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This article appears in the Eschatology issue of Trinity News , the magazine of Trinity Church-St. Paul's Chapel.
Peter Gomes champions the Bible. Not exactly a controversial stance, but his work emphasizes the good book’s potential as a guide for daily, practical living. What does the renowned preacher have to say about eschatology’s fantastic instruction manual, Revelation? A vision of God’s big picture emerges.
By the Rev. Peter J. Gomes
After this I looked, and lo, in heaven an open door! —Revelation 4:1
We are taken by Saint John the Divine on a guided tour of the spiritual imagination; we are given insight into a visionary’s vision; the glimpse through the open door into the wonders of heaven allows us with Saint John to leave the level of debate and argument and enter the realm of the imagination, where wondrous and strange things point to the wonder of all things.
This text, like Revelation of which it is a part, is an invitation to extend the consciousness of the mind, to push beyond our petty realities, and to see the things that were, that are, and that are to be. John invites us to a new form of seeing, and like the novice guided to “see” a painting once thought familiar by a discerning guide and critic, one begins to see new and different and wonderful things.
It is very much like the little girl who was busily drawing with all of her crayons and all of her might when her teacher asked her what she was drawing. “I am drawing a picture of God,” she said. Her teacher replied, “But my dear, nobody knows what God looks like.” To which the little girl replied without stopping her strokes, “They will when I am finished.”
Such is the purpose and confidence of Saint John, to draw us a picture of God that we will recognize when he is finished.
What are the images that emerge from the labor of his strokes? Don’t waste your efforts trying to make sense of all that wonderful symbolism, trying to figure out what the twenty-four thrones mean, the seven flaming torches, the sea of crystal, and all of that. Look at the passage and see the great white throne in the middle, and the peals of thunder, and the lightning. If it sounds familiar it may be because you, with me, have watched The Wizard of Oz many times, and know by heart the scene where Dorothy and her companions finally reach Oz and have their first audience with the Wizard. L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz , is said to have got his sense of the place and its effect from having read this lesson from Revelation.
In reading the Book of Revelation, one must not be distracted by details, one must always look for the big picture, keep in sight the object of all this frenetic activity and exquisite detail. What is at the center of it all? The one who sits on the throne, who lives for ever and ever. That is what verse nine says, and all of this energy and imagination is directed to the worship of one who was, and is, and is to be, who rules — that is, who sits upon the throne — and who lives forever. It is to the one who sits upon the throne that these glorious creatures full of wings and eyes sing without pausing for breath, “Holy, Holy, Holy is God the Sovereign Lord of all, who was, and is, and is to be.” What kind of sovereign is he who can command such ceaseless praise? He is described at verse eleven “Thou art worthy, O Lord, our God, to receive glory and honor and power, because thou didst create all things; by thy will they were created, and have their being.”
The picture of God is of one who is the creator, and by
whose will all things that are, are. It is what we acknowledge
when in the paraphrase of Psalm 100, which we sing to the
tune Old Hundredth, we say, “Know that the Lord is God
indeed; without our aid he did us make….” Why did he do
this? Well, the hymn goes on to tell us:
For why? The Lord our God is good,
His mercy is forever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure.
We have here caught a glimpse through that open door into heaven, and we have seen a God who is worthy to be worshipped, because he is the good creator of us all, who himself will last forever, for he is forever. The character of God is good and ultimately enduring, and the fruit, the expression of his goodness, is ourselves and the creation of which we are a part. We are reminded of this when in the Genesis story of creation God is described as calling his own handiwork good, and as being pleased and satisfied with it. That means that goodness is a part of God’s intention, and as the creator, like the little girl and her drawing, always puts part of himself into what he creates; we participate in goodness because God is goodness, and we and God therefore share that which is good.
God is not simply good, however, and if that is all that we see in this picture painted for us by Saint John, we have missed the big picture, for the point that gives goodness its validity and makes of it a hopeful enterprise is that God is eternal, that is, forever, the sovereign Lord of all that was, that is, and what is to be. That is the big picture, the biggest picture possible. When we think about God, some may be impressed by the majesty and the glory, some by the raw and naked power, the thunder and the lightning; for others it may be the goodness and benevolence that impresses, but for me, and I suspect for most, it is the utter timelessness of God that impresses, the endurance before and beyond our imagination.
Such a big picture of God nearly defies imagination, but it is only imagination that will allow us to grow and be able to see something of that picture. We must remember that the object of Christian theology is not to reduce incomprehensibilities to our small size but rather to make us grow up in some small degree to the capacity of the subject. Saint John gives us his wonderful vision, seen as through a crack into heaven, and the church has described that same vision in its efforts to describe God in the doctrine of the Trinity — that which was, that which is, and is to be — time past; time present: redemption; and time future: the ultimate justice of God.
The Rev. Peter J. Gomes is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church at the university. An American Baptist minister, he is the author of The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart and Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living.
Excerpted from Sermons: Biblical Wisdom For Daily Living by Peter J. Gomes. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
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