A lot of people find Revelation to be a weird book of the Bible. A lot of Revelation is weird. There are two things I love about Revelation. The first is that it is a message of hope. There is a lot of imagery about destruction and scary things: the beast, the lake of fire, Two-thirds of the earth being destroyed at a time. But through it all, the message is one of hope for the other third. The other thing I love is images of worship in Revelation.
The passage from yesterday shows the 24 elders and a great multitude praising and worship God. A voice from the throne calls them to Praise God, and the response sounds like thunderpeals. I love that this implies that the multitude is so large that there is an acoustic time delay from the front to the back. I love the image of all those people loving God adn Praising God in song together. The reason for all this joy is "the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready." The bride's fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. The bride of the Lamb, the bride of Christ is the church.
Today's passage says "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!" That's us! This joyous moment of eschatological worship projects itself back in time to our worship. We gather in the unity of our baptism as the one church, the bride of Christ. Christ joins us in worship and we enjoy his presence with us. The bride and the bridegroom are made one, and we are one in Christ. Amen. Halelujah! Worship God.
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