Readings:
Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-25;
Psalm 65;
Revelation 4;
Luke 8:22-25

Collect:
God of pardon and deliverance,
your forgiving love,
revealed in Christ,
has brought to birth a new creation.
Raise us from our sins to walk in your ways,
that we may witness to your power which makes all things new,
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Reflection 

Dazzling. Perhaps totally dazzled. That’s all I can think of as I read the section from Revelation 4 set for Sunday.To be fair, most of us don’t spend a lot of time reading this (very) obscure book right at the end of the New Testament. It is very difficult. The images, the ideas, even the language are so bizarre and mysterious and come from another time so far removed from us that it is not easy to find something to hold on to, and it certainly feels like clutching! This is all the more confusing as the name is REVELATION, not HIDDEN or CONFUSING. What on earth is being revealed?

If that were not enough, this book is also the happy hunting ground for conspiracy theorists who want to know, need to know, what happens next and just when the world will end. The book presents itself as an imaginative guide to events happening at the moment, which it probably is, except the moment was almost certainly after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), and some even think it was written well after the end of the first century.

Because of the spectacular images, not to mention a few by-ways that are followed, what we miss, however, is that this book tells a story, quite a simple story. It is the story of the Lamb Jesus who defeats evil and leads the faithful community into a new creation, the place (the city, as opposed to the wilderness) where there is peace and plenty for everyone. Hold onto that image – peace and plenty for everyone – and the rest of the book comes into a clear focus that good will not be overcome by wickedness, even that evil will be destroyed. The great proclamation of this story is that even the great and dramatic trauma described cannot thwart the purposes of God.

Seems to me this is why the lectionary chooses Luke’s story of Jesus stilling the storm. Different story. Same outcome. Jesus commands (rebukes or reprimands is not too strong) the wind and the waves, and they cease. Amazing. So the disciples ask: “Who then is this, that he commands even the wind and the water, and they obey him?” Revelation answers the question, in a very different way and for a different audience.

And this is why we’re invited to read Psalm 65, celebrating creation which has its origin in God, answers to God, and obeys God:

“You quieten the raging seas, command the roaring of the waves, even still the clamour of your people”. (Ps 65:7)

This is not God the architect, or carpenter, or doctor. This is no artisan. This is creator and originator God, and the first reading in the lectionary today points us to just this One. And all the readings today begin here, this One in whom everything is. And Luke’s Gospel and the Book of Revelation associate this originator with Jesus – in Luke, God’s Son, in Revelation, Jesus the Lamb. And this Jesus now reconciles us to God and brings about a new creation, and we are assured that no tumult of the world can overcome us or separate us from God.

As with the first creation, we all remain God’s own. As with the first creation, we are always within God’s love. As with the first creation, it is God’s own breath that enlivens us and gives us life.

Our response? Renewed and filled with wonder, love and praise.

Barry Lotz