Spiritual Forum

For a couple years I tought philosophy and art in an art college. I remember I often tried an experiment at the beginning of a course. I put a painting in front of the class and simply asked what the students saw.

It was always amazing, what they said. Mostly they told me something which had nothing to do with the painting. I had asked what they saw, but they told me what they thought and wanted to discuss where nothing was to discuss!

It took always a certain time till this exercise became clear to them.

Apocalyptic literature is at first like a big painting, demanting simply to look what is there. But most people with apocalyptic affinities never look first, but beginn with thinking and guessing. Like my students, they often tell things, which have nothing to do with that huge painting.

We must learn looking first. The revelation of John in the new testament is a painting full of colours, figures, events, clouds and different pixelation, if you want. To make it more clear - it is a book about hope and pain, trust and crying, waiting and fulfilling, a book of life, death and all in between. It shows not simply time tables for the saved ones, but immensly much more - it shows the earth - involvement and down to earth connection of people, who are following the human - involved Jesus. Chapter 4 is the key scene - the book wants to dare a look around from a higher stand point than from earthly life: it tries to have a look from a divine stand point, from the throne of God.

Some of the deepest and most profound insights in depths of human life is Job and Psalm 130. There we read:

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, LORD;
2 Lord, hear my voice.

Later those pattern is accomplished in the gospel tales of Jesus` suffering, crucifixion and death.

The revelation of John goes a step further, it is most dramatic and never heard before with such emphasis. We read in chapter 6:

9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters,[a] were killed just as they had been.

Again, I do not speak here from exegesis nor thoughts, I speak of the painting and what we see. Obviously there is so much pain and fear going on, that even the dead ones call for emergency! They call for God! It is most dramatic!

And here is the point. Instead of talking so much different shit, of how to understand all that is happening or will happen, a look on the painting will reveal main drawings. The scenes show an explanation of what the sufferings of Jesus really mean by extending them to his followers. The Jesus people will suffer like their master! And the other point is this - like Jesus has been saved, so will be his followers! In general thus the revelation of John is deeply connecting Jesus and his followers in sufferings, death and life.

By doing so John is encouraging people in hard times. Torturing following humans is like torturing Jesus himself. This shall comfort the weeping ones. And so Rev 6 becomes the most profound and dramatic indictment in the whole Bible. It is the ultimate and urgent cry for God. Crying for God thus is the ultimate strength of the followers in this world of tears. And all this connected to a view from God`s throne - this is the style of John.