Readings: ​Revelation 21:1-6, 10-14, 21-27, 22:1-5, 12-14, 17, Secrets of Heaven #5608[9]
(see below)
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Photo by KS KYUNG on Unsplash

Welcome, friends, to our final installment in our series on the Book of Revelation. Today we have reached the end of the book, and not only that, but the end of the entire Bible. The culmination of the sacred text of our tradition of Christianity is the image of the New Jerusalem. It is a richly detailed and inspiring image that bookends a motley collection of narratives from different periods of history, that pulls together the strands of all these stories of human spirituality into one image that is, in the words of my colleague Rev. Sage Cole, a “symbol of a renewed individual and collective life.”

The bible has the story of humanity metaphorically begin in the Garden of Eden. We exist there, at first, in innocence, deeply connected with God, with nature, and with life itself. But then, there is the famous story of The Fall, where the first humans eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. They are no longer automatically innocent and connected, and must leave the garden to discover the trajectory of their own life. The rest of the bible is the necessary stories of our human spiritual development, showcasing all the different kinds of obstacles and triumphs we will encounter on our journey. Indeed, the Book of Revelation takes its part in that parade, revealing to us in particular the kinds of challenges humanity has regarding tools of domination, structures of power, and how we wish to wield them against each other. 

And yet, at the end of it, here in the Holy City, what do we find? We find the Tree of Life, once again, just as in the Garden of Eden. We have taken a journey and it has brought us back around to where we were at the beginning. But are we the same people that we were at the beginning? No, we are not. If we have taken the journey of life with intention, curiousity, and commitment, we find that we are transformed, we are spiritually regenerated. We can enter the Holy City, leaving behind what we no longer need and what no longer serves.

One way that Swedenborg describes this journey is using the idea of innocence, which we might think of as an innate sense of trust. We are all born into our own state of Eden, which Swedenborg describes as the “innocence of ignorance.” Which sounds a little bit like shade, but it is really not. For what *are* we ignorant of in those days, as tiny infants? We are ignorant of the whole notion of separation, of domination. We are ignorant of boredom, self-doubt, ? We are ignorant of all the intricate structures that human beings erect, in our hearts and minds and literally in the world, to try to prove we are better than others, that we are more deserving, that we are more worthy.

And what do we innately *know* in those days? We know that we are loved, cherished, and fed. We sleep when we need to. We cry when we are sad. And while we love our parent’s faces especially, every face is a new and compelling adventure. Our connection with our caregivers, and through them, the world, is unquestioned and automatic. Swedenborg tells us that infants and very young children are deeply connected to and surrounded by the highest angels, which is why I suspect our souls are deeply quieted in the presence of a newborn.

And yet, this was never to be our end point. As we grow, we are cast out of that state of innocence. We begin to understand we are separate from everyone else, and that we have our own personal identity. Connection with others is often no longer assumed, we must chose it, we must do the work that creates it, we must nurture it, we must be accountable to it. We start to experience questions around who we are, who others are, why this has all come into being. We are tempted to believe we can and must control, or dominate, or manipulate what is outside of us, to create peace inside of us. If we allow it, we are guided towards compassion, understanding, and growth. And thus, we are on our individual journey towards the Holy City, one that will eventually bring us *back* to connection, belonging, and wholeness but in a way that has allowed us to intentionally choose it and make it a part of ourselves. Swedenborg calls this state the “innocence of wisdom.” We return to a state of trust in God, trust in our connection with each other, but we do so because we have learned that it is what we want in our hearts, and we have learned ways to foster and nurture it. We step into the fulfilment of it (pictured by the Holy City), we take our place in this transformed reality that we have worked to bring into being, for ourselves and for each beloved child of God.

And as we observe the image of the Holy City in our text today, what does it tell us about what this transformed reality might look like?

We are first told that this city will be God’s dwelling place with the people, and crucially, that there will be no temple in the city. The tabernacle and then the temple are both incredibly important in the biblical narrative. They were both ways that God’s presence was made available to the Children, and then nation, of Israel. It was a part of the way that the one true steadfast God showed up for the people with whom God had made a covenant. God promised “this is where you can always always find me.” This was a very big deal, and an incredible act of love on the part of God. But it also, over time, became a way that God’s presence was withheld or at least mediated by those in power, a very human tendency in any tradition. So God chose a radical new vessel of presence: Jesus. The gospel of John even uses a very particular word in his prologue to describe this. He says essentially that in Jesus, God was “tabernacling” with humanity. God was pitching God’s tent with God’s people but in a new way: in the body of human being.

But Jesus could not stay with us indefinitely. So now, the “vessel” of God’s presence with us will be the Holy City New Jerusalem, and it must be built by us in partnership with God. The vessel of God’s presence with us is our transformed hearts and minds. The vessel of God’s presence with us is our transformed world. God everywhere and with everyone who makes space for the divine.

What else will this look like? 

The city has twelve gates, which tells us there are multiple ways to enter. And yet, there are also walls, boundaries to remind us that while all people are welcome, not all behaviors are welcome. The text tells us that Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful (21:27). We should be careful here, for this observation should not prompt the question: what shall we guard against, all us pure and perfect people inside the city. No. It should prompt the question, what do I need to let go of to enter the city? What is no longer serving me? What is preventing me from loving others in the way that they need? What is causing me to harm others or myself and how can I stop? What idol has felt necessary to my psychological survival that is now ready to fall way? The walls are not for the purposes of gate-keeping but rather they a gift to us, an invitation to let go of what has been holding us back.

We are told the nations will enter, that “the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into [the city]” Individuality, uniqueness, diversity will be maintained, and not only tolerated but celebrated. Pluralism is a non-negotiable part of the Holy City, and a perspective of supremacy must be left at the gate, it cannot come in.

The streets are gold —valuable, durable, beautiful—but they are also somehow transparent. This seems to communicate that their value will not and cannot be co-opted to serve selfish interests, all such desire will be seen for what it is. The river of life flows through the city, life-giving water available to all, and more specifically, life-giving truth, clarity, and insight that refreshes and cleanses. Our transformed reality must be open to the flow of honesty and accountability, for when it is, it is open to growth.

And finally, we return to the Tree of Life, originally seen the the Garden of Eden, now in pride of place in the Holy City. This miracle tree bears fruit every month, an image of dedication to mutual love and service, the life-blood of a thriving and connected existence. The leaves of the tree, the insights grown within us from the flow of the river of life, they will heal us. Our transformed reality does not excise pieces of ourselves so that we might enter the city; instead our wounds, our misunderstandings, our mistakes, they will be healed, and we will be made whole.

These are just a few of the details we could dive into; there really is so much more to explore. But perhaps this all sounds too fantastical? What chance is there, truly, that this transformed reality might become real in our hearts and minds, and in our world? I don’t really know that answer to that. I cannot give you odds or a percentage likely for success.

What I do know, is that we can choose what we strive for. We have been given many images of harmony and transformation in the Bible, in other sacred texts, in literature, in media. We can draw something good from them all. I particularly like this one, and you may prefer another. This is okay. What matters is the spirit of what we are all striving for. What matters is that, for those of us who we believe in God, it is the kind of God who wants this vision for us, and crucially, wants it for everybody. For if we desire them, we will also find many images, many detailed visions, of exclusion, superiority, violence, and domination. The book of Revelation reveals them to us, as do our newsfeeds. But we do not need to choose them. We do not need to give them any of our precious energy, attention, or life. We can build something better. And we will. So my friends, let us begin, or rather, let us continue. Let us continue to build the holy city stone by stone, adding to each stone laid by those steadfast souls who have come before.

Amen.

Readings:

Revelation 21: 1-6, 10-14, 22:1-5, 12-14, 17

1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.


10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.
12 It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west.
14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.


21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.
22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.
25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.
26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.
27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.


22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.
4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light…


12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.
13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.


17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

Secrets of Heaven #5608[9]
As regards the innocence present in young children, this is solely external, not internal; and because it is not internal it cannot be linked to any wisdom and exist together with it. But the innocence in angels, especially in those of the third heaven, is internal, and so exists joined to wisdom. Furthermore the human being has been created in such a way that when he grows old and becomes like a young child, the innocence of wisdom links itself to the innocence of ignorance that had been his when he was a young child, and in this condition, as a true young child, he passes over into the next life.

Readings: Revelation 13:1-8, 10-14, 19:11-16, 19-20,  Apocalypse Revealed #820 (see below)
See also on Youtube
Photo by Sam Ferrara on Unsplash

Hello friends, and welcome to the second to last installment in our series on the book of Revelation. We are moving at lightning speed through these last chapters, with a focus today on the figure of the beast, who is handmaiden to the dragon from last week, and the rider on the white horse who will eventually vanquish him.

Last week we spent some time with the woman clothed with the sun and the red dragon. In our tradition, the woman represents a new way of being church that is centered in love, and wisdom drawn from love, while the dragon represents a way of being church that wants to get away with being selfish and justify it through an empty faith.

And so, we left off with the dragon enraged at being unable to destroy the woman and her child, and so he decides to wage war with the people of the earth. He does so by giving his authority to two beasts, one from the sea, and one from the earth. The beasts utter “proud words and blasphemies” and the people of world worship them and follow them. 

If the dragon represents an end-justifies-the-means kind of ideology, whether in religous or secular thinking, the beast represents the tools, the systems of domination, that the dragon employs. The text tells us that: The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. When we are certain that are right, when we are so certain that our chosen belief justifies anything we might do, what are the tools we might choose? How do systems of domination *do* their work of domination? Through propaganda, disinformation, manipulation. Though institutional disenfranchisement of minorities, though scape-goating the vulnerable, to name just a few ways. And most certainly, through violence, and the threat of violence.

Due to current events, I’m sure we may thinking of war today, and the way that war is used as a tool of domination. It is not my place to analyse the geo-politics of war, and I’m not qualified to do so even if it was. And while the question of “Can war ever be just?” *is* a very important question, it is not the question the text is foregrounding for us today. The text is asking us to look at tools of domination when they are employed and to see them for what they are. To see the Beast clearly, to know that human beings will very easily worship anything that tells them they are, or should be, “winning” over and against another.

And, you can’t get to worship of the Beast, without a whole lot of blasphemy. So, let me explain. We are told multiple times in the text of the beast’s blasphemy. Each head had a blasphemous name, he uttered proud words and blasphemy, it opened its mouth to blaspheme God. Blasphemy sounds so archaic as a word to us now, but as an idea, as a human tendency, it couldn’t be more present to us. It simply means to act in a way that is disrespectful towards God, and more specifically, disrespectful towards God’s character. It is a kind of willful misuse and misappropriation of someone else’s —God’s— legacy and ethos to serve our own agenda. It is “using” God to serve our own purposes.

A simple form of blasphemy is taking the Lord’s name in vain. When we do so, we are using, or borrowing in a sense, the import of God’s name to amplify the import of something we are experiencing. We might do so carelessly, and that’s really not such a big deal, we might do so intentionally, and that’s a bit worse. But the key to our understanding here is that true blasphemy is not about saying “Oh my God” in a moment of surprise or consternation, it is the practice of invoking the name of God to justify something that we know God would never support. Using God to justify Christian nationalism, using God to justify demonizing immigrants or disenfranchising the poor, using God to justify war, racism, transphobia, and more.

Nothing could be more disrespectful of God than willfully misunderstanding and ignoring God’s own essential command to love our neighbor, while still using God’s name to justify whatever cruelty we wish. In response to this misappropriation, God isn’t “offended” in the human way we might imagine it; God does not mirror the human ego. God is instead deeply saddened by it. God tells us to love a higher power and to love our neighbor not because God is gratified by telling us what to do and seeing us do it. God tells us this because it is the best way for humanity to be happy. Blasphemy hurts *us* in a two-fold way, not only because it is wrong on the facts of what will ultimately foster human happiness but because of the way we also delude ourselves into thinking that we are right - which puts us two full degrees away from the actual truth. 

This is why we need to be highly skeptical of anyone who claims to know “God’s Divine Plan,” and in particular anyone who uses the Book of Revelation to say that they know what is going to happen in the future, or worse, uses the book as justification for trying to make the events in it happen, to usher in the second coming of Christ. This is a dangerous misuse of the text and it leads to the sanctification of violence.

That is not what the Book of Revelation was written for. It was never about predicting the future but rather revealing the truth about God, humanity and systems of domination. In the words of Benjamin Cremer: “It pulls back the curtain on earthly empires and names them for what they are: beastly.” It spoke powerfully to the people in John of Patmos’ day because they saw the tools of domination being employed by the empire of Rome. The themes will speak to us similarly today because of the ways we might see tools of domination being employed in our circumstances. 

Yet, the book does not only speak of tools of domination. It also speaks to their ultimate emptiness. Which brings us to the second half of our text for today: the rider on the white horse. A rider called Faithful and True and who acts with justice, supported by a heavenly army. They capture the beast and throw him into a lake of fiery sulphur.

This figure of the rider is traditionally understood to represent Jesus Christ, his cloak dipped in his own blood as a sign of his sacrificial love for humanity. Swedenborg sharpens that representation even further. We might remember the figure of God that John encountered in our first week of this series; the rider today *also* has eyes of blazing fire, representing divine love, and a sharp sword coming out of his mouth, representing divine truth. Further, as we heard in our reading, the white horse represents a spiritual (deeper) understanding of God’s Word, which is the complete opposite of the blasphemy of the Beast, which tries to use God’s Word for its own purposes.

This white horse is the animal we must ride, the conveyance we must use to further our own thinking and action in this world. For, a deep understanding of God’s Word will always lead us away from the tools of domination used by the Beast. This is how we will know if we are reading it rightly, this is our compass. Are we being led away from us-vs-them thinking, are we being led away from right-makes-might ideologies, and are we being led towards caring for our neighbor and beloved community for all?

In the words of Cremer again: Victory in Revelation does not come through superior violence. It comes through faithful witness, sacrificial love, and divine judgment enacted by truth itself. The conquering Messiah conquers as the slain Lamb, not as a beast.

Here we encounter echoes of Palm Sunday, which we will celebrate in just a few weeks, with Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a humble donkey, rather than a war horse. 

We are currently governed by an administration who sees force and power as the ultimate currency, and seems to care little for the suffering that the use of this power might cause, whether that be civilian casualties in a war of choice, immigrants held in inhuman conditions, citizens killed on the street for trying to protect the vulnerable. Earthly empire is beastly, in all its forms, full stop. 

And any individual heart can be full of empire too. Anytime we have been tempted to say “it's my way or the highway” that is the beast. Anytime we have been tempted to use power and privilege for self-dealing, self-aggrandizement, self-centering, that is the beast. Revelation lifts up these images for us so that we might be vigilant against the Beast’s deceptive siren call in all things. The good news is that God has given us another way. Pictured in the multitude of all nations, pictured in the woman clothed with the sun and her protections, pictured in the rider on the white horse and his angel army, pictured in the New Jerusalem just around the corner, we have been given visions of what a heavenly future in our life and in our world might look like. We can’t choose between options that we can’t fully see. So today we see The Beast and we commit ourselves not to look away. And then, we choose differently. We choose to not to worship empire, or to become like it. We choose the peace that comes through the sacrifice of ego, curiosity around difference, care for our neighbor. These are not always easy choices. But they are the right ones.

Amen.

Readings:

Revelation 13:1-8, 10-14, 19:11-16, 19-20

1 The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.
2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.
3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.
4 People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”
5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months.
6 It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.
7 It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.
8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. 


10b This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.
11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon.
12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.
13 And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people.
14 Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.


19:11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war.
12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.
13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.
14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.
16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.


19 Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army.
20 But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

Apocalypse Revealed #820

19:11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. This symbolizes the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord and the deeper meaning of the Word thereby disclosed, which is the coming of the Lord.

Seeing heaven opened symbolizes a revelation by the Lord and a disclosure then, which we will take up below. A horse symbolizes an understanding of the Word, and a white horse a deeper understanding (no. 298). And because this is the symbolic meaning of a white horse, and a deeper understanding of the Word is an understanding of the spiritual sense, therefore that sense is here symbolized by the white horse.

Readings: Revelation 12:1-17, Apocalypse Revealed #561 (see below)
See also on Youtube
Photo by Emanuela Meli on Unsplash


Welcome, my friends, to our continuing series on the book of Revelation. Today we explore the story of the Woman Clothed with the Sun and the Great Red Dragon. While this may be a somewhat obscure passage for most, it has always been a beloved story in our tradition, for the ways that it speaks of God’s provision for humanity. It explores the power of self-delusion and self-centeredness while also speaking powerfully about God’s protection. It is once again a wonderful text for Lent, prompting us to notice where the red dragon might be showing up in our lives and in our world, while also grounding us in a vision of the way that our own, and humanity’s, spirituality is always growing.

In our text today, we are introduced to a pregnant woman who is “clothed with the sun.” In our tradition, we understand the woman to represent a new spiritual consciousness for human beings that is anchored in the Divine Love of God, pictured by being “clothed with the sun.” The child that this woman gives birth to is all the new thinking that this new consciousness might birth, new ways to honor and embody God’s love in our perspectives and ideas.

And as we have come to see over these weeks, the book of Revelation has many levels of meaning. Swedenborg liked to view it in particular through the lens of the religious institutions of his day and their predominant theologies. Which surprisingly, 270 years later, is still a pretty helpful lens. He likened the dragon to a particular theology known as Faith Alone. This is a Reformation theology about salvation that states that since our motivations will likely always be self-serving, what we “do” cannot and does not contribute to our salvation because our actions can never be pure. Only belief in Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross can be pure, and therefore, it is this belief that actually saves us. What we *do* doesn’t really matter. Yes, there is a caveat that if our belief is real, we will act with charity and kindness, but for some that becomes just an afterthought.

Because, as Swedenborg observed, this theological formulation has a loophold so big you can drive a truck through it. What happens when you think faith is the only thing you need? What is the very next step for a self-centering person who thinks they are saved by what they believe, and that only? They jettison charity, kindness, and love, as superfluous. Swedenborg saw this again and again in his own religous context and we still see it in ours. Especially right now, with the rise of Christian nationalism.

It is no surprise that, for people who have stopped going to church, that the number one reason they cite is the hypocrisy of Christians. The fact that Christians claim to believe in the love and grace of Jesus, glorify the life of one who gave such a loving sacrifice, who called us to love our neighbor and showed us how to do that, and then basically ignore everything that Jesus said that doesn’t specificially serve them. I do not blame anyone for rejecting Christianity in the face of such hypocrisy.

For we are constantly seeing evangelical church leaders and political figures proclaiming faith and then supporting cruelty towards the most vulnerable in our society. In Swedenborg’s phrasing, they are practicing “faith divorced from charity” and this is pictured in the red dragon. The red dragon who wants to devour and destroy all the goodness that comes from seeing God as love rather than judgment, believing in a God who loves everyone, not just Christians, standing for a God who is in everyone’s corner, especially the least, the lost, and the left behind.

Because, as Swedenborg repeatedly wrote, there really isn’t any point to belief divorced from caring about others. There is no other reason for religious “belief” apart from caring about others. God doesn’t want us to have an abstracted faith. That’s just playing around with ideas. And look, I love to play around with ideas. It’s so fun. But faith is not actually supposed to be like a game. It is supposed to be for the purpose of helping us become more loving. That’s what religious belief of any kind is actually for. Not for getting us to heaven, not for letting us feel superior to others, definitely not for letting us demonize others, and not for manipulating others. 

And so, now we can fully appreciate the danger of the dragon, and the way that that kind of faith just wants to devour a spiritual consciousness oriented around love and caring for our neighbor. But today, I want to pivot away from the dragon for a moment. Never fear, we hear plenty of the dragon’s pernicousness with its handmaiden, the beast, next week. Today I want to rest in the elements of protection that we hear in the story. 

In the woman clothed with the sun, we have a beautiful and powerful depiction of what Swedenborg calls “the new church,” a way to be spiritual that centers love, practicing wisdom drawn from love. Our tradition is named after this “new church” but that doesn’t mean this way of being spiritual can definitley or only be found with us. It really can be found anywhere, because it is a provision of God for all humanity. We will hear more about the way this provision will be embodied on earth in our final sermon in this series, when we encounter the Holy City New Jerusalem. For right now, the woman depicts this “new church” in heaven, a potentiality that will always exist for human beings in God’s spiritual reality, what the bible called God’s kingdom. I think of it this way, that the new church has to actually exist first in heaven, so that we can draw from its power and make it real here on earth.

And so, our restfulness and hope can first be found in the image of the woman, and the way that God believes in our spiritual potential to grow and learn. God has provided us a spiritual power bank to draw from, a heaven full of angels cheering us on, and a vision of human community that is worth striving for.

Then, as we all work to birth our small piece of humanity’s new spiritual consciousness, we will encounter personal challenges, as depicted in the seven trumpets of last week. Birthing is hard work, as is spiritual growth. But as we persevere we will bring forth newness into our lives, precious new ways of thinking and loving. The dragon, all the cynical, power-hungry, self-centering aspects of our world wants to devour our precious new insights and transformations. Well, the dragon cannot have them. Because the story tells us that the woman’s child is “caught up to God.” If our new insights and transformations are anchored in the Divine Love and Wisdom of God, they are safe, because God is inexhaustible and utterly steadfast.

Next, the woman is given the wings of an eagle, which, as we heard in our readings, represents protection, insight, and foresight, from a higher place. When anchored in God’s divine love we will always be coming from a higher vision, a higher purpose, than the world can offer. When we let Divine Love guide our reflections, and our discernment, it will lead us more truly than the dragon ever could. Perhaps we could even call Lent our season of the eagle’s wings as we devote these pre-easter weeks to seeing the bigger picture of our lives and where we can adjust, improve, or heal.

Finally, as the dragon spews out a flood of water, a flood of false ideas, justifications, and disinformation, we find that the earth swallows the water, and once again the woman is protected. The falsity of the dragon comes to nothing when it is viewed according to its outcomes. The dragon will try everything to make us look away from the fruit of its pernicious ideology. It says: believe me and look at the power you will have, look at the superiority you will have, look at the freedom you will have.” But instead, if we look at the ends of the dragon’s work, it will always be full of cruelty, arrogance, incompetence and self-delusion. We are seeing this in our newsfeeds everyday. Instead, if we look to the outcomes guided by Divine Love and effected by Divine Wisdom, what do we see? We see all people cherished, held in dignity and love, and we see concrete actions designed to embody that truth. Actions that love and serve our neighbor have a concrete reality and goodness that make the dragon look pitiful and small, and shows its self-serving ideology to be nothing but smoke and mirrors. We know what is real, and we know what is truly powerful: mutual love practiced in community.

So, what will protect us from the dragon? Being caught up to God, being given wings of an eagle, and the earth swallowing the water. Which is: God’s Divine Love, intentional reflective practices, concrete loving action. Love, wisdom, and usefulness, the blessed trinity of God’s nature, and our own. This is what will protect us, and it is the most enduring and inviolable thing there is.

Amen.

Readings:

Revelation 12:1-17

1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.
4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.
5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was caught up to God and to his throne.
6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.
8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.
9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”
13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.
14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach.
15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.
16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.
17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.


Apocalypse Revealed #561

But the woman was given two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place. (12:14) This symbolizes the Divine vigilance for the New Church and protection while it was still among a few.

The woman symbolizes the New Church (no. 533). Wings symbolize power and protection (no. 245). An eagle symbolizes intellectual sight and the resulting thought (no. 245). To fly means, symbolically, to perceive and be watchful (no. 245). The wilderness symbolizes the church desolate and thus existing among a few (no. 546). Her place symbolizes its state there. It follows from this that the woman's being given two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, symbolizes the Divine vigilance for the New Church and protection while it was still among a few.