Rev 19:10

The book of Revelation is a letter to a group of churches in the late 1st century trying to live out their faith in the midst of a challenging and sometimes violent Roman empire. Followers of Jesus found themselves trying to figure out what it meant to be faithful in an environment that was growing increasingly hostile. There were real points of conflict between what the Roman empire wanted from its citizens, and the way Christians desired to live as faithful to a Jesus way of being in the world. And toward the end of this letter, we find this phrase:

“Worship God. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

Worship God

At this time in the first century worshipping God was not about feeding God’s ego, it was about centring lives on God. And not just any God, the kind of God that Christians had come to believe in was a God who was deeply and profoundly good and loving. To worship God for the 1st century Christians was an answer to the question:

“What sits at the centre?

Was life to be centred around the version of events that were handed down by the empire, or would it be around a God who was compassionate, merciful, generous and loving? This had huge implications for how they would live in the world, the way they would treat people, and the things they would value.

Even though we don’t live under the thumb of an obviously oppressive empire, I am still so easily absorbed into a way of seeing the world that is thrust upon me by others. Sometimes it is sold to me, sometimes it is the political, economic and religious powers of life that tell me what to love, what matters, and where to spend my time and energies.

And yet I find myself reminded here to turn my life toward a different kind of story. To remember that I am grounded and anchored in a world imbued with the love of God. And in that grounding I do not have to pretend, I do not have to live up to any version of myself that I think is acceptable, I do not have to say all the right words or believe all  the right things. My journey intersects with a growing awareness of who God is and what God is like and how God is deeply present.

Just as this was liberating for people in the 1st century who lived under an oppressive regime, so it can be liberating for me now.

The Spirit of Prophecy

 One of the ways prophecy was understood by the Jewish people and early Christians was as a challenge to see and imagine the world differently. A letter like Revelation would pull back the curtain on the version of reality sold by the empire, and to say that although it might look like violence, power and arrogance win the day, they don’t. They’re not the most powerful thing. God is more powerful than all the empires put together. And when we say God is more powerful, we don’t mean, God has bigger armies and will violently beat you into submission; we mean that love is more powerful than violence and death. 

“Maybe things aren’t as they appear”

And so to the ruling powers, the prophet says: “the future you think is inevitable, well I’ve got something different to say about that.”

A prophet chooses to speak up for those who don’t get a voice, and let them know that God is for them. A prophet can look at the same set of circumstances and instead of seeing the absence of love and the absence of God, they challenge us to look more closely. God is to be found in all sorts of places that you might not expect. Maybe it’s as simple as finding God present and speaking in the very ordinary moments, the invitations to beauty, to love and to kindness that we bump into all the time.

The testimony of Jesus

For Jesus, worship and the prophetic weren’t just some lofty soaring idealism. The kingdom of God is like a seed, like a women searching for a coin, like a  man going on a trip who is robbed and left for dead, like a prodigal son who was lost but who then comes home to the love and embrace of his father. 

Jesus invites us into this way of seeing God and God’s kingdom that is deeply connected to our everyday lives. He tells us that the presence of God is found not “out there”, but very close. The kingdom of God is near, he tells them. The kingdom of God is in your midst. The kingdom of God is within you.

Can you see it?

And so everywhere he went, this burst into life and tipped things upside down. 

Women were invited into his closest circles, empowered and honoured. Children, not pushed the side but brought to the centre. Sick, unclean, lepers, sinners, disabled, poor, broken down…. all were invited to participate.

The kingdom is very near.

Michael Frost