Resisting Trump with Revelation (31)
the great battle – revelation 19
Revelation 19:1-10:
From the Destruction of Babylon to the Marriage of the Lamb
Celebration is the name of the game with the destruction of
Babylon. The dragon’s proxy through the beast, the great city, has fallen.
Swift and complete has been its destruction. That blood it shed of Jesus’
witnesses and followers has worked its strange alchemy destroying Babylon and,
at the same time, opening the door for its redemption. Grimsrud is right: “God’s method of gaining justice in
relation to Babylon through persevering love even in the face of violent
bloodletting by the structures of domination. And this justice will result in
the destruction of the powers of evil and the healing of the kings of the earth
and the nations.”[1]
A “great multitude
( Rev.7),” the twenty-four elders, and the four living creatures join forces
for a massive unrestrained display of praise and worship.
The judgment
and destruction of the great city also heralds the time of the end, the
marriage of the Lamb and his bride. Interestingly, ”his bride has made herself ready” (19:7).
This dressing of the bride is detailed more in v.8: “to her it has been granted to be
clothed with fine linen, bright and pure— for the fine linen is the righteous
deeds of the saints.” In other words, the faithful practice of the way of
Jesus’ nonviolent, self-sacrificial, servanthood has adorned the bride for her
nuptials. That index of faithfulness we derived from chs.2-3 has been enacted
by these believers (the faithful through the ages)!
The great
city has been destroyed to make way for an even greater city, the new
Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband
(Rev.21:2)!
Revelation
19:11-21: The (Never Fought) Great War and the Destruction of the Two Beasts
After the announcement
of the nuptials between the Lamb and the Bride, the next scene opens with a
rider on a white horse. “Faithful and True” is the name of its rider and he
sallies forth in all righteousness for battle. With eyes like a flame of fire
(1:14), adorned with tokens of royal authority, and a name no one else knows.
Clad in a blood-dripped robe, his name is the Word of God. This rider is
attended by his army wearing fine white linen (just like the bride, v.8) and
riding white horses, symbols of victory. His only weapon is a sword coming from
his mouth (1:16; 2:2). This is not a literal weapon, of course, but the word of
God. “he treads (present tense, not the future as the NRSV has it) the wine
press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.” Not too many more ways we
can be told that this figure is Jesus.
The
blood-dripped robe is of obvious interest. Even before any battle occurs Jesus’
robe is stained with blood. Whose blood? His own. In 14:20 we learned the
winepress referred to the cross. And in 19:15 Jesus is presently treading this
wine press. And this gives us the clue to why there is no battle depicted. It’s
already happened! It happened definitively and decisively at the cross of Jesus
(the past tense “treading” of 14:20 and derivatively in the present through the
witness of those who live out Jesus’ way of nonviolent, suffering love. This
love absorbs the worst the dragon and his minions can do to them and yet their
shed blood turns out to be the undoing of the powers of evil and the salvation
of the world.
So, no
battle occurs. The Beasts are captured without further ado and cast into the
Lake of fire. The humans the Beasts gathered as their army are “killed” by the
rider’s sword (the Word of God). This is not a literal killing then, but a
metaphorical way of speaking of their judgment. That the destinies of the
Beasts and the humans who followed them are separated suggests that destruction
is not the end of judgment for the humans, though they certainly are punished
here for their infidelity to God. We will await further data before pronouncing
on their end. The gory imagery heightens the seriousness of this judgment.
The Beasts
disposed of, the Seer turns to the Dragon itself in one the most controversial passages
in Revelation, ch.20.
Resistical learnings:
love, the nonviolent, sacrificial witness to Jesus victory on the cross, has
significant political clout. Not in God’s people running the world. And not in
violent overthrow of existing power structures. Rather, in what I have called
subversive counter-revolutionary activity. From the bottom up, the people of
God subvert the attitudes, actions that underlie the patterns and systems that
the fall has inscribed into creation. We seek to unveil the lies and illusions
on which the political and religious Beasts have built their kingdoms. That’s
why the Beasts are captured without incident. The rider with the sword has
revealed the essential falsity of all they are up to and they are powerless to
react.
Comments
Post a Comment