The Joy of Revelation VI. The Beatitudes - 5

Posted 2020 

1.     20:6 Blessed and holy is the one who takes part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

Before we get into the positive blessing aspect of this beatitude we need to say something about the first resurrection and second death. What is the first resurrection? Are we resurrected twice? No, the first resurrection is Christ’s! Those who believe and are baptized are said to take part in Christ’s death and resurrection by virtue of their joining him through their faith and his atoning and reconciling work accomplished with his death and resurrection. The Apostle Paul talks much of this in his letters. Baptism is often described as dying with Christ as we are symbolically washed with the water and then rising with him as the Holy Spirit fills us.

However, we all know we still die. But we also know that we will be resurrected. Indeed, scripture teaches that all will be resurrected for the final judgment day. Those of us who are resurrected in Christ will go on to eternal life with him. Those who have rejected him will go on to the second death. However, this death is not really an end either. But it is the death of all that is good.  It appears to be some kind of eternally godless existence. We can only imagine what it must be like to exist forever separated from the God who created us and put his spirit in us. Everything positive and good in life will be denied these unfortunate souls. Some might ask, how can your supposed Christian God of love do this. My response is that it was not his will that this happen. Jesus himself said so when he was teaching his disciples. It happened because we have free will and some of us make that awful choice of turning our backs on or Creator. Those who reject God often don’t see the difference their choice makes in this life. This is deceiving. Because the spirit of God is still on this earth, especially in us believers who are the preserving salt – and light – of the world, life can be pretty good for these God-deniers. However, when the Spirit of God is removed, and with it all love and any other good quality we recognize as humans, the afterlife will be awful.  

We can see now why it is said here that the second death has no power over us who believe, who are members of The Church Christ and his angels were addressing in Revelation. We rise again but once, and after that we live in the new earth, the new heaven, forever.

We are also described here as priests. This is also language used earlier in scripture, especially in the New Testament. When God established his order on earth in the process referred to as creation, the ultimate act was to create humans in his image. This is how we are priests of God. God lives in us. However, we also know this capacity suffered immense damage when our ancestors took things in their own hands and made unwise choices that were not in keeping with God’s purposes in creating them. We lost that priesthood, that special relationship with our Creator.

However, as we also know, all was not lost. God had a plan to make things right again. If we freely choose to go with his plan, which some describe as being saved, among other terms, we set foot on a path of restoring that relationship. On earth, it will still not be the same as it was in the beginning. However, with our new life, once more ‘in the Spirit,’ we will have a foretaste of what it will be like after the first death. And part of that renewed life is that our priesthood status is returned.

What or who are priests? They are those who mediate and pray to God on behalf of the rest of the world. We know that from what the roles the priests were assigned in the Old Testament. They also received sacrifices and offered them on peoples’ behalf to make atonement for sin. However, that is one role we no longer need to carry out. In this new age, post Christ (on earth), he has offered his life once for all as a sacrifice for us. The priest also burned, offered up, incense, which we see here in Revelation being compared with the offering up of the prayers of the saints, the priests. Another very important role that priests had, but which they rarely fulfilled in the Old Testament, pre-Christ era, was to teach the people how to live as those created in his image. This way of living no longer comes naturally to humanity. However, when we are again filled with the Spirit, we can learn, be enlightened, gain wisdom and help teach one another how to live. Importantly, we should do this by example as much as, or more so than, by word.

This verse also says we will reign with Christ. For many of us, this conjures up images of us as rulers as how we see them on this earth. No, that is not what God has in mind. Remember, even in his being tempted as a human, Christ rejected the political route to success. He did not come as a king as humans understood kings. This is not rule over one another. 

This is an aspect of God’s creation we have never learned or understood well; that we were created to rule with God over the earth he created. That was another facet of being created in his image. We have done a bad job of this though. We have understood it in materialistic and economic terms, even political as I already alluded to.  We have turned that into dominating and exploiting this wonderful earth. We have not looked after it in a God-like way at all, the way God intended, for the most part. In our time’s concern over climate change, voices are helping us see these things again, see how we have not done well and how we can do better. Indeed, some would say we must do better if we want to see this God-given earth continue in some semblance to how it was created. 

Finally, it is said we will do this for 1000 years. Is this to be taken literally? Indeed, many interpreters of scripture, especially beginning in the 19^th century, took it this way. However, in scripture, numbers are often used symbolically, representationally. I think we can accept this description as a finite way of describing something we cannot grasp, the concept of forever, of eternity. More of us now live beyond the once almost unbelievable age of 100. To live a thousand years is beyond our grasp though, just as much as eternity is.

So, I think I have painted already a picture that shows many aspects of the blessedness of being among those who take part in the first resurrection, as I described. Those who are included in that number will:

1.     Live forever with God and Jesus in a new heaven and earth, where all that is negative will be removed, so we can relate to one another and our Creator as originally planned.

2.     Will all share with one another the wonderful ability to be perfect and full mediators for one another with God. We know we don’t really need that when we live with him, but it will be in our nature to be that in how we live in the new order.

3.     Will once again ‘rule’ the earth as God intended. Then we will really see what this earth and all in it created good, as we are told it was, can really be like. We will really get to enjoy all that the earth was meant to offer us with its beauty and complexity of which we still learn new every day.

Blessed indeed! What we have to look forward to!

Mary’s Story: Catholic Version: I Origins – Ch. 4 Engagement

(Based on the First Gospel of James sections 8-10)

Thus it was that Mary continued to live in the company of the priests and Levites in the temple complex in Jerusalem. Her parents would come and see her from time to time, particularly at the feast days. Her mother, Anna, would bring her some treats and sometimes new clothes as she grew.

Then her twelfth birthday arrived. The priests, her guardians, held a council to decide what to do with this young girl who was coming of age as a woman soon, which meant she would begin to menstruate. Menstruation was considered unclean according to Jewish law. They said, “Look. Behold, Mary has reached the age of twelve years in the temple of the Lord. What shall we do with her, in case she defiles the sanctuary of the Lord? The next thing is that she is coming of age to be given in marriage. But she has been promised to the Lord. Can she be given in marriage?” They said to the high priest: “You stand by the altar of the Lord; go in, and prayconcerning her; and whatever the Lord shows you, that is what we will do.”

The high priest went into the inner sanctuary, wearing the robe with the twelve bells into the holyof holies. This was all according to the Law of Moses. The bells were actually a safety feature. If something happened to the priest, unusual clanging of the bells might indicate a fall; their silence a sign something had struck the priest and rendered him immobile. One could never tell what the Spirit of the Lord would do. 

The priest prayed concerning her. Then, something unusual did indeed happen. Suddenly, a figure he knew at once to be a messenger of God, an angel of the Lord, stood by him. The angel said, “Zacharias, Zacharias, go out and assemble the widowers of the people, and let them bring each his rod; and to whomsoever the Lord shall show a sign, Mary shall be his wife.”

Then the angel was gone, before Zachariah had a chance to speak. He forgot his prayers and rushed out to tell his colleagues what he had seen and been told. They were all overjoyed. The Highest One had given them a plan. They decided to send heralds out through the land. As they did so, in every village and town to which they went, they sounded the trumpet of the Lord, and the citizens came on the run to see what was going on.

When they came to Nazareth, there was a widower named Joseph who answered the call. He was a local carpenter, who had a couple of sons and also daughters. He gave them his rod as requested and they added it to the collection they were carrying back to Jerusalem. The priests had decided they would place the rods before the Lord to see whose rod would be chosen. 

When the heralds got back to Jerusalem and the temple and when they had assembled with the priests, they gave the rods to the to the high priest. The eligible widowers had also made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem so Joseph was there to ses it all unfold. The chief priest took the rods of all, entered the temple, and prayed. Having ended his prayer, he took the rods and came out, and gave them to his fellow priests, but there was no sign in them. They were accustomed to seeing one of the rods bloom as a sign, as Moses and Aaron’s had done so many years before. 

Joseph had really been reluctant to take part in this whole exercise, so he held back, receiving his rod back last. As soon as he grasped it, a dove came out of the rod, and flew up on Joseph's head. The high priest said to Joseph, “You have been chosen by lot to take Mary into your keeping as your wife, but she is to remain a virgin of the Lord.”

Joseph really did not want this. He refused, saying: “I have children, and I am an old man, and she is a young girl. I am afraid I will become a laughing-stock to the sons of Israel. They will all think I just want a young beautiful wife for my own selfish purposes.” 

The high priest said to Joseph: “You must fear the Lord your God,. Remember what the Lord did to Dathan, and Abiram, and Korah; how the earth opened, and they were swallowed up on account of their defiance of the commands of the Lord. Joseph, you don’t want the same things happen in your house”

At that Joseph was afraid, and felt he had no choice. He took her into his keeping and took her back to Nazareth with him. He told his children and his family all that had transpired and told them he really wanted to keep this quiet. He also gave them strict instructions to welcome her as one of the family though and to look after her well because of who she was before the Lord. He also told them that they needed to teach Mary what the responsibilities of a female member of the household would be and help her learn to carry out that role. He also confided  especially in the sister he trusted most, that he wanted her to help mentor Mary as a young wife, and keep an eye on her for him. Other than that, he tried to keep things as hushed up as she could. He did not want people to have the wrong idea about what an older man such as himself he was doing with such a young and lovely woman in his home.

The news of what had happened to Joseph in Jerusalem followed Joseph home though. So, there was no keeping anything a secret. Joseph would have to go through with a betrothal and then marriage, according to their customs. Joseph, reluctantly, but being a devoted Hebrew, went through with all that was expected.  

When all of this was done and they were finally able to enjoy the privacy of their simple village home, he said to Mary: “Look, I have received you from the temple of the Lord; and now I must leave you in my house, and go away to build my buildings. I will come to see you from time to time, to make sure you are well. You are chosen of the Lord, so he will protect you.” 

Joseph need not have worried. Mary turned out to be the cheeriest and most pleasant member of the family. Indeed, her sunny disposition, her innocent charm, even impressed his relatives and all the neighbours who came to know her. She never seemed to say or do anything contrary, no matter how trying the circumstances. They all came to learn of her story over time, as her parents came to visit her here too, having learned of what happened to her.  In fact, the Nazarenes marveled that this young woman should have been chosen to grace their village. They all agreed that Joseph was blessed to have her and that she was a wonderful asset to the village as a whole.

Some time later there was a council of the priests, those who had been responsible for Mary’s care prior to her having been given to Joseph. They decided they needed make a new veil for the temple of the Lord. The one to separate the Holy of Holies from the outer chambers was showing signs of aging. They were afraid it might just fall from its rod, it was getting so old. 

Since this was such a sacred item, the priests said: “Call all the undefiled virgins of the family of David.” Their officers went away, and after some searching, found seven virgins. Then the chief priest remembered the child Mary, that she was of the family of David, and undefiled before God. The officers went back and brought her from Nazareth. They brought the eight virgins into the temple of the Lord. The priest said: “Choose for me by lot the one who shall spin the gold, and the white, and the fine linen, and the silk, and the blue, and the scarlet, and the true purple. The lot to spin the true purple and the scarlet fell to Mary. She was entrusted with the precious materials and took them, and went back to her home in Nazareth. This was during the time that the priest Zacharias was dumb because of his unbelief when the angel announced to him that his barren wife would have a son. 

Mary took the purple and scarlet, and spun it into the finest of weavings. When she was done, she took it back to the temple in Jerusalem. When she presented it to the chief priest, he blessed her, and said: “Mary, the Lord God has magnified your name, and you shall be blessed in all the generations of the earth.” Mary, young girl that she was, did not really keep this in mind as actually meaning anything particular for her. Little did she know what prophetic words the priest was uttering and what part this veil would some day play in the life of one very near to her.