2017-06-04T11:00:00-05:00
1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
9 I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 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. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 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.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.19 Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright (c)2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. http://www.esv.org
The "vacation" included 1,720 highway miles back and forth across Interstate70, the asphalt cummerbund of the country. Strapped into their safety seats like tiny cosmonauts were an insatiably curious 4 year old boy and his ebullient 3 year old brother. There are lots of questions to ask in 29 hours on the road! And in western Kansas, the horizon is punctuated by crops of enormous windmills. They stand over 260 feet tall, with wingspans of nearly 250 feet. Turning slowly in the Mid-American wind, they beckon those questions like mesmerizing sirens of the prairie.
"Why are those there, Grandpa?" "They make electricity from the wind!" , I answered, foolishly thinking that would do it. "How?" Then came my ridiculous soliloquy about generators, and magnetic flux, and wire coils and other mumbo-jumbo that didn't even make sense to me. What I should have given the boys was the observation not an explanation. The powerful, invisible wind turns those blades. And the wind's power is changed into visible things like light and movement. But the light and movement began with the blowing wind. Exactly how that happens is hard to understand, but it's easy to see the results.
That's how Peter talked on that Pentecost morning when the power of the Holy Spirit blew across the early church. Something amazing happened, something frightening and mysterious. And when the stunned crowd asked the church's spokesman for an explanation, he gave them the observation. He told them that they were witnessing the one, true, invisible God making himself visible through the changed hearts and actions of His followers. God had sent His son to be the exact representation of the Father, said Peter. And now, the breathtaking, awe-inspiring reality is that God has sent the Holy Spirit to indwell His people. And why? To make His glories known, to make Himself visible in the lives of the "Christ's Ones". At last, the gathered people of God will live out their purpose; to bear God's image in God's world. They will be the body of Christ. We have seen it, said Peter, and so have you.
So what happened to the believers? When the wind of the Spirit blew into their hearts and transformed them, what characterized them? What was the visible outcome? They became a united people, empowered by God and characterized by, "...glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people." May we live out the powerful reality of God the Holy Spirit at work in our lives to make our Savior seen.