WEDNESDAY OF ADVENT 3

After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

Revelation 4:1

Let’s talk sports for just a few moments.

(I KNEW that would get your attention!)

One of the best ways to engage in a conversation with someone is to talk about your favorite teams and how they’re doing or how they’ll do this coming week.

Men especially can become engrossed for hours in a sports-related discussion. They can disagree vehemently about the skills of a certain athlete, or which team had more talent, the abilities of a coach to inspire his players. There’s no end to the possibilities or directions one can take a conversation.

Sports, in many ways, are a microcosm of life – with one notable exception.

The fortunes of a team don’t necessarily impact our day-to-day existence. We can engage in controversial sports conversations with a perfect stranger and still coexist at the end.

But here are some harsh realities about the world in which we live:

• Hate seems stronger than love.
• Conflict is more prevalent than peace.
• Lies win out over truth.
• Pain often overshadows happiness.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. It would be easy to allow ourselves to fall into a state of deep depression if all we ever concentrated on were the negative things that are happening.

That’s why sports conversations are so much easier.

These past two weeks our second reading has been from Revelation.

I’ve written about it before but let me once again give you a little more detailed overview of this fascinating book of scripture.

In the time Revelation was written, Christians were being persecuted. Christianity, in case you didn’t know, was an illegal religion in the early first century. 

This book was written to give those Christians hope in the face of relentless assaults on a people whose only crime was that they pledged allegiance not to the emperor, but to Jesus as Lord.

It is obvious that these people were excluded from the mainstream of society.  They were not considered a part of the dominant culture because of their strange behaviors and ways of worship.  They seemed mysterious.

In light of all the mistreatment, the suffering, and the deaths, these people were a discouraged lot. 

And so John, the author of Revelation, in writing to this community of Christians, gave them a gift. John pulled back the curtain that obscured their vision of history, in order to show them a feast going on in heaven.  A party, of all things.

Even though today’s reading, with its weird creatures, sounds a little scary, I would encourage you to read on beyond the daily snippets that our lectionary provides. I promise it will all be time well spent.

Here’s a spoiler alert: People are going to go through difficult times. But the author says to us to have courage, for you are moving toward the victory of God. Your life in the midst of this time has meaning, because of where it’s all headed.

To close with one final sports analogy, the Super Bowl is in sight.

As the late Marty Schottenheimer, former coach of the Cleveland Browns would say: “There’s a gleam, men!”

Faith points us to a world beyond what we see on earth at present.

As we move toward the celebration of the Nativity of our Lord, let us bear that final vision in mind.

Let us pray:
Gracious God, by your Word, lead us to see your presence here on earth, and give us a vision of your kingdom that is to come, where we may give you honor and glory and praise forever. Amen.