I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.
~Eric Liddell
After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And He who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who is seated on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and for your pleasure they were created.”
~ from Revelation 4
Oh beloved, it is true. There are parts of the story that are harder to believe than others. And this one is a doozy. There is within us a “stuffiness” and “churchiness” in our perception of the One who we worship (and He is altogether worthy of all worship). The problem is that our perception has been misguided by our finiteness and the system in which we live. For the cosmos of this world is designed only to get us to look away from G_d, or at least to distort our perception of Him.
And distort it, it has.
G_d, as described in His Word, is wholly other than anything, or any art, or any words can really describe. Because any finite tool falls short of describing the Infinite. The only thing words can do is scribble some sort of rough outline of His astounding reality.
And in reading passages like the one in Revelation, if we are not tempted to bow in adoration (go ahead and do it now if you please), or to scream out in astonished gasps of worship and praise, or to begin to feel the edges of our intellect come undone in the torrent of the reality we begin to see in our spirit – we are missing what the words are trying (and still failing) to communicate.
There is One who is on the throne of all creation. And no one will ever – EVER – take His authority to sit on that throne away. And in this place, it seems that John is seeing the confluence of infinity and the universe. This rainbow seems to be the event horizon of reality as we know it. Existence itself falters and shatters and explodes in a beautiful spray of verdant green light as it both falls into and flees from the Locus of the Presence of the One on the throne. Surely, the aspects of light and beauty seen in this scene are not like ribbons or bows wrapped around a really beautiful chair. They are epic, beyond-language manifestations of His power, and goodness and mercy.
Even those who are able to dwell in such goodness are simply overcome with a sense of profound worship and wholeness and sureness as to Whose presence they are in. These are epic ultra-beings with power and magnificence, that in their own right, would cause us to drop in fear and the temptation to cry out in worship.
The foreverness
The neverendingness
The manifold wisdom
The power
The glory
The strength
The reality
The honor
The virtue
The beauty
… of all of this is not something that anyone with an ounce of humility would even attempt to describe unless prompted by the One who is there to do it (as John did). The scene is not a movie or epic tale, it is the reality of the centrality of Him who was, and is, and is to come.
Worship Him beloved. He is worthy.
And then comes the part that is really hard for us to comprehend. We just can’t get it in our own strength. We need to be completely in the Spirit to even begin to grab ahold of this. This same One, this One who is forever, is a Person. He is not some model or machine or statue or thing. He is the One in whose image we have been created. And then it gets even harder to fully understand.
G_d enjoys things. G_d likes to party. G_d takes pleasure – in you. And no, do not get some picture of some goof sitting on a barstool laughing over a beer (for this is just a distortion manifested by the cosmotic milieu we currently inhabit). No, G_d likes pleasure in its fullest and most real sense. He does not comfort Himself with something that distracts Him from His pain. He fully inhabits and rejoices in the places where His Love grows and heals and builds communion.
That would be you beloved.
Can we see it? We were created as vessels of His Great Love and mercy. This we almost get, in some theological sense. But do we understand that, as sex portrays a shadow of the deep intimacy of one moving deeply and pleasurably within another willing to receive, G_d is experiencing the pleasure of having all of Himself move within the entire person who has received His Love. His pleasure of bringing new Life to another, and to experience the joy of seeing His new creation go from glory to glory and strength to strength forever – and for this same life to begin to understand what he or she is receiving – must be an experience so exquisite that only the Infinite could handle and appreciate the delight.
Does this fool of writer fully understand what He is writing? Not even close. But this i know. G_d is moving within one formerly-dead man, and the pleasure of sensing His pleasure in me; His delight in me – and the intimate growing friendship we share – is a reality. The knowing Him. The sureness in His goodness is source of strength which drives me, no, compels me to share who He is with others. For i would give everything if everyone could have but a moment of the eternity He has shared with me.
Tonight is the night beloved. Let Him have you. Let Him have His way. Be who you have been designed to be: His, to have His with you and to enjoy you, forever.
