Is He Worthy?

I've spent much of my life subtly and sometimes not so subtly trying to avoid pain and loss.

I tend to narrow my focus to what I think are my problems, and I tend to compulsively lurch toward supposed solutions that let me believe and behave however I want or that require no loss on my part.

I tend to avoid judgment at all costs.

In the fifth chapter of Revelation we find John in deep distress as he's witnessing a vision of the great Day of the Lord - the final judgment God's prophets and poets had known for centuries would come.  

The Day when evildoers would be put to rights.  

The Day when the oppressed would be set free.  

The Day when ugly, despotic power structures would be unmade.    

The Day when Yahweh would set everything straight.  

But John's not agonizing like I might be - scared silly of what I might lose or of some pain I might face.  No, he's weeping because no one can be found worthy to break the seals of that great judgment scroll.  No one can be found worthy to read it's pronouncements and no one can be found worthy to render them.     

John saw what I'm coming to see.  That is, that God's judgment is nothing to be afraid of if we're following Jesus as Lord.  If we are following after Messiah, then the Day of the Lord is for us that great day when we and the whole wide world are ridden completely of the effects of evil.  

John was weeping because if no one could open the scroll, then nothing in this world of pain could ever be changed.  Nothing could ever be made truly and deeply and forever Good again.

If no one could open the scroll, then pain and sorrow and sadness and lack and loss would always be the cruel taskmasters of what God had made to be so beautiful in the beginning.

But of course, John then heard what he'd so been waiting to hear:

"Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals."

So rather than fear that Day - we can know deep in our hearts as did John - that's the Day we've all been waiting for...

On that Day, we'll finally be rid of the nasty bent to protect ourselves at any cost, to grab for ourselves whatever we can and to hurt others whenever we are hurt.

On that Day, we'll be rid forever of fear, doubt, selfishness, greed and all their ugly siblings.  We, and the whole wide world, will all be made totally and completely New.

Andrew Peterson has put this grandest of all scenes to gorgeous melody - to which I cannot stop listening.  It's truly beautiful.

In fact, his Resurrection Letters: Prologue and Resurrection Letters: Volume 1 are now on constant play in my ears and in my heart.