Eastertide
April 7, 2016

Scripture Reading: Revelation 5:11-14

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice,
‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!’ –Revelation 5:11-12

Our scripture today is another of those scriptures that I cannot read. My mind automatically sets it to music from my memory and thus rather than read it, my mind makes me sing it in my heart at least, if not out loud. Of course, it gets tricky sometimes, like with this one, when my mind primarily remembers another translation as I trip over the word “slaughtered” and plug in the word “slain”. As controversial as Revelation may be in understanding it does rise to the occasion in poetry.

There is a lesson in that. While longing for absolutes in this world, we can often only express the reality of God symbolically. The only absolute we can proclaim without question about God is God’s love. Paul fittingly places the phrase we see through a light, dimly (or a mirror darkly KJV) in his Corinthian discourse on love: For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. (I Corinthians 13:12)

Truth be told, the only thing we often have to cling to is the absolute nature of God’s love as we seek to love God in return and to love others as we love ourselves in a world where light is often dim and mirrors reflect darkly.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for the glimpses you give us of your love in the light of the ones who love with no conditions and reflect your way in all that they do. Help us to strive to be your light of love and reflect your love in our own lives. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.