Although I have been both a
student and a teacher of the book of Revelation, I cannot claim to have any
facility with it. Overwhelmed by the symbolism and just plain weirdness of it,
I find myself unable to keep track of what’s going on. The members of the roundtable
asked, “what are these four living creatures that are mentioned in verse 11?” I
should know, but I have to flip back through the previous chapters to find out.
Seems like the only time I preach
from Revelation is for All Saints Day, that one day of the year when we look
beyond our small lives on earth and consider the life beyond death. We try to
remember that we are connected with all lives, past and future. Most especially,
we like to remember the ones we love who are no longer here.
At Faith, we light candles
for those ones we miss, whose loss is deeply felt. Everyone participates. I sit
in my front row seat and watch as they all come forward, knowing that they are
all remembering their personal losses, but also that they are all remembering
the two or three members of our congregation who have gone on to the Church Triumphant
this year.
Yet we didn’t find it easy
to connect our experience of All Saints Day with the reading from Revelation. Struggling
to comprehend this image of a diverse multitude too great to count standing
before the throne loudly praising God, with all the angels and the elders and
those four living creatures, we were disconcerted.
I asked, “If this is a
vision of heaven, what do you think of it?”
For reasons that were hard
to articulate, it didn’t seem very appealing to people. It seemed to be the
general sense that it’s crowded and noisy and, well, just unfamiliar. And something
seemed to be missing.
We often think about the
importance of remembering those who have died. We have special days set aside
to do just that: Memorial Day, for example, and of course, All Saints Day. But
something I had not considered before is our need to feel that we are
remembered by them too.
Is there a fear that our
loved ones have gone to heaven and feel such constant joy in the presence of
God that they never think about us? Is there a concern that now that they are
free of pain and sorrow they no longer care about our pain and our sorrow? We
can’t really bear to think of our loved ones that way. Surely, they must
remember us.
By sarah alfinito - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44949358
No comments:
Post a Comment