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Digging into Scripture: Holy Spirit ANCC, Montandon, PA (2026)

01/08/2023

Walking in the dark this morning and praying for a parishioner suddenly taken ill.

02/06/2021

Revelation 36: Imprisoned in the Ruins
Rev. 18:1-8

Babylon—which as we’ve seen stands for Rome as well as all decadent imperialisms—finally and totally falls in Chapter 18 of John’s Revelation. Its destruction has been briefly foretold in three earlier places (14:8; 16-19; 17:16). But now, with the ominous angelic proclamation of “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great,” the end has arrived.

Several things are worth noting here. The first is that God’s justice was swift; Babylon falls in a single day (verse 8). Her sins “piled up to the sky” (verse 5), reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, until they reached a tipping point and came crashing down. When that happened, the damage Babylon had inflicted on others returned to her twofold.

The second is that the few good people who dwell within Babylon—the remnant—are urged to flee before the final destruction arrives (verse 4). This angelic warning is an echo of a passage from Isaiah 52:11: “Depart, depart, go out from there / touch nothing unclean! / Out from there!”

Finally, and significantly, the lost souls who remain in fallen Babylon, aimlessly wandering in the maze of its ruins, are imprisoned there.

Some translations say that Babylon is a “dwelling place” for demons and unclean spirits; others more accurately say that fallen Babylon is a “cage.” (verse 2)

But neither of these captures the right mood, because the Greek word, phulaké means “prison.” Our sins literally imprison us in a desolate and ruined landscape, shut off from God, turned in on ourselves, blinded by our own darkness.

As we’ve seen time and again in Revelation, the fate which befalls sinners is of their own making.

That’s why the angelic voice telling the righteous to depart Babylon before it’s too late is such an important message for us today. Tempting as it may be to allow ourselves to be seduced by the darkness of greed, arrogance, and violence, we must spiritually flee it lest we be buried and imprisoned in its rubble on that day when it falls.

Revelation 18:1-8: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+18%3A1-8&version=NABRE

02/04/2021

Revelation 35: Diabolic Autophagy
Rev. 17: 7-18

The final two-thirds of Chapter 17 are the most mystifying in the entire Book of Revelation. Generations of readers have been perplexed about the literal identity of the “seven kings” who were, are, and will come, and the “ten horns” which represent an additional “ten kings.”

In John’s own time, the assumption was that the seven kings were Roman Caesars (although the chronology, given the probable date of Revelation’s composition, doesn’t quite fit) and the ten kings titular rulers of Roman vassal states. In our own time, the ten kings have been rather ridiculously identified with the European Common Market by Hal Lindsey in his horrible bestseller “The Late Great Planet Earth.”

But to get hung up on trying to figure out the kings’ identities, much less to map them onto different historical scenarios, misses the broader and more important point of these verses: the evil unleashed by human wickedness and diabolic forces is self-destructive. As John says, the ten kings and the beast will “eat the flesh” of the W***e of Babylon and then turn on one another.

There’s absolutely nothing creative about evil. Its one and only instinct is to rend, ruin, and destroy, and this means that after it has devoured as much of the world as it can, the only thing left to turn its rapacious appetite toward is itself. We’re never surprised when wicked men and women break alliances with one another just as soon as it’s expedient for them to do so. There is, as we say, no honor among thieves. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the unholy forces unleashed by the beast do the same.

Nor should we think that God is a passive spectator in evil’s orgiastic feast of self-destruction. There is providence even in the midst of all this chaos. As John saw in his vision, God has “put it into their minds” to turn on one another, and this will disarray and weaken both the kings and the beast when they do battle with the Lamb in the final cosmic showdown. (verses 17 and 14).

The frenzied autophagy displayed by evil in the End Time should give us hope today. No matter how overwhelmingly powerful wickedness might seem, it can never triumph. It carries within its darkness the seeds of its own destruction—just as we do, if we bow the knee to it.

Revelation 17:7-18: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+17%3A7-18&version=NABRE

02/01/2021

Revelation 34
Rev 17:1-6 - The Great W***e of Babylon

"W***e" is an ugly word, both in our time and in John’s (Gk = porné). He uses it deliberately, however, because that which he intends it to designate is ugly too.

In Chapter 17, John is whisked away "in the spirit" (verse 3) to a desert by one of the bowl angels, where he’s shown the “Great W***e of Babylon.” She’s sitting astride the beast we first encountered in 13:1-10, a hideous creature of evil spawned by the dragon and worshipped by fallen humans.

An obvious counterpart to the heavenly woman of Revelation 12, the W***e is dressed in rich clothes bearing imperial colors of purple and scarlet, and she drinks from a golden cup. But for all her finery, she’s a coarse and conniving creature. Her fundamental uncleanliness is suggested by the contents of her cup, an indescribably repugnant mixture of filth.

(By the way, whenever Jesus exorcises “unclean” spirits in the Gospels, the Greek word the evangelists use, akatharta, is the same word John uses to describe the pr******te. So we know that her uncleanliness is of a terrifyingly inhuman variety.)

Remember we saw at the very beginning of our excavation that, at one level, John’s Revelation is a direct response to Roman persecution? This comes through pretty clearly in Chapter 17, because the Great W***e of Babylon is most immediately a symbol of Roman decadence. The beast symbolizes brutal political power—the might of Roman arms—but the W***e stands for the license and uninhibited self-indulgence that unchecked power both protects and encourages.

Like everything in Revelation, though, the symbolism also offers important messages for us today. Don’t we all in one way or another bow before the Great W***e, seduced to the point of addiction to the shallow pleasures and luxuries she dangles before us? Don't we become furious if they’re in the slightest way threatened?

We may know that our habitual pursuit of immediate self-gratification typically encourages unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity, not to mention ecological degradation, laws that bend to favor the privileged, and human misery—that’s the oppressive beast which supports our decadence—but we just don’t care. Rulers and ruled alike clamor for more. (verse 2)

So mightn't it be said what we, in our own ways, are also “drunk on the blood of the holy ones”? (verse 6) Mightn't it be said that we're so besotted by the W***e's intoxicating but toxic pleasures that we're becoming numb to beauty, and truth, and goodness?

Revelation 7:1-6: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+17%3A1-6&version=NABRE

01/29/2021

Revelation 33: Are You Sick of the Afflictions Yet?
Rev. 16:10-16

By now, you may be tempted to wearily say, “Ok. Here we go again. More visions of End Time disasters. Enough already! You’ve made your point, John!”

But has he? Has his message really sunk in?

If not, it might be because (a) we don’t believe that wickedness will be punished by God; (b) we’re easily bored and distracted; (c) we think that Revelation is kooky; (d) our steady diet of horror flicks and daily reports of violence have jaded us; or (e) we assume that we’re ok with God, and so the bad things described in Revelation don’t apply to us.

And that’s why we find a strange, seemingly out-of-place interjection right after John recounts the fifth bowl’s curse (darkness and agony) and the sixth bowl’s (demon-frogs unleashed on the world from the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet). It’s a warning from the Lord himself:

Wake up! This is going to happen, and it applies to you! So quit fooling yourselves! (verse 15)

But despite the warning, and even despite the afflictions, John sees that there is no repentance. (verse 11)

Those afflictions, which remind us of the plagues of Egypt, are quite horrible in and of themselves. But the end toward which they’re aiming is even more terrifying. The emptying of the sixth bowl allows the demon-frogs to summon “kings of the whole world” to the final battle between good and evil at Armageddon, which is Hebrew for “mountain of Megiddo.”

It’s as if God wants to collect all the world’s evil in a single spot to have it out once and for all.

The site is in the Jezreel Valley, Israel’s fertile breadbasket. I’ll never forget sitting on Mount Tabor, the Mount of Beatitudes, and looking out at the Valley. In the distance, there was a smallish mound where the ancient but long-vanished city of Megiddo stood. It was such a peaceful, lovely, and calming vista. And yet it was in this beautiful place that John saw a conflict that would decide the fate of humanity.

(The photo is a view of the Jezreel Valley from the Megiddo site.)

Revelation 6:`10-16: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+6%3A10-16&version=NABRE

01/25/2021

Revelation 32: The World Itself Testifies Against Us!
Revelation 16:1-9

One of my favorite passages in scripture is Mark 16:15. In it, Jesus tells his apostles to go and out and proclaim the gospel asē tē ktisei. This can be translated as “to all creation,” "to every creature," or “to every created thing.”

The point is the same in either rendering: we humans are to preach in words and deeds the redeeming love of Jesus Christ to everything that is: humans, birds of the air, beasts of the field, fish of the sea, flowers, trees, the very heavens themselves. Nothing is beyond the scope of God’s love, as St. Francis of Assisi so wonderfully knew.

So we’re to love and nurture all of creation, because that’s obviously an essential way to proclaim the gospel. But it’s clear that for the most part we’ve failed. We kill and maim and torture and starve and oppress one another, and our greed, laziness, and arrogance have so abused God’s good creation, the natural realm, that we may’ve damaged it beyond recovery.

In first half of Chapter 16, John sees the angels empty the first four of the seven bowls of wrath. The contents of the bowls poison the earth, potable water, and the very air itself. The good earth, the gem set in God’s heaven, has become toxic.

In his vision, John saw the natural world’s calamity and thought it was because angels had upturned bowls of wrath on earth, sky, and water. But in fact his vision was a remarkable if distorted foretelling of what you and I have done to the good earth.

It’s we who have emptied the bowls. It’s we who have desecrated what God gave us to love and protect.

As we’ve seen over and over again in our excavation of Revelation, the terrible things that befall humanity are more proportionate consequences of our own wickedness than arbitrary punishments from a vengeful God. God desires the suffering and death of no person, but instead bends over backwards to nudge us towards well-being. But there comes a point of no return, when our wickedness has grown so entrenched that God simply must step in.

And yet, one thing is certain: God’s heart breaks at who we’ve become and the destruction we’ve inflicted on ourselves and all creation. The earth testifies against our wickedness, and the Lord weeps because of it.

Revelation 16: 1-9: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+16%3A1-9&version=NABRE

01/23/2021

Revelation 31: On to the Promised Land!

Revelation 15:1 – 16:1

We saw at the very beginning of our excavation of Revelation that John is fond of sevens and threes, both of which represent perfection (seven days of creation on the one hand, the Trinity on the other). There are seven letters to seven churches and three interlinked sevens of judgments: seven seals, seven trumpets and, beginning today, seven bowls of wrath.

We also saw that John’s book operates in three time zones: the past, in which he recounts salvation history, the present, in which he describes his experience of visions, and the future, the prophecies that unfold in the visions. This second feature of Revelation can make it a bit confusing, because John weaves in and out of past, present, and future, sometimes seamlessly.

In the three chapters immediately preceding this one, for example, John was in the past, summarizing salvation history. But now he returns to the present, describing his vision in Chapter 15, all of which is a set-up for a projection into the future: a foretelling of the final set of seven judgments.

What makes this chapter important is the obvious way in which John links it to the Exodus story of liberation. He sees the host of those who resisted the Beast standing upon a “sea of glass mingled with fire.” (5:2) The smoothness of the sea symbolizes tranquility for the saved but the fire suggests the blaze of God’s judgment upon the wicked. That the host is standing on the sea brings to mind the safe crossing of the Hebrews over the Red Sea in Exodus.

Like the triumphant Song of Moses praising God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from Pharaoh, the host sings a new song of triumph, almost every verse of which is drawn from the Old Testament. (5:3-4) But note that while the Song of Moses focuses on God’s smiting of Pharaoh and his army, this one focuses on praising God.

Then the action shifts to John’s vision of a “heavenly tent of testimony,” which is exactly what the tent containing the Tabernacle is called in Exodus. Moreover, it is filled with a cloud or “smoke” of God’s glory—again, just as the Exodus Tabernacle tent was. Within the tent are seven angels (there’s “seven” again!), dressed in priestly garments.

All of these Old Testament allusions clearly suggest that the pilgrimage of God’s people in the final days will, like the ancient Exodus from Egypt, lead to the Promised Land.

One of the four creatures who sit around God’s throne hands the seven angels seven “gold bowls filled with the fury of God” (5:7) and a loud voice—the Father’s? Christ’s?—commands the angels to pour the contents of the bowls upon the earth. (6:1)

The end-stage of the End of Days has begun.

We mustn’t confuse thymou tou Theou—God’s wrath—with an emotional, impetuous lashing-out. Instead, it’s a response to wickedness and injustice. As supremely Good, God cannot but hate evil and wish to rid its harmful effects from creation. As we’ve seen over and over in this excavation, it’s a mistake to take divine judgement in Revelation as an opportunity to label God an arbitrary executioner more to be feared than loved. It’s precisely because God is lovable that He desires to protect us from the Beast, from Babylon, from wickedness.
:
Rev 15:1 - 16:1 - https://biblia.com/bible/esv/revelation-15-1--16-1

10/23/2020

Revelation 30: Harvest Time
Revelation 14:14-20

Harvest is a time of endings. The seed that was sown in freshly plowed and furrowed fields months earlier reaches its zenith and is ready to be gathered.

But depending on what one plants and how one cultivates, harvest time can be joyful or dreadful.

If the seeds of righteousness, love, forbearance, wisdom, humility, and compassion are sown, they will lead to a bountifully rich harvest. Their fruit may be entangled to a certain extent with weeds, but never overcome by them.

But if seeds of hatred, violence, contempt, arrogance, and willful ignorance are sown, the harvest is poisonous. Better never to have planted in the first place than to reap such unholy fruit.

The two possibilities of harvest time are the vehicles by which John’s vision proceeds in the final verses of Chapter 14. One “like a son of man” (verse 14) reaps righteous fruit—good souls—while an angel reaps unholy fruit—the unrighteous and unrepentant—and smashes them in “the great wine press of God’s fury.” (verse 19) Just as their greed and injustice squeezed the life out of so many others and even out of the good earth herself, so are they themselves served in the final days.

By the way, John’s vision of the fate of the unrighteous is very much like the prophet Joel’s several centuries earlier:

Wield the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe;
Come in and tread,
for the wine press is full;
The vats overflow
for their crimes are numerous.
(Joel 4:13)

To the 21st-century reader, images of wicked people being crushed under the weight of their own sins may come across as barbarous. But I think we need to realize two things about the Christian story, a story which stretches back, of course, to the very first verse in Genesis.

The first is that God’s patience with us is genuinely generous. From the Fall to the present day, the biblical testimony is that God wants us to live in love rather than die in sin, and that God is eager to welcome us back whenever we stray.

But the second point is this: God’s patience isn’t limitless. If it were, justice would be violated and both righteousness and wickedness would cease to lose any meaning. Those who choose to plant toxic seeds growing season after growing season must realize that there will one day be a final harvest.

And it will be one they've chosen, not one forced upon them by God.

Revelation 14: 14-20: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+14%3A14-20&version=NABRE

10/21/2020

Revelation 29: The Lamb’s Army
Chapter 14:1-13

The forces of evil have gathered to wage battle against all that’s good, true, and beautiful in the world. The dragon, Satan himself, plummets to earth to subdue and destroy it. The two monsters, one from the chaotic sea and one from terra firma, arise to do his bidding. Thousands upon thousands of human minions follow them, either out of conviction or because they’ve been seduced and deceived.

Things seem pretty dire.

And then, in an almost cinematic here-comes-the-cavalry-to-the-rescue moment (although it’s more accurate to say “here-comes-CALVARY-to-the-rescue”!), the slain Lamb—the Lord—appears on Mount Zion, the globe’s holiest horizon, with a host of 144,000 unblemished souls, ready to contend with evil for the salvation of the world. (By the way, this is where Jehovah Witnesses get their belief that at the Endtime 144,000 people will be saved.)

They are, John tells us, “celibate.” But all that’s intended is that they’re God’s warriors. In the Old Testament, warriors preparing for battle are called to abstain from sexual relations. (Deut 23:9-10; 1 Sam 21:5)

The image is really astounding, isn’t it? We generally think of Jesus as the shepherd who leads a flock of sheep and lambs. But now it’s the Lamb leading the flock, a wonderful reversal of roles that suggests just how much the Christ-event has upended conventional norms.

Moreover, the fact that the slain and resurrected Lamb is the warrior-leader clearly indicates that this is a different kind of army and a different kind of war. The weapons used aren’t ones that maim and slay but rather heal and give life. They’re the weapons of love, righteousness, and justice.

This is the only kind of power capable of defeating evil. Because to return evil for evil is only to infuse new strength into the dragon.

To underscore the power of this army led by the Lamb, three angels swoop over it with proclamations: Give glory to God because the day of judgment has arrived! cries one. The evil which struggles to seduce the world is fallen! shouts another. Those who persevere in worshipping it bring doom upon their heads! announces the third.

I said at the very beginning of our excavation of Revelation that it’s a joyfully hopeful document. The problem is that we tend to focus on its titillating descriptions of mayhem and destruction to such an extent that the victory over chaos John sees in his visions sometimes gets lost. But Chapter 14 reminds us, as we’ve been reminded several times already, not to allow ourselves to be distracted.

There will be future battles to be fought, as we’ll see in Revelation’s very next chapter. The struggle between good and evil is a long one, at least from our human perspective. But the good news is that we know the outcome. The Lamb is victorious.

So keep the faith.

Revelation 14:1-13: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+14%3A1-13&version=NABRE

10/06/2020

Revelation 28: Unholy Allies
Revelation 13:11-18

A second monster arrives on the scene. This one is clearly a subordinate to the seven-headed beast, who in turn is subordinate to the dragon, Satan. He emerges from the earth, the realm of humanity, not the sea, the chaos that spawned the dragon.

This is important, because this second beast, which acts with the full approval of the dragon (verse 12) speaking for him and acting on his behalf, are those human powers and principalities that have sold out to evil.

This second beast, who stands for all those who side with wickedness out of greed or weakness, can be seen in every generation. Sometimes it takes the form of a horde of barbarians ransacking a church; at other times, a jackbooted army goose-stepping through streets and proclaiming a new world order; at still other times, an economic class that sucks in all the available wealth, indifferent to the poor's suffering.

And this second monster doesn't merely dominate and oppress. It also seeks to implicate everyone in its wretched complicity. It aims to brand "small and great, rich and poor, free and slaves" with the mark of its own corruption, to make decent women and men material slaves but also zombie-like creatures whose interiors have died.

John describes the monster's mark as "666," undoubtedly the best known image (verse 18) in the entire book. Almost certainly it spells out the name (Hebrew letters also have numerical values) NERO CAESAR. In other words, those branded with the second beast's mark are the property of whatever powerbroker has manages to coerce or seduce them into fidelity to him.

This part of Chapter 13 shakes me to my core. Am I a collaborator with the forces of evil? Do I stand by silently before their atrocities, either because of cowardice or the realization that I profit, even if only directly, from their wickedness? Have I entered, even if only by default, into an unholy alliance with the Evil One?

These are questions John invites all of us to ask ourselves.

Revelation 13: 11-18: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+13%3A11-18&version=NABRE

10/02/2020

Revelation 27: The Beast from the Sea
Chapter 13:1-10

As if Satan falling from heaven in the previous chapter wasn’t frightening enough, John’s vision now becomes even more nightmarish. He sees a seven-headed monstrous beast emerging from the sea, summoned by Satan, the great serpent, the unholy dragon.

Remember that for the early Christians, the sea represented chaos. So the beast is spawned by and subsequently spews mayhem, havoc, and utter disorder.

Back in the Book of Daniel (7:2-8), the prophet had a vision of four monsters coming to threaten humankind. John’s vision collapses the four into his one hideous and multi-crowned beast. In the context of the first century, the unholy thing clearly represented the Roman empire, and the wounded head stands for Nero, who was reputed by admirers and enemies alike to have risen from the dead.

The wounded head is also, according to the Church Fathers, a mocking parody of the wounded Lamb of God.

Its first-century symbolism to one side, throughout the ages John’s beast has represented political, economic, and cultural tyranny which would seeks power at any cost and which especially despises as its dangerous enemies the people of God. Understandably, then, the beast in John’s vision has a mouth that curses humanity and blasphemes God. His hatred is so intense that he will wage war against humankind until he’s brought the entire globe under his sway.

It’s easy to see how each generation of Christians put a new name onto the beast. For John’s contemporaries it was Rome and Nero, but in later centuries it was the Hun, the Turk, the N**i, and the Soviet. In general, however, the beast is any system of domination. And make no mistake about it: the beast isn’t just a literary fancy. He’s very real indeed. One of the skills of Evil is to transform itself into different shapes and sizes in order to maximally manipulate changing situations.

Frighteningly, eople will come to worship him. What once may have been subservience given him out of fear grotesquely mutates into a pernicious reverence based of his unchecked power. This surely suggests that the beast isn’t simply a darkness imposed upon us. He’s also a reflection of the darkness that lurks within each of us.

Fortunately, however, the beast’s reign will not last. He’s given 42 months over which to swagger, rule, and destroy the earth. God’s people must therefore cultivate hypomone, patient endurance and faith. (See 1:9 and 14:12) Some may be taken captive and others killed. But God will not forsake them.

Because as the Song of Songs assures us, love is at least as strong as death.

Revelation 13:1-10: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+13%3A1-10&version=NABRE

09/19/2020

Revelation 26: The Devil Has Landed!
Chapter 12: 7-18

In one of the most haunting passages in all the gospels, Jesus says that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. (Luke 10:18)

This vision is one of the beyond-time manifestations of Jesus’s Godmanhood. He sees what will happen in the future; but since God is outside of time and hence “sees” everything that was, is, and will be simultaneously, Jesus speaks in the present about a future event as if it were past—which, from God’s perspective, makes perfect sense!

Today’s passage from Revelation tells about the future battle in heaven between the angelic army of Satan the accuser—the word “Satan” actually means “accuser”—and the army led by the archangel Michael. (For more on Michael, see Daniel 10.)

In this cosmic struggle, Satan is defeated and thrown earthwards from heaven.

Now he roams the earth, angry, frustrated, and looking to destroy whatever he can. His first target is the woman crowned with stars we met at the beginning of Chapter 12. But God protects her, so Satan instead “went off to wage war against the rest of her children, those who keep God’s commands and the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand beside the sea.” (verses 17-18)

In the next chapter of Revelation, we’ll see why Satan is on the seashore.

So heaven is rid of his wickedness once and for all. But “woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you in great anger.” That’s the bad news. The good news is that at least part of Satan’s anger is his knowledge “that he only has a short time.” (verse 12)

Who actually defeated Satan? The text says Michael overthrew him, but also that he was defeated by saints washed in the blood of the Lamb. The faithful wage battle against Satan through prayer and righteous living. As such they—we—become Michael’s allies in the struggle against evil. We’re engaged in spiritual warfare against Satan’s seductions of our own souls as well as his corruption of society.

We need to remember this. You and I, today, right this very minute, are enlisted in Michael’s army. You and I, today, right this very minute, are called to wield prayer and righteousness, our weapons against evil, to combat Satan and rescue our sisters and brothers from his hateful grip. Knowing that Satan is ultimately defeated is no excuse for our passivity here and now.
Revelation 12: 7-18: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+12%3A7-18&version=NABRE

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