A Mystical Vision of Jesus
Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter
During the Easter season, which lasts for seven weeks, literally a week of Sundays, the Church sets aside the usual format for the Lectionary for Sunday Mass. During this season we will not hear any readings from the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament. The first reading will be taken from the Acts of the Apostles, and during the C cycle the second reading will come from the final book of the Bible; namely, the Book of Revelation.
Any person who has experience with literature – novels, plays, or poems – knows that the end of the novel or the end of the play or the end of the poem usually reveals the most important part or message of the author. You might say that the Book of Revelation is the climax of the Christian Scriptures. As the church was compiling the various Gospels and letters that would become the New Testament, it deliberately placed in this book at the end. The word “Revelation” means “unveiling.” It comes from Latin and refers to the removal of the “velum” and might actually be referring to the fact that on Good Friday the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the people in the temple was torn in two. The Greek word or name for this book is “apocalypsis,” which means exactly the same thing as Revelation - the removal of the “calypsis” or veil. So the question becomes, just what is being revealed or unveiled in this book of the Bible.
Anyone who has read the Book of Revelation knows that it is filled with frightening and stormy images. For years we have read this book thinking that it speaks of the end of the world. If that were true, then the book of Revelation would be relevant for only one generation; namely, the last generation of people to live on this earth. However, no book of the Bible is irrelevant for the people who are reading it. The storms and turmoil which are depicted in this book present an image from Greek philosophy. It speaks of what happens when the old world confronts a new world, when an old culture confronts a new culture. We know that the Resurrection of Jesus brought about a whole new world order, a whole new way of looking at the world. The Resurrection of Jesus has changed everything.
The author of the book tells us that he is living on the island of Patmos because he has proclaimed God’s word and given testimony to Jesus. Patmos was a penal island off the coast of Turkey where Rome exiled its dangerous criminals. Rome understood the danger that the new Christian culture was introducing into the world. And so this man who tells us his name is John has been placed in this penal colony. He tells us that on the Lord’s Day, Sunday, the day when Christians gathered to remember the Resurrection of Jesus and to praise God, he was caught up in spirit and entered a mystical vision. He saw seven lampstands and the man in an ankle-length robe with a gold band over his chest. Some scholars refer to the seven lampstands as the seven planets that circled the sun with the earth. The man in an ankle-length robe is clad as a priest of the temple and as a king, signified by the gold sash over his chest. He calls himself the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, who was dead but is now alive. In other words he identifies himself as Jesus risen from the dead.
He greets the seer in the same words with which he greeted the apostles on that first Resurrection Day, “Do not be afraid!” We have heard this admonition no fewer than 365 times throughout the Scriptures. He then tells the man to write down what he sees. The result of that writing is the Book of Revelation. During the rest of the Easter Season, the meaning of the Resurrection and the change in the world order will be unveiled for us. Rather than frightening us about a time in the future, it will rather tell us of the time that the early Christians suffered through at the hands of the Roman Empire. The message that comes to us is the same message that comes from all apocalyptic literature; namely, God will prevail. The victory has been won. Death is vanquished forever. Easter, the Resurrection of the Lord, has brought about a new world and a new culture.
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