It doesn’t do anything, but God sees fit in order to include this thing that doesn’t quite fit, that doesn’t have a purpose, but we’re going to have it placed in there anyway. And so, so that’s the idea of a divine perfection. Right. Of that perfect complete list where it’s not only, you know, everything that’s well organized, everything that’s well maintained, everything that’s put together, but also those things that don’t fit. Right. It’s everything. It’s not just those things that are working well. Right. And that’s only divine power, which is capable of including everything in the plan. Right. And so we talk often about how sin is actually something that God works with. Right. And if you’ve had wise spiritual counsel, you’ve looked at your own sins, and you may be processed how even though you’ve sinned before, that you’ve had these faults, if you allow God into your life, that he can actually make these sins right. That he can use it as a way to humble you. He can use it as a way to bring you to repentance. And then through overcoming our sins, through allowing that grace to work in ourselves, it actually makes us stronger spiritually than we might have been if we had been, let’s say, prevented by God’s power from ever falling into that sin in the first place. Right. And that’s what we sing about every night on Easter Vigil. Right. Oh, happy fault. Oh, that sin that won for us so glorious a savior, you know, that guy that’s that’s a manifestation of this divine power where God can take that thing that doesn’t fit. And even he can use that even he can bring that into his governance, into his command. Right. So that’s a lot contained in that idea of seven. But it’s it is unfolded throughout the whole of Scripture. Right. But that pattern you’ve seen, it’s not just, you know, you can read Genesis, chapter one and derive all of that. But that’s that’s where seven comes from. That’s where that idea. So we’ve got these seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God, showing that fullness, that completion that can fill up everything, even those things that don’t seem to fit, even those things that don’t seem to have a place. And we’re also talking about this, this throne on the in front of the throne was something that resembled the sea of glass, right, like crystal. Right. So you remember how ancient cosmology worked, the way they conceived of it in their head. You know, you’ve got the earth down here at the middle. It’s flat. There were flat earthers. They didn’t know better. It’s OK. And then you had this firmament separating the waters above from the waters below. Right. And so the way that it’s being conceived of here in the book of Revelation is that we’ve got, you know, the firmament, the waters above. And then God’s throne is even on top of that. Right. He’s completely away from this realm of chaos, this realm of change and decay. It’s absolutely transcending that. He’s got this sea of glass, this sea of water in front of him. Now, there was there was a strong belief that when God was giving Moses the instructions for building the tabernacle and later the temple, that this was based on the heavenly temple right. It was based on the way worship was conducted in the in the heavenlies, you know, up in the sky. And so the ancient temple was a copy of the heavenly temple. Right. And we continue to have the same basic kind of layout to our worship spaces if it’s properly designed. And so the basic layout of the tabernacle of the temple is that you had the Holy of Holies. That innermost core place where the where the seat of God was, where the Ark of the Covenant was. And the priest could only go in there once a year and even then at that very briefly. And then you had this outer court where the priests would be offering sacrifices, where you have the bread of the presence, where you would have the incense being burnt day and night. So that’s the inner court. And then the outer court where all sorts of people could come in. So I just kind of like this three layer setup. Right. And then in front of that, there was this bronze basin of water. You know, that’s where we get this resembling a sea of grass, something like crystal. Well, our church over there has the same basic layout. Right. What’s the Holy of Holies? The tabernacle. Right. And it’s like we don’t just let anybody go up there and, you know, hey, why don’t you just put the key in and take a look and see, you know, it’s like you need to have serious business when you’re going in there. We do it during the liturgy. We do it for people who need to bring Holy Communion. But other than that, stay shut. It’s a secret place. It’s the inner sanctum. And then we’ve got kind of the inner court. What’s that? The sanctuary, right? That place where the sacrifice is performed. We’ve got the altar there. We’ve got only the things that are necessary for carrying out the sacrifices. And then we’ve got the outer court. That’s the the nave. And then the sea of glass. The baptismal font. Right. And the front. It’s not quite a sea, but it’s a nice big one. You know, you do some real serious baptisms in there if you’ve got the mind for it. So like we did, you probably all with the Vista Vigil, you know, it’s like get in there. You want to dump the water right on top of your head. So that’s what we’re doing was we’re trying to imitate what’s going on in the heavens, right? This perfect worship of God. We’re trying to bring that down here on earth and participate in it. In the center and around the throne, there were four living creatures covered with eyes in front and in back. The first creature resembled a lion. The second was like a calf. The third had a face that was like that of a human being. And the fourth looked like an eagle in flight. The four living creatures, each of them with six wings, were covered with eyes inside and out. Day and night, they do not stop exclaiming, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come. All right, so we’ve got these four living creatures. And if you’ve read Ezekiel chapters one and two, you can kind of see a lot of the parallels and then some differences between these four living creatures. And so in Ezekiel, these four creatures are described as having wheels surrounding them that would go really, really fast. And then they would have four faces with one of these. So this is just kind of a synthesis of these angels and the Old Testament. And it’s kind of a wild, you know, you see people try and draw these things and it’s like, it doesn’t really fit, it doesn’t really make sense. But it’s just this deep symbolism there, right? Like, we’re not supposed to try and interpret this really, really literally. We’re trying to see beyond into these, you know, ineffable realities that we don’t ordinarily have access to. Now, the eyes. Like, that’s kind of freaky. That’s like some horror movie stuff right there, right? Just eyes everywhere. Boy, what’s going on there? So Jesus says, where your treasure is, there also will your heart be, right? Now, part of what we’re doing in worship, when we’re doing in Catholic worship, what anybody’s ever done in a proper act of worship is just trying to direct our attention well, right? So what would you say that your kids wanted from you the most? They all wanted that attention, right? It’s like this incredible valuable currency, you know, they bring to you like their little finger painting. They want you to pay attention to what they’ve done, you know? And if you get the sense that you’re talking with somebody and they’re ignoring you, you know, that’s not a good feeling. It’s like, no, I think this is worthwhile paying attention. If you’re not going to pay attention, I’m going to walk away, right? This attention is this incredibly precious thing for us. What’s the most precious resource, the most precious thing? A lot of people who are doing well in life, they feel like you don’t have enough time, right? People who are kind of listless, kind of lazy, they might feel like they have too much time. But if you’ve got to really, you know, if things are generally going pretty well, it’s like, I just don’t have enough hours of the day. I don’t have enough attention to be able to give. And so really, given our short span of time here on earth, attention is one of the most valuable things that we actually have, right? And anything that we pay attention to, that we can actually come into a proper relationship with that thing. So what we’re doing in worship is we’re trying to focus our attention as much as we can manage on God, right? And to give him the proper attention that he deserves, that’s part of it. And that’s what’s being signified by these eyes, right? These four living creatures, they’re capable of giving enormous amounts of attention to God. They’re properly ordered, right? They’re not running around doing whatever they want. They are glued to that throne. They see what’s going on here and they can only praise God, right? And whatever we love, we tend to praise, right? And so, you know, you could have this kind of juvenile idea that God insists on us praising him so that he can feel good about himself, you know? But there’s a wonderful, one of the prefaces for daily masses. I think I’ve got this. It’s like, you have no need of our praise, but our desire to give you thanks is itself your gift. Since our praises add nothing to your glory, but profit us for salvation, right? So there’s this idea that when we’re praising God, that means that it’s actually good for us, right? That we’re actually allowing ourselves to be brought into that correct worship of God. So that’s what’s up with the eyes there. Now, we’ve seen the four Gospels represented by these four animals, right? That wouldn’t have really occurred to the people who were reading the Book of Revelation for the first time, right? Because if the Gospels had been written at that point, they still weren’t like in wide circulation, right? You’d be lucky to have one of them, much less all four. However, it’s still great symbolism, but it’s there in the Church Fathers. But I think the original signification seems to be something like the noblest, that these four creatures with the different animals represented represents the whole of living creation, right? And what’s noblest, strongest, wisest, and swiftest, you know? So noblest, there’s just real nobility, the lion in his mane, you know? Like the Lion King, like why does the Lion King make sense to you? Well, you just look at a lion, especially the way Disney animated them. It’s like, yeah, that is a noble looking animal. Now, it says calf, and the word here doesn’t mean like, you know, just haven’t been given birth. It’s like you get the sense of a young bull, you know, a lot of energy, kind of fierce, very strong. So some other translations will translate it as a bull rather than a calf. So, you know, the strongest animal that they were aware of at the time, you know, that was the bull. If you needed a heavy plow pole, you hook that up to a bull. The human being being the wise animal, and then the eagle being the swiftest animal. So all that is best in creation, symbolized by these four living creatures. And then the swift, the six wings symbolizing swiftness and doing God’s will. Now, here’s a question. What is holy, what is holiness? Yeah, it’s like, you know exactly what it is. Yeah, it’s like, you know exactly what it is until you ask yourself that question. Well, give you an example of doing something unholy. Let’s say I brought my chalice in here, right? And I just decided I was going to put some of this water into it and drink out of my chalice, right? Would that be a holy action? No, no. Right, or if I wanted to do some cooking on the altar, right? Like I’m just going to chop up some vegetables there. Would that be a holy action? So the original meaning of the word holy is something that’s been set apart, something that’s been set aside, right? Set aside for sacred use. And so, you know, the bishop blessed my chalice. It’s made out of precious materials. We’ve got, you know, gold plating and an amethyst on there. You know, this has been set aside for sacred use. We only use it. I might do a little bit of show and tell with people, but other than that, it’s up on the altar. It’s in the sacristy. It is only used for those sacred things. It’s set apart. It is greater. It is dedicated to God. Now, why do we say holy three times? Yeah, yeah. No, that’s exactly it, right? And so here’s a little bit of elementary school grammar for you. I knew you guys were all missing that. You’ve got just the simple adjectives and then you’ve got comparative adjectives and then you have superlative adjectives, right? So as the good deacon said, the simple is good. And then the comparative comparing one thing to another better. And then on top, the superlative best. Now, in Hebrew grammar, apparently they didn’t have different ways of signifying that except by repeating the word. So holy just meant, well, this thing is holy. Holy, holy is like, oh, this thing is holier than the other thing. And then holy, holy, holy. Well, that is the holiest, right? So holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the most set apart, right? The most exalted thing, the thing that you can’t just approach willy nilly and use for your own uses, its own special thing set aside. And then the title Lord God Almighty, right? So Lord, that would be curious, the title that Caesar would use for himself, right? But applying that to Lord God, and then it’s used seven times in the book of Revelation, right? So that most perfect name being used the most perfect number of times, all this symbolism just stacking up over and over again. St. John’s really just hammering this point home about God. Whenever the living creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to the one who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before the one who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They throw down their crowns before the throne, exclaiming, worthy are you, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you have created all things by your will they came to be and were created, right? And so these living creatures are like kind of it assigned to kind of leading that off. And then every time the living creatures are singing the praises of God, these elders bow down and throw down their crowns, right? So they realize, they take their crowns off and throw it at the feet of the one who sits on the throne, right? They’re just showing that submission in a very bodily way to the Lord God Almighty. Yes? I imagine so. It’s a heavenly vision. These are high-level spiritual realities, right? And so the images that we come up with to explain them are always going to fall short. So you can imagine it would be boring to just throw it down and pick it back up. But imagine trying to enjoy it like a child would, right? Like you’ve all played with children before, right? Have this endless delight in that repetition of what they’re in love with. They never get tired of peek-a-boo or whatever game that they happen to be obsessed with. Mrs. Mormon could probably tell us the most about this, you know, with the kindergartners. They’re probably all going after the one same game, playing it over and over again. And so the idea of just throwing down the crowns and picking them up again is kind of a silly image. But why do you want to go to heaven? Why do you want to be in God’s kingdom? It could be just you don’t want to go to hell, right? Well, that’s a decent enough reason, right? But that doesn’t, you know, like, you know what else isn’t hell? Prantes. Prantes is in hell. So is heaven just like Prantes? Because it’s not hell. You know, that’s not that’s not much of an argument for heaven, you know. Like the whole, the whole thing that we’re doing in heaven is we are in God’s presence and we are praising him, you know. And we’re doing that forever. And that’s what ultimately we find fulfilling, what we find satisfying. That’s like this is the best. There’s nothing better we could be doing. And so if praising God involves throwing your crown down in front of him, picking him up over and over again, you’re going to think that’s great and you’re never going to get tired of it. So that’s as much as I can come up with. All right. So here’s this interesting prayer, right? Worthy are you, O Lord, our God, to receive glory and honor and power, right? So we’re trying to give these things to God. But what is glory? What do we mean by the word glory? High praise. So have you guys ever seen anything glorious before? Sunset. Sunset. Sunset and sunrises. Anything else? The last rain was a glorious rain. Okay. All right. Beautiful rose. Yeah, a rainbow, right? Mountains. Mountains. Glorious mountains. All right. So how do we, what idea then, what idea is binding this all together? How do we get roses and rainbows and mountains and I’ll say something else, right? Like have you ever seen videos like on Facebook of people doing athletic feats? Like this crazy one where this guy, he’s standing out in the front yard, he’s got a glass of milk in front of him, right? And he’s got an Oreo in his hand. And he does a front flip, dips the Oreo ever so delicately into the glass of milk and lands the flip. It was either a front flip or a back flip, but whatever, right? That’s glorious, right? So what do we mean by glorious? Glory is just a manifestation of excellence, right? That there’s something really good, something that’s really just thick with being and it just shows itself off, right? Mountains. Mountains are big. Mountains are beautiful, right? Like holy mackerel. I feel small in comparison to that. A rainbow, it’s like where did these colors come from? The glorious rain you were talking about, well finally we needed an inch of rain, didn’t we? We need another inch of rain, right? It’s like that rain is perfect to make the plants grow, you know? So this glory then was just, when we’re giving that to God, we want his goodness to be manifest throughout the whole world. And honor, right? Honor. We don’t talk much about honor anymore, but in previous ages, you know, it’s like men used to fight each other in duels over their honor, right? This idea that this needs to be held in esteem. We need to hold this up. We need to say that this is good. This is worthy of imitation, right? So holding God up in that way. And then power, you know, I think John is just talking very quickly here, right? Because God already has all the power, doesn’t he? You know, we can manifest God’s excellence in the world by imitating Christ, right? By loving God above all things, by doing virtue and staying away from sin. We can honor God by speaking well of him, by, you know, watching our use of the Lord’s name and those sorts of things. But how do we give God power? Well, it’s mostly acknowledging where the true source of power is in the universe. And that all comes from the throne of God, you know? So you can imagine if you’re going to be an employer, let’s say, and you’re going to be a Christian, right? Like, what sort of employer should you be? You should be the kind of person who treats his employees well, right? Because you understand that you’re not God of the universe. You don’t get to set the rules for these things. That you’re under this authority, you know? And that you could have this job and provide these jobs. That should be something that fills you with awe and gratitude, rather than, you know, thinking that you’re all in, right? And that’s going to come up a lot later. The correct relationship between God and power, that’s a major theme here in the book of Revelation. All right, we’re moving on to chapter five now. A little more water here. I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who sat on the throne. It had writing on both sides and was sealed with seven seals. Then I saw a mighty angel who proclaimed in a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals. But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or examine it. I shed many tears because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to examine it. One of the elders said to me, do not weep. The lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has triumphed, enabling him to open the scroll with its seven seals. And so, this image of the scroll, it could go back to Ezekiel chapter two. And Ezekiel was handed a scroll by God to announce to Israel, right, what is written on this scroll. And so the idea of the scroll that we’re inheriting then is this plan, right? God has written out his plan for the universe. He’s written it on this scroll, right? It’s also written on both sides, right? And so that’s highly unusual, right? In order to keep the scrolls in good shape in the angel world, they would generally only write on one side and then maybe put the title on it and tie it up, right? That was how they would handle it. So to have the scroll being written on both sides kind of means two things. One, it means there’s super abundant revelation, right? There’s just a whole lot that God’s trying to communicate to us. And so he’s got to fill up both sides of the scrolls. And then secondly, that there’s nothing more that can be added to it, right? We’re not going to be adding anything more to the scroll. It has been filled up to the brim. There’s no more room. So God’s purposes, God’s plan have come to us in completion. We’re talking about these seven seals, right? So these seals, you know, a wax seal put on it. And the only way to open the scroll would be to break that seal and unroll it. So this was like a security device. If you wanted to see if somebody had ever read this, if the wax was still intact, there’s really no way to put that back together properly. So that would be used kind of for royal messages. And those seals would also be used to seal a will and testament, right? Which could only be opened after the death of the person who had given this will and testament. The scroll also represents scripture, right? And especially the Old Testament. Jesus is the one who brings the whole Bible into focus, brings the whole Old Testament into focus, right? You read John’s account to the cleansing of the temple, right? And Jesus says, tear this temple down and in three days I will rebuild it, right? And then you can hear John say, but he was speaking of the temple of his body, right? That wasn’t something that he understood at the time. Jesus was behaving in this mysterious and bewildering manner. It stood out to him. It really got seared into his memory. Like, what is he talking about? In three days I’ll rebuild this temple. You notice the crucifixion, right? The night that Jesus was arrested, right? All his apostles scatter and, you know, John comes back. They don’t understand what’s going on, right? They don’t have this comprehension. It’s only after Jesus has risen from the dead that all of this comes into focus. Ha! And that was what Jesus was explaining on the road to Emmaus, right? Did you not know that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and so enter into his glory? And so, you know, Jesus doesn’t only do that with his own life, right? Finally giving that interpretation at the end of it, but he also does that with the whole Bible. Everything, the whole plan of salvation is revealed most perfectly through Jesus. So that’s why he is worthy. He is worthy to open that scroll and break the seals. Isaiah needed his lips cleansed before he could look into the temple and speak his small part. And if you go to 2 Ezekiel, God himself reads that scroll to Ezekiel and he just carries the message. But Jesus, the lamb who was slain, he was the one who was able to open it. We’re talking about the Lion of Judah. Well, that’s obviously talking about Jesus and that recalls a prophecy by Jacob, right? Jacob with his 12 sons. And he gives a blessing to some of his sons. So Judah, you Judah shall your brothers praise your hand on the neck of your enemies. The sons of your fathers shall bow down to you. Judah, like a lion’s whelp, you have grown up on prey, my son. He crouches like a lion recumbent, the king of beasts. Who would dare rouse him? The scepter shall never depart from Judah or the mace from between his legs. When tribute is brought to him and he received the people’s homage, he tethers his donkey to the vine, his purebred ass to the choice’s stem. In wine he washes his garments, his robe in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth are whiter than milk. And so this prophecy coming to us from Jacob showing that dominance that Judah would have, right? The tribe of Judah. And from the tribe of Judah we get King David. We get the whole Davidic dynasty, right? And so that was a part of the prophecy was that the God would restore the dynasty of Israel, this powerful dynasty that was going to rule the whole world, right? And so this angel’s like, guys, John, don’t weep. The lion of the tribe of Judah has triumphed, enabling him to open the scroll with the seven seals. And so we’re going to get to see this lion, right? We’re going to get to see this powerful figure who has conquered. And then John sees, and I saw standing in the midst of the throne and the four living creatures and the elders, a lamb that seemed to have been slain. He had seven horns and seven eyes. These are the seven spirits of God sent out into the whole world. He came and received the scroll from the right hand of the one who sat on the throne. When he took it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb. Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones. And so it seems like John did a big old bait and switch there, right? That we’re expecting to see this lion, this majestic animal. And it’s a lamb, just a little lamb who had seemed to have been slain. So how did this lion conquer? It was not by anything that anybody was expecting, right? That he conquered by being slain, by willingly submit to this. Now the Greek word there has kind of two different uses, right? It’s either having been killed by violence or being offered up as a sacrifice, right? So it’s got that kind of that dual, it was why they used the word slain there because it’s, you know, in English it’s kind of got that same meaning too. So it’s this lamb, it’s this gentle, humble lamb. And this is just the central paradox of Christianity, right? If you go through all of the old myths, right, anytime that there’s victory, anytime that there’s power, that either comes through just force or it comes through cunning, right? You know, you’ve got Zeus commanding, you’ve got all these different trickster gods, you know, deceiving. There was nothing to prepare you for the idea that God would simply offer himself up to be slain, to be sacrificed, who would not offer up any resistance. That’s who we are called to imitate, right? It is so easy to want to slip back into worldly ways of fighting things out of these power games, of these dominance games, of these status games, and to forget how it is that the lamb conquers. The lamb conquers by being slain. The lamb conquers by allowing this to happen. Now he seems to have been slain, but he’s standing, right? So it’s that paradox of the resurrection, you know? Like you give it up freely, God raises you up. That’s the way it works. And he’s on the throne. He’s on the throne with his father. Now this lamb is referenced 28 times in the book of Revelation or seven times four. And so we’ve got this idea of completeness, right? That divine completeness that fills up everything. And then four, well, you know, you’ve got like the four basic elements of the cosmos in the ancient world, right? Earth, fire, wind, and water. You’ve got the four winds, the four corners of the earth, the four corners of the compass. That kind of signifies this terrestrial reality, right? The fullness of the world. And so this perfect completeness, Jesus, the lamb who has been slain, fills up in a perfect way the whole of creation. And then he’s got these seven horns, the horns signifying power, right? If you’ve ever seen rams smacking their horns in together, it’s like it’s a pretty dominant image, you know, signifying this power. Your seven eyes being all wise, seeing everything. And this is an important point. It’ll become a little clearer later, but he brings the seven horns and the seven eyes onto one head. We get to the beasts later on in the book in chapter 13. You get to the beasts, you’re going to see a lot of the same imagery is repeated, but it’s distorted. So just, just hold on to that for a little bit. And the elders and the creatures worship the land like the one on the throne. And so each of the elders holds a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, right? So the harp, right? What do we still do when we’re worshiping God? We sing and make music, right? So please join me at 11 a.m. mass for my Scola group. And yeah, right, that idea that when you really want to praise something, if you can sing it, that’s even better, right? So what is the most common kind of song in the world? Love songs, right? Right? And you know, and there’s also the second most common type breakup songs, right? But we don’t have to worry about that, you know, and these love songs where it’s like, you’re amazing, you’re the sunshine of my life, I want to sing this to you. And like we just really grasp that intuitively grasp that. Well, the best love songs should be reserved for our Lord, the ones that are most memorable. And then incense, and John happily explains to us what the incense are. This is the prayers of the holy ones rising up to God. Okay, anything else? Oh, another thing, just a little bit of an Old Testament thing here. They would always have the showbread or the bread of the presence in the temple. And then 24 hours, they would keep that incense burning next to it, right? And change out the showbread. And so that’s just kind of a Eucharistic foreshadowing there in the temple. We hold on, we retain the hosts, the bread, the consecrated bread, after mass, keeping that presence there. So, and that always had incense by it. So that’s more linkage between past and present. So, they sang a new hymn. Worthy are you to receive the scroll and break open its seals, for you were slain and with your blood you purchased for God those of every tribe and tongue, people and nation. You made them a kingdom and priests for our God and they will reign on the earth. Right? So, when Christ completed this plan in his suffering, death, and resurrection, he became worthy to receive the scroll, break open, open the seals to show this plan to the world. And so this plan wasn’t revealed until after Christ’s sacrifice. This idea of redemption and blood. So sometimes people can get a little confused about the different ways we talk about Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, right? You hear people talking about us being redeemed by his blood like it is here. You can hear about, you know, Christ trampling down death by means of death, right? Having victory over this battle. You can hear that especially like in the Easter sequence. When in strange and awful strife met together death and life. You know, I had to hear that like three times. So, you know, it gets kind of stuck in there. You talk about the wrath of the father being expended on Christ, you know, all of these different theories. There’s no one way of talking about what Christ did on the cross that can fully encapsulate it, right? So we’ve got to have these different approaches into it. None of them know one way of thinking about it, of talking about it. So this is just another way of riffing on it. This redemption in the blood. When he’s talking about tribe, tongue, people and nation, well that about covers it, right? There’s like no really other sensible way of dividing up the whole world. And then the kingdom and the priests, that’s us. We’re the church and we’ve talked about that. That’s isn’t the first time that imagery’s come up. But we have been made into this kingdom. We have been made into these priests by virtue of our baptism and we reign with Christ. We bring all things under his gentle rule. I looked again and heard the voices of many angels who surrounded the throne and the living creatures and elders. They were countless in number and they cried out in a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing. And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, everything in the universe cry out to the one who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be blessing and honor, glory and might forever and ever. The four living creatures answered, amen. And the elders fell down and worshiped. So we’ve got this list of seven things that belong to the lamb, the seven things that the angels and the elders and the living, yeah, the living creatures all singing, power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, blessing. It’s all preceded by a single article in the Greek. So to try and, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive the power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory and blessing, you know, to try and put it in that. It’s all kind of this one idea that has to be broken up to separate ideas so we can handle it. Aspects of the same reality, this magnificent glory that God has and we try and sing to it. And every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, it’s everything in the universe, right? And so we have this idea in our heads a lot of times that Christ came to save us from sins. And yes, yes he did. That’s good. We’re gonna hold on to that. But it’s more than just, you know, saving us from sin and getting us to heaven, right? There’s this idea that isn’t often well understood about this new heavens and this new earth, right? And the resurrection of our bodies even, right? We proclaim that week after week. I believe in the resurrection of the dead, right? This idea that we’ll be at the end of time reunited with our bodies and there’s going to be this new earth. Well, if we’ve got our bodies, we’re going to be walking around on this new earth. And so Christ’s redemptive sacrifice isn’t just like he’s going in and kind of tweaking the universe, you know? It’s like, oh we’ve got a bug in here. Oh, we got a broken part. We’re just gonna pop open the hood, fix this. All right, now it’s running again. We are supposed to be a part of this new creation, this new creation in Christ. It’s gonna make all things new. I have no idea what that’s going to be like, but I want to be a part of it because you can see the fallen creation. It’s like, it’s not long before you’ve had enough of that. And this worship, this worship that we’re participating in even here on earth, it’s supposed to be a foretaste of that. Foretaste of as is going to happen in heaven and what it’ll be like forever in God’s kingdom, bringing all of that in together. And so that’s why I like to just pay attention to worship. Why my hope for my priesthood is to be worshiping God well, to being a good leader in worship, and why I’ve got a little bit of gravity about me, you know? I mean, I’ve seen videos of myself celebrating Mass. I look kind of angry. That’s just what my face looks like. And it’s like, I’m not angry, but I’m trying to take it seriously. Like, we are in that meeting point between heaven and earth. We are ourselves before that throne, you know? So a little bit of gravity, a little bit of seriousness. This is important. I want to show the appropriate glory and honor to God. I appreciate that, Father. Thank you. I don’t ever take it that you look mean or angry. I just know you’re very, very represent. Thank you. Thank you. It’s nice to hear that. Wonderful. And that’s the end of chapter five. And that’s all we have for tonight. Thank you.