Photos by John Keatley
Last year, one Chapel series spent 10 weeks discussing the Book of Revelation. Bob Zurinsky, Assistant Director of the Center for Worship, admits that he saw a lot of raised eyebrows from people across campus before the series started. “The Book of Revelation has a long history of confusion and mystery surrounding it,” he says. “But the book can become a great source of hope and life for the community who follows Jesus. I feel like the series brought confidence in the text.”
Fresh Revelation
What happens when an ex-Revelation geek spends a quarter in the text?
The Book of Revelation was a big part of my church experience growing up. At the time, the Christian world was set on fire by a fiction series focused on the end times, and my church was no exception. I desperately wanted to know why everyone was so excited, so when I found a copy of one of the books on my dad’s desk, I immediately dove in. After only a few chapters, I was hooked. For the next 10 years or so, I went to Bible studies, read articles, went to conferences , and watched documentaries about Revelation. I wasn’t all that interested in Revelation as Scripture, in the thematic messages that John was presenting, or in the literary techniques he was employing. I just wanted explosions. Some people got really into Star Trek or Star Wars or those Final Fantasy video games, but for me, I was a pretty big Revelation geek.
I never learned the book’s deeper meanings. I spent all my time trying to decode it, to decipher it, and I missed the point. By the time I came to college, I had rejected the special-effects interpretation of Revelation, but I didn’t see the point of reading it — so I didn’t.
When I heard that we’d be studying Revelation for a quarter in chapel at Seattle Pacific University, I was thrilled. Finally, I thought, all my reading and learning will pay off, and people will get to see my intellectual might. As I started to engage the text afresh, though, I began seeing the book in a different light. I had always been very comfortable with the Jesus of the Gospels, a carpenter from Nazareth who walked on water, raised the dead, and died so that I could find forgiveness. But now, he looked different.
Gone was the dusty carpenter with kind eyes and calloused hands, and in his place was a radiant God whose face shone like the sun, his eyes crackling with unbridled power, his voice thundering so forcefully that it seemed the universe might rend at the seams. Here now was Jesus the Deity, the God-man for whom all of creation cried out, the one who could set us free. Somehow, I hadn’t seen the power of this image until then.
I now saw Christ, clothed in the colors of royalty, boldly asserting his authority over all creation, and I finally understood the depth of his might. I continued reading, excited to see how this new picture would influence the rest of the story. As I pressed forward, reading more about Jesus, I found him to be different again. Now he was described as a slaughtered lamb, an innocent man, willingly led to a torturous execution. As I read this, I finally began to understand what Revelation was trying to show me.
I had always known that Jesus the carpenter, “humbled himself to death, even death on the cross” (Philippians 2:8), so that we might have a chance at redemption. But now I saw that Christ didn’t just sacrifice his human life. He didn’t just endure human anguish, because he wasn’t just a human. He gave up his splendor, his glory, his everything to present us with a choice. And that is what Revelation was showing me. That Christ’s love is so great that he became nothing so that we could taste redemption.
I’ll take that over special effects any day.
Josh Norquist is a junior majoring in both business administration and economics. You can also see him on Tuesday mornings, playing bass at chapel.
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