I’ve been listening to Bishop Ruth Bushyager describing how she had 6 months of absolute spiritual void after speaking at a major conference. She carried the conference that year with a tremendous series from Mark. Ruth was one of the people who made us feel so welcome when we moved to London 15 years ago. She had done a lot of the prep work to get Christ Church Turnham Green ready for a new vicar, and as our young kids were the same age our families had some great times together. It has been thrilling to see her roles as vicar in Dorking and now Bishop of Horsham bearing so much fruit.
In the talk Ruth described the aftermath of that significant summer of ministry, preaching each morning to thousands, as a ‘descent of a fog’ where all she could do was choose to make right decisions about health, home and work.
Ruth’s talk references the Will van der Hart talk I described in Chapter 2, ‘No-one ever dreams of climbing down Mt Everest,’ and Pete Greig’s advice after finishing busy seasons:
- Stay Low (humble).
- Go Slow (don’t rush).
- Say No (reduce your diary).
For months all she could do was hope that by staying faithful at some point the fog would lift. Ruth is a gift to the church and her talks that summer on Mark were sensational. But the boom-bust cycle is real and one worth us thinking on as we spot some of the cycles in Revelation.
This cycle is similar to one I am often helping help people with as they navigate themselves home from a SOMA UK trip. They may well have seen miracles, healing, deliverance, provision, and experienced compelling faith, hope, joy, perseverance from those they have visited, but for some there is then a *bamm* when they’re home. It can feel utterly deflating, like hitting a spiritual brick wall.
In fact much of my personal work with my Spiritual Director, Mark Aldridge, has been learning how to navigate safely the boom and bust of itinerant ministry. I am very grateful for an experienced companion who has walked the path I am walking and is committed to making sure I do the work to ‘get down Mt Everest safely.’
Sometimes it can feel like it will be a long time until we get down Mt Everest. The churches John was writing to knew that pain of waiting. Would the cycle ever end?
Those three spirals: Seals, Trumpets and Bowls
In Revelation 8 the seven seals are now all opened. But the cycle still feels strangely unfinished. There was an interlude of a chapter between seal six and that final seventh seal with the incomplete half hour of silence. There is still that question: will this cycle ever end? When will the end come?
The sixth seal had brought us to a place of cosmic collapse. The earthquake, darkened sun, blood-red moon, falling stars, and rolled-up sky all prophetic metaphors for God’s judgment. But still the end has not come. In the interlude we get to hear the number of the 144000 and see the great multitude. The people of God have come together, just as the 24 elders had. Jewish and Gentile, they are now united as one.
At this point Revelation is going to take us on a further two cycles. Firstly we will experience seven trumpets (‘horns’) and get to the end of their blasts wondering why the final trumpet has not sounded yet, and why the Second Coming is still delayed?
As with the seals we will have an interlude after the first six trumpets (Earth | Sea | Rivers/Springs | Sun | The Abyss | Euphrates) [Revelation 8-9], before a final earthquake accompanies a Proclamation of God’s Kingdom [Revelation 11:15-19]. The interlude introduces the angel and a scroll and the two witnesses (often thought to be Moses and Elijah).
Then we go on the third cycle. After the seals and the trumpets come the bowls. They follow a familiar pattern: (Earth | Sea | Rivers/Springs | Sun | The throne of the beast | Euphrates) [Revelation 15-16]. But this time there is no interlude. The cycle is finally ended. We reach a crescendo with another Proclamation ‘IT IS DONE’. Babylon will fall and the beast will be defeated in the next three chapters.
There are interpretations of Revelation that treat it like we would a normal book. So the events of Chapter 8 will come before Chapter 9 will come before 10 etc… But there are lots of clues in the text that we are dealing with a different sort of story telling. One that circles back on itself and tells the story from different angles. One of the clues that it doesn’t make sense to take Revelation 6-16 simply chronologically is because of what happens to the sun:
As the sixth seal is opened, ‘there was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair,’ [6:12-13].
At the fourth trumpet, ‘a third of the sun was struck…a third of the day was without light…’ [8:12].
Then when the fifth trumpet blasts, ‘The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.’ [9:2].
And when the fourth angel, ‘poured out his bowl on the sun, the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire.’ [16:8].
The seals, trumpets and bowls are definitely not identical. There is a lot of overlap between them, but many readers spot a progression:
Each cycle seems to answer a different question:
- Why is this happening? (seals)
- Is God warning the world? (trumpets)
- Will God finally deal with evil? (bowls)
Why does God allow Suffering?
These are three crescendoing visions of how God confronts evil within history (see e.g. NT Wright). First God warns the evil, then God exposes the evil and finally God brings evil to an end.
How does he do that? Through the Lamb who was slain. It is that sacrificed Lamb who is worthy to open the scroll containing these judgements. These are the judgements that are needed to redeem the world. The escalating conflict all centres around the Lamb.
Today I am heading on a second ‘northern universities’ tour with my daughter. We’ll stay in Durham, where ten years ago I began my third set of theological studies. I have had many entertaining evenings there with our hosts, Jamie and Anne Harrison, (who let me stay for study weeks over a 6 year period and even had the whole family for my graduation). One memorable time was when they invited their good friend Professor Walter Moberly for supper. I was suitably starstruck.
Walter Moberly brings an alternative insight to these Revelation 6-16 sequences.
He is most concerned with what kind of God is being revealed in Revelation, which he sees as theological testimony designed to form character in all of us who read and hear its warnings. The seals, trumpets and bowls are related, but the key is not what happens next but what it tells us about God. God is patient. He is slow to anger and judgement. His judgement comes but it is always ordered toward restoration and truth
This judgement is God’s costly faithfulness to the world. It has a deep continuity with the Old Testament stories we are used to where God warns | God waits | God judges grievingly, not gleefully. This judgement must be read through a) God’s covenant love and b) the crucified Lamb. Only the slain one is worthy to open the scroll of judgement and redeem the world he has made covenant with and loves from evil.
Self-giving love is not a tactic. It is God’s identity.
Why we actually want God to be a Judge (to stop the Spiral).
I think again of some of the SOMA Stories I have witnessed. When we have been teaching on forgiveness and leant on our international team members who have endured much and still forgiven. When we have heard tales of abuse and scandal. Atrocities in the church and the world.
When we see and hear these we cry, ‘How Long.’ I remember Bishop James Jones addressing a University gathering. He made the point that when people ask, ‘why does God allow suffering?’ they are really asking for him to be Judge. They want Him to get rid of what is bad, and leave what is redeemed and redeemable.
The problem is the bad runs through our own hearts. We all need the Lamb to save us. We want the Judgement, but it is a relief that it is the Lamb who brings it. The Lamb already slain to defeat all that is bad in any of us who will trust in Him. The Lamb who can make even me redeemable.
Bishop James was right. We are looking for the end of the seals, the trumpets and the bowls. The mess we are in is unsustainable. Who wants to live forever in this mess? We even see it in ourselves at the moments we thought we had reached a high point in ministry, we discover we are in a mess of our own making. What an agony. What a long wait we experience as the spiral downwards seems to continue.
But a judge is coming. After the half hour silence, the prayers ascend as a sweet smelling incense and the judgement begins.
It will be over. SOON.
Read More in this Series
The Lamb Wins Whole Series Catch Up : Introduction: Chp 1: Hope is Here | Chp 2: First, Love: Ephesus | Chp 3: Fear Not: Smyrna | Chp 4: I Know: Pergamum | Chp 5: Tolerate This: Thyatira | Chp 6: Wake Up: Sardis | Chp 7: Hold On: Philadelphia | Chp 8: Knock, Knock: Laodecia | Chp 9: What Must Soon Take Place | Chp 10: Holy Forever | Chp 11: Most Blessed | Chp 12: One That Was Slain | Chp 13: Come Home | Chp 14: Sun Forbear to Shine | Chp 15: 144000
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Your name is like honey 
thankyou and appreciations for this flow of sharings.. bless and prayers
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