Hold on, Resurrection is Coming

Originally Published in the South Jetty Newspaper

This fall (Pre-Harvey), I was planning to lead a Bible study on Revelation, which in my tradition is carefully pronounced without the "s" at the end. In my circles, people tend to either love the book or avoid it altogether. I remember reading it for the first time, when I was in Jr. High, and it was one of the first books I couldn't put down. I actually stayed up late reading the rich, dualistic imagery of a battle for the world which the Lamb ultimately wins. Some people avoid it because of that rich, overwhelming imagery, but I'm someone who has grown to love the sometimes jarring images of dreams and poetry because it helps me pay attention to my own deep soul-work that my ego might otherwise leave undone for the sake of aparent security.

A couple of people have asked me about all the disasters happening around us and to us: if these might be the "end-times. And to that I'd like to say, of course! We are always living in the "end-times" from a Christian perspective, just as John the Revelator was living in the "end-times." I don't mean that the way others might mean it. I believe we live through several end-times in a lifetime, and that is why John's Revelation, the Book of Job, and other Biblical stories of losing everything for something greater are so powerful in our spiritual lives. To me they are stories of our ongoing human life, not a predictive story of how history will be finished.

Take, for example, Port Aransas. Destruction has come to us. Mother Nature has done her naturing, releasing energy that has built up in our warming oceans. Hurricane Harvey rolled through our town and the coastal bend ending life as we know it. Our Christian story tells us that this will happen, and that we are not to give up, give in, or go home. We are to persevere because something more is coming; life goes on through our mourning, grieving, and feeling of total loss.

We worship a God who was not afraid to face suffering, and who died; whose followers felt the loss of everything they hoped and believed in and some of them did give up completely. The ones who stuck around, persevering for three days, experienced Resurrection. I believe that is where we are heading--we are a people who hold on for the Resurrection. As the Gospels and John the Revelator teach us, we are to hang on, support one another, and not give up when we do experience these end-times (because we will, we have) and that Resurrection is coming. In the end, the Lamb wins.