Around the glassy sea
Day 701, Monday, July 13
Revelation Chapter 4
Many churches fall into one of two categories: those that obsess over Revelation, and those that avoid it. Those of us who are from a United Methodist background have mostly been in churches of the latter group. While you may not have heard a lot of sermons from the book, you are liketo recognize many images and individual verses from hymns and worship songs: the rich imagery of Revelation lends itself to poetic use.
The “sea of glass, clear as crystal” from verse 6 brings to mind the hymn “Holy!, Holy!, Holy! Lord God Almighty,” and its words, “All the saints adore Thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.” That stanza also echoes verse 10: “They lay their crowns before the throne….” If you’re more familiar with contemporary Christian music, that same verse inspired the name of the group Casting Crowns.
Chapter 4 has more complex imagery than we saw in the first three chapters; it just gets moreso from here forward.
The 24 elders are often thought to represent the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles, but connecting specific images to literal reality is always speculative. Perhaps the most direct teaching we can draw from chapter 4 is that all of the inhabitants of heaven are devoted to worshiping eternal God: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”
The fantastical four living creatures, with their ever-seeing eyes and wings, repeat an image from Isaiah. Some have associated them with the four gospel writers. Others associate them with four categories of sentient beings on the earth: Humans, domesticated animals, wild animals and birds.
This is one of the few hints in scripture that animals may share in the gift of eternal life, though that is something of a stretch.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Monday meditation

Ecclesiastes 8:2-10
Obey the king’s command, I say, because you took an oath before God. Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. Since a king’s word is supreme, who can say to him, “What are you doing?”
Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure. For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a person may be weighed down by misery.
Since no one knows the future, who can tell someone else what is to come? As no one has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has power over the time of their death. As no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.
All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. Then too, I saw the wicked buried—those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless.

Prayer focus
Grant us wisdom to learn from challenging visions.