Reframing Revelation
Whenever we open the Book of
Revelation, the room changes a little.
Some people lean in, curious;
others brace themselves.
For many, Revelation is the
strangest book in the Bible,
full of beasts and battles,
seals and trumpets, fire and judgment.
It’s often treated as a kind of
coded timetable
for how the world will end,
or a puzzle predicting current
events.
But what if Revelation isn’t a
secret calendar for the future,
but a spiritual lens for the
present?
What if it’s less about escaping history,
and more about unveiling
what’s really true within it?
You see, the word apocalypse
doesn’t mean “disaster.”
It means “unveiling.”
Revelation is the pulling back
of the curtain,
to show the world as it truly
is:
a world in which God reigns, the slain Lamb is Lord,
and the empires of violence
and fear do not have the final word.
You see, John, the writer of
Revelation, wasn’t predicting our century.
He was writing to seven small
churches in first-century Asia Minor:
Ephesus, Smyrna,
Pergamum, and the rest
each struggling to survive
under the shadow of the Roman Empire.
Rome shaped every part of their
world:
the economy, the laws,
the stories people told, about
who mattered and why.
And their question wasn’t “When
will the world end?”
Their question was “How do we
stay faithful
when the empire defines
everything?”
So John wrote a pastoral letter
disguised as a prophetic vision.
He offered not a forecast but
a perspective,
a way of seeing that reveals
the hidden truth behind the world’s appearances.
When we read it rightly,
Revelation doesn’t terrify us; it clarifies us.
It pulls back the propaganda of
empire — then and now —
and helps the church live
truthfully and courageously
in the world God still loves.
That’s why I read Revelation as
both ancient and urgent.
It is rooted in the struggles
of its first hearers,
but it speaks directly to ours,
because the empires may change,
but the temptations remain the
same:
to worship power, to compromise truth,
to trade faithfulness for
comfort.
And into that world, both
theirs and ours,
Revelation declares that the true
power at the heart of the universe
is not empire, not violence,
not fear.
It is the self-giving love of the Lamb of God.
The Vision of the Scroll and
the Lamb
And so in chapter five, John is
taken into the throne room of heaven.
At the centre, he sees God
seated on the throne,
holding a scroll sealed with
seven seals.
It is the scroll of history:
the meaning and purpose of
creation,
the unfolding of redemption.
But no one can open it.
No one in heaven or on earth
is worthy even to look inside.
And so John weeps, because if
no one can open the scroll,
history remains locked,
meaningless, without hope.
Then one of the elders says
something unexpected,
“Do not weep! The Lion of
Judah has triumphed.”
And John looks up, expecting to
see a lion,
the traditional Jewish symbol
of strength and victory.
But instead he sees a lamb,
standing as though it had been
slaughtered.
The conquering lion of mythic
history
is revealed to be none other
than the slain lamb of God.
It turns out that the victory
of God is revealed not in domination,
but in love that suffers and
redeems.
This is the shocking heart of
Revelation’s theology:
The centre of power in the
universe is not a throne of force,
but a cross of mercy.
God reigns, not through coercion, but through compassion.
The Christology of
Revelation: The Politics of the Cross
In John’s world, this was a
direct challenge
to Rome’s theology of empire.
Rome proclaimed that peace came
through victory
Pax Romana achieved by
the sword.
And John dares to say the opposite,
that true peace comes through
the Lamb who was slain.
Rome declared that Caesar was
Lord.
John proclaims: Jesus is
Lord, and that the Lamb of God reigns even now.
Revelation is therefore a political
book,
because it unmasks the lies
that empires tell,
whether ancient Rome or any
modern system that says:
“Might makes right.”
“Profit is peace.”
or “Security justifies
violence.”
Against all this, John’s vision
whispers, and sometimes shouts, a different truth:
The Lamb who was slain is
worthy.
The power that saves the world
looks like surrender.
The throne of heaven is
occupied by love.
That’s not weakness;
it’s divine strength
redefined.
The Church’s Mission:
Following the Lamb
But Revelation doesn’t stop
with worship;
it sends us into witness.
John tells us that Christ has
made us a kingdom and priests,
mediators of God’s presence in
the world.
Our mission, then, is not to
conquer but to embody the Lamb’s way.
To follow the Lamb wherever he
goes, even into costly compassion.
And this means that we are
called to live differently:
We are called to choose mercy
over revenge,
generosity over greed, truth
over convenience.
We are those who build
communities of hope and healing
in a world still addicted to
competition and fear.
In that sense, Revelation is
not escapist at all.
It’s deeply incarnational.
It doesn’t call us out of the world;
it calls us to live in
the world
as signs of the new creation
already breaking in.
Every act of justice, every
word of peace, every prayer for healing
is a participation in the
Lamb’s mission.
Friends, this is what it means to live apocalyptically,
to live as if the veil has
been lifted,
and to act as if God’s kingdom
really is at hand.
The Worship of Heaven: Hope
Restored
The vision of heaven ends in
worship.
The living creatures and
elders fall down before the Lamb,
singing a new song:
“You are worthy to take the
scroll and to open its seals,
for you were slain,
and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language
and people and nation.”
And then the angels join in,
“Worthy is the Lamb who was
slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom
and strength and honour and
glory and praise!”
This is not escapist worship.
It is defiant worship.
It names what’s true, even
when the world denies it.
It says: love is stronger than death;
grace is greater than empire;
God’s future is not cancelled
by human fear.
What John gives us in this
heavenly scene
is not an escape from reality,
but a reorientation toward it.
Worship in Revelation is not
about leaving the world behind;
it is about seeing the world
truthfully,
from heaven’s point of view.
Every image John paints,
the throne, the elders, the
living creatures, the unending song,
is a challenge to the false
worship of empire.
Rome’s cities were full of
temples, processions, and imperial hymns.
Caesar was hailed as “lord”
and “saviour,”
his image printed
on every coin,
his name sung in the
marketplace.
Worship of the emperor wasn’t
just religion;
it was public order.
It told people who mattered and
who didn’t,
who held power and who must
obey.
And into that world, John dares
to imagine a different liturgy.
The throne of heaven is not
occupied by Caesar but by the Creator.
The one who receives honour is
not the conqueror but the crucified.
The song of the empire which sang the refrain: “Who is like the beast?”
is drowned out by the song of
heaven as angels sing: “Worthy is the Lamb.”
This is why worship is at the
heart of resistance.
Every time the church gathers
to sing, to pray, to break bread,
it rehearses
another story.
It trains our imagination to
see the Lamb at the centre,
not the emperor on
the throne.
Worship, in that sense, is
deeply political.
Not because it belongs to a
party,
but because it shapes a people
who refuse to be shaped by empire.
In worship we are re-formed,
our desires, our loyalties,
our vision of what is possible.
And the more we see the world
through the Lamb’s eyes,
the more we can live as
witnesses to his peace and justice in the midst of it.
Revelation’s worship scenes are
not interruptions in the action,
they are the action.
They remind us that the world is changed not by fear, but by wonder;
not by coercion, but by
praise.
The song of heaven becomes the
engine of history,
the soundtrack of God’s new
creation breaking in even now.
This is why Revelation ends not
with destruction, but with a vision of renewal,
the New Jerusalem, the river
of life, the healing of the nations.
The Lamb who was slain is the one who makes all things new.
Bringing it Home: The Lamb’s
Way in Our Time
So what does this mean for us
here, in Mill Hill East, in 2025?
It means that Revelation is not
about guessing the end,
but about living in the middle:
faithfully, truthfully, compassionately.
It means recognising that the
powers of empire still exist,
not in marble palaces, but in
economic systems, in media narratives,
and in ideologies that promise
peace without justice
and prosperity
without love.
When Revelation speaks of
“Babylon” and “the beast,”
it’s tempting to imagine
something safely distant,
some long-gone empire or
future tyrant.
But John’s genius is to
describe empire in symbols that travel through time.
Babylon is every system that
worships wealth and crushes the poor.
The beast is every ideology
that demands allegiance to fear.
And the false prophet is every
voice that baptises injustice with pious words.
That’s why Revelation still
matters.
Because empire is not just a
political structure; it’s a spirituality.
It is the worship of what
isn’t God.
It thrives wherever power is
worshipped,
wherever human life is treated
as expendable,
wherever creation is exploited
for profit,
wherever truth itself becomes
a casualty of propaganda.
We see it when refugees are
dehumanised in the name of security,
when the poor are blamed for
their poverty,
when the earth is plundered as
though it were disposable,
when the language of faith is
twisted to justify violence.
Revelation doesn’t ask us to
decode these things into prophecy charts.
It asks us to see, and to see clearly,
to see courageously, to see
compassionately.
Because once we see empire for what it is,
we can begin to live
differently within it.
And this is where mission comes
in.
To follow the Lamb is not
simply to critique empire;
it is to embody an
alternative.
The church’s calling is to be a living contradiction to the world’s logic,
a community where power is
shared,
where wealth is
held lightly,
where strangers are welcomed,
and where
forgiveness is stronger than fear.
When John says the Lamb has
made us “a kingdom of priests,”
he means precisely this:
that the church’s worship and the church’s justice are the same act.
Every Eucharist, every shared
meal,
every act of mercy is a small
rebellion against Babylon,
a proclamation that another
kingdom is already among us.
So if Revelation feels
political, that’s because it is.
But it’s not the politics of
party or ideology;
it’s the politics of love.
It’s the vision of a world reordered around the Lamb
who reigns through self-giving
grace.
This is what it means to live
apocalyptically,
to see through the glitter of
empire
and to live as if the kingdom of God were already here,
because in Christ, it is.
And it means that the church’s
mission, your mission,
is to reveal a different way
of being human:
the way of the Lamb.
Whenever you choose
understanding over prejudice,
generosity over greed, truth
over fear,
you bear witness that the Lamb still reigns.
That is Revelation’s
Christology in action:
not speculative prophecy, but
practical discipleship.
Conclusion
So today, as we join that
heavenly chorus,
remember what John saw:
At the centre of everything, of
heaven and earth, of history and hope,
stands a Lamb, still bearing
his wounds, still reigning in love.
The future of the world is not
in the hands of the powerful,
but in the hands of the
crucified and risen Christ.
And because that’s true, we can
live with courage,
serve with hope, and love
without fear.
To the one who sits on the
throne, and to the Lamb,
be blessing and honour and
glory and power,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
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