Many of you are fairly unfamiliar with the book of Revelation—it feels like the sci-fi section of your Bible, and you’re confused by it, even if a little intrigued. And, if you’re honest, some of you are downright terrified by it. Fear not, my friends: I'm a professional. I am certified to take you in and out of this book and ensure that no one gets (ahem) left behind.
You might ask, “Why did Jesus choose to reveal all these things to John in such a crazy way?” It’s actually not an accident. Walk with me for a bit …
John gives us an important hint in Revelation 1:9: “I, John, your brother and companion in suffering ...” You see, the church in John’s day was not doing particularly great, at least in the physical sense. By this point, all of the apostles had been martyred, except for John, and he’d been exiled to the isle of Patmos, the Roman equivalent of Alcatraz.
Church history tells us John had first been tortured by the Romans before being exiled—boiled in oil, specifically. Which never really registered with me until I burned my hand with oil a few months ago while seasoning my Blackstone grill. It was dark, I was in a hurry, and when I tried to scrape off the boiling oil, a little of it splashed onto my hand. It’s been a while since I’ve been in that kind of pain, the kind of burning that hours of submerging in ice water couldn’t tame. Eventually, hours later, around midnight, when my hand seemed to be getting even hotter (?) I went to the emergency room. I felt like a total wimp, but then they numbed my entire hand from my wrist forward so I couldn’t feel anything. I immediately felt better, and it didn’t even bother me that I was a wimp. And then I thought: John experienced that throughout his body.
Needless to say, he knew suffering.
The people John was writing to knew suffering, too. The church was going through one of the worst persecutions in history. Nero had made Christians the scapegoats for Rome’s calamities and used that as a pretext for hunting them down and killing them. Emperor Domitian had followed suit, and Emperor Trajan, the newest emperor, seemed like he was going to be just as bad. John, from his remote isle in Patmos, saw no immediate relief on the horizon, and he knew the church needed a vision. But understand this: It’s not a vision that all of this is going to go away tomorrow. That might have been the vision he and his readers wanted. But it wouldn’t have actually helped them. Instead, he was given a vision of a Jesus sovereign over it all.
Some of you need to see that same vision today. Your suffering might not be the same as John’s—I doubt that you’re being literally fed to the lions or boiled in oil—but suffering is suffering, right? And you’ve asked God, “How long, O Lord?” You’ve got unanswered questions. Pain. Disappointment. Acts of injustice that have been committed against you. And you’re like, “How am I supposed to sing about victory in Jesus when my life feels like a constant string of disappointments, tragedies, and failures?” John’s letter, so full of mystery and wild imagery, is for you.
In Revelation 1:10–16, John receives a breathtaking vision of Jesus standing before him. He says:
I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet … Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand, he held seven stars; from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
In those days, white hair symbolized wisdom; so saying that Jesus had brilliant white hair, like snow, means that Jesus is wiser than the wise. His eyes were like “flame of fire,” which means his insight penetrated more deeply than the sharpest laser. His face was like the sun at full strength: We can’t look directly at the sun, lest we go blind; John couldn’t even look directly at Jesus’ face. It shone with that kind of energy. His voice was like the roar of many waters, indicating not just decibel level but fullness and immensity. Just think of the roar of the ocean. In his right hand, he held seven stars. The average star puts out a trillion megatons of energy each second, which is why it’s good that we’re 93 million miles away from the closest one. But here, John is no longer 93 million miles from the power of one of those stars; he’s 9.3 steps from it. Out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, meaning his words possess the ability in themselves to pierce and to destroy.
Then verse 17 says, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.” No wonder. If I saw what John did, I’d think I was about to die, too.
Something to consider: This is the first time John has seen Jesus in over 60 years, and Jesus and John had been BFFs on earth. In fact, in his Gospel, John refers to himself (rather confidently) as “the one that Jesus loved,” which I’ve always thought was a huge flex. John was like, “Jesus likes you, too ... but I’m his favorite.” (By the way, in reality, what John meant by that was not that he was Jesus’ favorite; he’s communicating his amazement at the fact that Jesus would keep on loving him despite how badly he’d failed him. But still—pretty bold nickname.) Suffice it to say, John and Jesus were close.
In fact, in John 13:23, John says that at the Last Supper, he leaned his head back and rested it on Jesus’ chest. That’s right—snuggling. I’ve got some guy friends I feel pretty close to, but none I do that with at dinner. But you know what male would do that with me? My son. Jesus was more than a friend to John. He was John’s comfort and shield, his refuge, his safe place. And again, this is the first time they have seen each other in over 60 years. Strange, then, that Jesus reveals himself to John in a way that makes John think he’s going to die, isn’t it?
Why would Jesus appear to him this way? It’s because that’s how John most needed to see him right now, a Jesus who is sovereign over everything—and that’s because Jesus’ plan right now was not to deliver his church from persecution and pain. Jesus wasn’t showing up with news saying, “Hey, John, relax. It gets better.” No, in the near future, it wasn’t going to get better. What Jesus shows to John is his incredible power and majesty over all of it, so that John can rest in him even when he can’t understand what Jesus is doing.
I grew up with a picture of Jesus that was like an oil painting of an Olan Mills portrait: Jesus with his full lips, his perfect skin, and his beautiful, flowing hair. Maybe you’ve seen the same one in a Sunday School classroom or on the back of a fan you used at your non-air-conditioned church. You know the ones, with Jesus on one side and advertisements for the local funeral home on the other. In this picture, Jesus always had this expression on his face as he’d just seen a bird fly by or something. Ooh, neat! But the result was that my image of Jesus was this sad, jobless guy with tears in his eyes who lived a lot “in his feels.” And while I do love the tenderness of Jesus, when you’re really in pain, or suffering under injustice, you don’t just need a warm, tender Jesus; you need a Jesus who holds the power of stars in his hand. A Jesus who speaks with the roar of many waters and whom you know has the last word in it all. A Jesus who is sovereign over crazy emperors and cancer cells and malicious ex-husbands and slanderous neighbors.
In times of intense persecution or suffering, you don’t need a sentimental Jesus who makes you feel warm and cozy at night—a Jesus who is one part genie, one part therapist, one part life coach, and the rest warm blanket; you need to see a Jesus who is sovereign over all other powers at work in the world.
Pastor J.D. completed his Ph.D. in Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Chick-fil-A, serves as a Council member for The Gospel Coalition, and recently served as the 62nd president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Pastor J.D. and his wife Veronica are raising four awesome kids.
"Editor's Note: Pastor JD Greear's "Ask the Pastor" column regularly appears at Christianity.com, providing biblical, relatable, and reliable answers to your everyday questions about faith and life. Email him your questions at [email protected]."
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