Look Up!

There is something in the air that reminds me of March 2020. Is it just the warmer temperatures, the swaying daffodils and the boldest bees? No, something more sinister. The war in Iran has made oil so dear that organisations are already suggesting that employees work from home. Furthermore, as meningitis breaks out in Kent, long queues of worried people await vaccines. Sound familiar? It is easy, of course, to be a doomsday prophet and then quietly forget all about it when normality returns. Yet this sense of growing panic is in the media, which then infects the people.

In last week’s evening Bible Study, we considered Revelation chapter 4, the wonderfully sublime depiction of the magnificent heavenly throneroom. John’s vocabulary was too limited to fully describe the wonders he saw, though I suspect any language, human or angelic, would be found wanting. The scene comes between the letters to the churches and the weird and wonderful shenanigans of beasts, harlots and dragons which characterises the book’s middle. It is a reminder to the seven churches’ leaders that the Glorious Being on the throne is the One whom they serve and for whose glory they operate; it is a reminder to folk on the earth who witness and suffer the apparent triumph of evil that the greatest throne is still occupied, and the One upon it is about to rise.

So look neither down nor across, but look up: God is still on the throne!

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. Luke 21:28

Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Psalm 45:6

Photo: Caleb Platillero, used with permission.

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