Revelation 8:3-6, 11:15
[An] angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.
[After] the seventh angel sounded his trumpet...there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”
Those verses bookend the sounding of the trumpets, and in between them we find horror to match that which came with the opening of the seven seals. A third of the earth is set on fire, a third of the sea turns to blood, a third of the water turns bitter and people die from drinking it, a third of the sun and moon become dark, locusts with human faces that sting like scorpions torture those without the seal of God, an army is turned loose to kill one third of the population, and the time of the final judgement is announced. It’s fun stuff for a Sunday morning, isn’t it? One of the chapters I read in preparation for today began with the author saying “I would rather not have to write on this scene”. I likewise felt I would rather not have to preach on this scene, and I imagine many of you are thinking I would rather not have to listen to this scene, but let us stick with it, because I hope we may feel a little differently about it by the end.
I have mentioned before the importance of patterns in Revelation. Last time there were seven seals, now we have seven trumpets, and there are still seven bowls to come. The number seven is significant in Hebrew thought, as it is seen as the number of wholeness or perfection, and so often represents something about divine character or purpose. There are seven days of creation, Noah is commanded to take seven pairs of every clean animal onto the ark, debts are to be cancelled every seven years...the number seven recurs frequently throughout scripture, and once you start paying attention, you’ll see it everywhere. This repeated pattern of seven should then tell us that something significant is happening here. Interestingly, the repetition is not limited to the use of the number seven, as each sequence is divided into four catastrophes in quick succession followed by two disasters described at greater length, with a sort of interlude before the final event brings a sense of resolution. This suggests to many scholars that what we are being presented with is not three separate series of judgements, but three different ways of envisioning the same message. Perhaps then they are not to be taken literally.
Many people have tried to map the events described in Revelation onto events in history, or attempted to predict when these events will play out in the future, but the symbolic use of numbers as well as the repetition of imagery across these iterations leads me to think that the events themselves are symbolic. As I said in an earlier week, it is not that I think these things haven't happened or won't happen, but rather that I think they happen all the time, in one form or another. We have seen wildfires destroy huge swathes of land, our own seas and rivers are so toxic that in many places it is not safe to swim in them, armies do kill thousands every year. The trumpets, like the seals before them, reveal deep truths not about particular events but about the way the world is.
Here I want us to remember the suggestion we encountered previously that these events are not God actively wreaking havoc up on us, but God allowing our sin to play itself out. In this reading, God’s judgement is not divine punishment but natural consequence, and what is being revealed here is the endgame of human greed and hate. As I said before, it is a sobering thought, but there is still hope. Seven might be the number of completion, but the disasters heralded by the seven trumpets are not themselves complete. If a third is destroyed then two thirds remain, and perhaps this is where we see the work of God, trying to limit the damage. We are also told after the sixth trumpet that “the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands”, which surely means that repentance was a possibility. Here perhaps we start to understand the symbolic significance of the trumpets. Darrell Johnson suggests that they are meant to wake us up, to get our attention, to tell us “Something is wrong; something is off. You are ignoring me and my ways. You are headed for destruction. Turn around.” Reading symbolically rather than literally, the trumpets are sounding now, but repentance is still a possibility.
Earlier in the year, we read the Book of Jonah together. He was sent to Nineveh to declare that the city would be destroyed in forty days, but it didn’t happen because the people of the city heard his words as a warning not a certainty, and they repented. What if we read Revelation the same way? What if we understand it as a warning of what will happen if we keep going as we are? What if we turn around so that the earth doesn’t burn and the seas aren’t poisoned and armies aren’t set loose upon nations? Doesn’t it seem far more likely that this is what the Lord who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love really wants for us?
Here I want to come to a theme which runs quietly through this section of Revelation, and that is the theme of witness. It is the prayers of God's people that put things into action, as they are mixed with incense and hurled down to the earth. And then in the interlude between the sixth and seventh terrors, John is given a scroll to eat. It is sweet in his mouth but turns sour in his stomach, and he is told again that he must prophesy. He has been given a message that will not be well received, but he must share it nonetheless, because that is the part that has been given to him, and to all the people of God. We are to bear witness to the world because that is how the world will hear the trumpets and understand what they are trying to wake us up to. Perhaps this is starting to sound a little hellfire-and-brimstone preacher, but I think most of you know me well enough by now to realise that’s not really my style. If I’m going to stand on a street corner, it’s not going to be holding a sign saying “turn or burn” but one saying “God loves you”. But surely that is the message anyway, that God loves us and wants better for us and wants to help us get off the destructive paths we are on.
The theme of witness is made most explicit in chapter eleven, as two witnesses prophesy for three and a half years while people destroy the city, after which a beast arises from a pit and kills them, and their bodies lie in the street for three and a half days, before being restored to life and taken into heaven. Three and a half is clearly another symbolic number, and perhaps the fact that it is half the number of completion is meant to emphasise that persecution and destruction will only last a finite time. The witnesses are described as two olive trees and two lampstands, drawing on images from the Hebrew scriptures to recall Zerubbabel and Joshua, who represent royalty and priesthood, and Elijah and Moses, who were prophets and liberators. It seems reasonable to suppose that the witnesses represent the church, and so the suggestion is perhaps that God will do again through the church what he did through those figures, establishing a new people of God. And of course the parallel with the death and resurrection of Jesus is unmistakable. This is a call to a life of witness in the way of Christ.
There’s one final detail I want to pick up on, because even if you read the whole passage through for yourself, you will miss it without some pretty specific background. When the witnesses are taken up into heaven, “at that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.” It’s another catastrophe, but there is something significant happening in the numbers. In Isaiah 6:13 amd Amos 5:3, destruction is prophesied and it is said that only a tenth will remain. In 1 Kings 19:18, Elijah bemoans that only seven thousand are left. Before, only one tenth or seven thousand remained, but now only one tenth or seven thousand are destroyed. The witnesses have reversed the arithmetic. The church may not be able to prevent all disaster, but our witness can make a difference.
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