Over the last decade, I’ve spent many hours participating in endurance activities. I’ve run marathons, I ran a fifty-mile ultramarathon, I’ve cycled. I also finished three degrees—the overlap between an ultramarathon and a Ph.D. is surprisingly significant!
Ever since I was younger, I’ve been fascinated by endurance. It’s mesmerizing to watch humans push themselves to the limits of simply sticking it out. On a personal level, it’s extremely rewarding to push oneself to new levels, levels previously thought unattainable. I remember, during my first marathon, thinking, “There’s no way I can make it 26.2 miles!” Within five years of that experience, I ran 30 miles on multiple occasions in preparation for the 50 I would soon run. Surprisingly to me, 30 miles was the longest training run before 50. On the day of the 50, I was terrified. 30 hurts really bad; how in the world can I do that plus 20 more? It happened. I hurt; I didn’t run spectacularly. But I finished. I was more surprised than anyone.
Turns out, humans often don’t give themselves enough credit for their endurance ability. In most cases, our brain is the one tricking us; our bodies are often capable.
I’m currently reading through Revelation. I’ve come to love that book. When I first started actively exploring my faith, I was beguiled by the pop-theologians who make bank on end-of-the-world hysteria. People like talking about the end of the world. Always have, always will. These people often make much use of Revelation. Naturally, then, I was interested in this White-album-era-Beatles-esque book of scripture.
Turns out, those people often mislead—sometimes intentionally, but often unintentionally. They mislead usually because they’ve failed to respect what Revelation is. They’ve assumed it’s a newspaper-like account of what’s going to happen at the end of the world. In other words, they’ve failed to grasp the genre of Revelation.
In a class I teach, I illustrate the point by talking about how people today fail to understand or appreciate the genre of satire. They do this in a couple ways.
First, they read satire, and then respond, “That’s so offensive! I don’t like that!” That’s the whole point of satire! It’s supposed to offend you so that you will see how something you may have treated as acceptable perhaps should offend you.
Second, they fail to see that satire is not “real.” They read something that is satire, and assume it’s journalistic fact. My favorite example: Kim Jong Un, Sexiest Man Alive. This article, produced by the indelible Onion, was mistaken by a few sources in China and North Korea for real news. They proudly touted how Americans celebrated the tyrannical dictator.
Revelation represents a genre that most of us today are not familiar with: apocalypse. You and I have used that word many times—often involving zombies. When we use the word, we have in mind the end of the world. But this is a misreading of the genre. As New Testament scholar N. T. Wright puts it, “The metaphorical language of apocalypse invests history with theological meaning” (The New Testament and the People of God, p. 284). The word apocalypse means “uncovering, revealing”—hence the book’s standard name, Revelation. The point of the book is to reveal something about the way the world really is by clothing events in metaphorical, dramatic language and imagery. The goal is always to show that things going on in the world might not be as they first appear.
The point is this: in an ironic turn, the book of Revelation has often been assumed to be (a) about the end of the world and (b) how people can escape it, when in reality it’s actually (a) about the world as it is and (b) how God’s faithful, who are being persecuted for their faith, can endure it. The goal is to “pull the curtain back,” so to speak, to show that what seems to be going on in the world isn’t the whole story of what’s really going on.
Which brings me to the point of this blog post: if you read the book, you’ll likely become aware that the word endure is a key word. The writer intends not to give his audience hope of escape from some cataclysmic end of the world. Instead, he’s writing to them to encourage them in the midst of what they are experiencing that, despite what they might think, God is faithful, Jesus—not Caesar—is Lord, and their suffering isn’t a sign of weak faith but is rather a sign of strong faith. And thereby they are encourage to endure what they are experiencing.
In ch. 13, the infamous beast and his 666 show up. Here are verses 9–10:
Whoever has ears must listen: If any are to be taken captive, then into captivity they will go. If any are to be killed by the sword, then by the sword they will be killed. This calls for endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints. (emphasis added)
For some time, I’ve seen Christians in the U.S.A. assume a position of strength. They’ve gladly welcomed the payoff of having a predominately Christian culture, one that (thankfully!) prevents such things as being taken into captivity of being killed by the sword, for the most part. However, when that cultural heritage begins to chip away, I’ve seen many Christians assume that the response should be one of strength or power: we should flex our muscles to overcome the challenge.
I wonder whether a more appropriate, and more biblical, response would be to develop our endurance—to recognize that we will find ourselves at odds with the beast and its minions, and that the way to conquer is simply to endure. At the foundation is theology: does one’s view of God require that things go well, or can one’s view of God sustain through times when the world, on the surface, seems to suggest that Jesus is not, after all, Lord?
The book is oriented around a vision of Jesus himself as model and source. And remember, Jesus is the one who sounded like a roaring, conquering lion at first, but who, when viewed by John, turned out to be a slain lamb.