Pilgrim's Progress column with Mary Taylor: Armageddon

Yet here we are, informed by novels and Hollywood, transfixed by the idea of a great battle between good and evil, even to the point of seemingly shaping US military team talks.

If you read this part of the Bible don’t approach it like a cosmic bus timetable. Its more like a revolutionary manga comic, painting pictures of an alternative world and an alternative king. The setting is the Roman Empire. It critiques earthly empires – all of them – for their corruption and cruelty and coercion. And it was written to encourage persecuted believers to keep holding on. Even when beastly power seems invincible it will not have the last word because God’s first and last word is Jesus. He is faithful and true. He lived that alternative life and died offering hope to everyone of a better way.

Victory in Revelations does not come through superior violence because ‘God is on our side’. All the world’s armies may gather but the cross of Jesus is where victory took place because nothing can prevail against God’s self-giving love. God’s judgement is already declared on all that harms or destroys. For Christians victory is holding fast through thick and thin to that word and living it in all circumstances.

We’re halfway through Lent, soon to remember Jesus’ death and resurrection. Why not read the book of Revelations alongside the familiar gospel words? Could this be our opportunity to seriously reflect on how different God’s way is from our human urge to destroy our enemies? Maybe to see clearly that God’s alternative future for us all is not destruction but renewal, for rivers of healing and for God’s presence.

Mary Taylor, Baptist Minister