Imagination

Often people have various reactions to the Book of Revelation, which occurs often in the Sunday Liturgies of Easter. Some find it to be visionary and prophetic. Others find it judgmental and almost frightening. A third group of hearers find the book poetic, which can be consoling and, seemingly, meaningless at the same time.

The metaphors of these readings from the Book of Revelation are familiar images of the worshiping community. We read about throngs of worshipers surrounded by angels and “clouds of witnesses.” We hear of incense and hymns of victory. The great assembly is made up of those marked out by the victory of the Lamb who sits on his throne. They wear resplendent robes, “washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.”

This, in some sense, is a transformed world, where “the old order has passed away” and we are invited to see a new heaven and a new earth. The past Sunday’s reading had the Lamb proclaim: “Behold I make all things new.”

How are believers to unlock the metaphors? How can believers see the visions and beyond? What are we to understand of the Book of Revelation? I suggest we need imagination.

Prayer and Imagination
Both liturgy and personal prayer require imagination. We need to pray and think outside the box of the everyday. Not uncommonly, we pray in the everyday about our daily problems. We understand all too well the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us today our daily bread.” We are accustomed to seek sustenance and survival.

The Book of Revelation offers us a new option to prayer during this Easter Season. We are invited to understand the Paschal Mystery, which is to pass through death to life with the Risen Lord. We are presented with metaphors to prayerfully explore what it means to pass from death to resurrection.

Such prayer requires faith and hope. As we pray with confidence, what is it that we hope for? Do we really hope to move beyond the daily travails of our world?

Despite the invitation to pass to a “new order” of things in Christ we steadfastly cling to our sinfulness and brokenness. We lament our world with its wars, suffering, hungers, and longings. The Book of Revelation offers vision and hope to our longings.

Tomorrow and Beyond
Our Easter faith allows us to believe in Jesus’ victory over sin and death. In him we have passed from death to life and “death has no power over us.” The Book of Revelation was written in the early Christian community to offer faithful assurance in the suffering of the moment and in the ambiguity of knowing the final victory in the Lord. John’s visions allow us to stand in the present moment and peer into a glorious future. The faith of the community opens new possibilities for interpreting and experiencing our present world.

Precisely in the present, as those marked out for victory, we move and know our future. In that victory we have the words, rituals, and experiences to pass from death to life. Our future victory in Christ transforms our present moment: death becomes life, and darkness becomes light. All is new and transformed. We become a people of hope.

The symbol codes of Revelation are of the worship assembly, for the early Church believers gathered in worship were the new creation. They had passed through the waters of Baptism and come out alive, never to die again. They had no reason to hold onto their fears. In the scriptures, the Word of God’s powerful deeds in Christ Jesus were proclaimed and made real among the believers. They were the People which the stories proclaimed. They were about and in the Lamb who had passed from death to life.

Easter Eucharist
What is our’s to realize is that we are a People gathered at the very victory Table of the Lord. As Jesus with his disciples constantly after his Resurrection, we break bread and pour out the cup. We remember the Lord who has passed from death to life. In that memory we can imagine ourselves as passing from darkness to light and new hope. What is before us on the Sundays of Easter is a People already victorious in Christ. This is our prayer and worship that we can imagine ourselves victorious in Christ before the Father.

CDH