When the apocalypse of fire and smoke, ends a lot better than you think.
Apocalypse in the Greek means to reveal and that is where the last book of the Bible gets its name from.
The whole arc of John’s letter concludes with Jesus returning and paints a picture of his church living in the new heaven and earth. When we think of heaven, we often envision clouds and gold lined streets. But eternity here is something that is earthy not clouds in the sky. All of creation will be as it is meant to be united in peace and harmony with God.
The Apocalypse matters because it reminds us where we come from.
If the goal of Christian was just to build better people, a great community at church and help peoplewhat a small goal. The intention is right but it can go haywire.
Paul writes to the Corinthians – a talented church full of gifted people that aimed too small.Their gifts twisted into themselves until what was meant serve others and grow them in love only ended up creating jealousy and division in the church.
What they missed out on is that their gifts are a call from eternity, the apocalypse if you will, into now. To glorify God, bring his kingdom into our world. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, says that those gifts only “reveal in part” what is to come and are useless without love.
We can wonder why does that person have that over me? or tirelessly coming into church every week and asking ‘why aren’t I changing?’When we disconnect our faith from the eternity promised and the love that God has for us we will soon find those same things drew us to faith become our very vice.
Pastor Tim Keller calls our hearts idol making machines, that we live in a silent rumble asking ourselves “am I enough?” and do anything to prove that we are.
And we have that rumble in our hearts our success’ will go to our heads that in our failures will crush us.
And each one of those moments, we feel envy, jealousy, not good enough. Jesus is saying come me “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.
Come out of the machine of the world.
The greatest cry of our hearts is for us to walk up and to someone with all the mess me, look at me, will you still love me?
So why does the Apocalypse matter to the church?
Because when we are community of people made for eternity living now so we can be with each other without thought of who’s better and because of that we can do the work of bringing the vision of the new heaven and earth into now.
Justin Sayson is a freelance journalist living on the Sunshine Coast. From about sport, music, faith or anything else, he’s always keen to discover more about the world around him. You can see more if his writing on justinsayson.com