Daily Devotional • August 25
A Reading from Revelation 4:1-11
1 After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! 3 And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald. 4 Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder, and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and in front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal.
Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and back: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing,
“Holy, holy, holy,
the Lord God the Almighty,
who was and is and is to come.”
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing,
11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
Meditation
Generally speaking, the reader will fixate on the fantastical end-times vision playing out just beyond the horizon: voices, thrones, emerald rainbow, white robes, golden crowns, creatures-galore-to-test-the-imagination, flashes of lightning, peals of thunder, rumblings, and the song to end all songs.
These sights and sounds can prove so overwhelming that you’re either inclined to turn away or be given to any explanation of the incomprehensible. But what if the ‘open door in heaven’ is what you are supposed to notice? What if the opening onto heaven is what you are supposed to remember? What if you are meant to marvel not so much at the vision beyond the gateway but rather at the door itself.
Our first parents walked with God in the cool of the evening until the temptation to explain and covet and be like God became too great. Then the door was shut. Jesus has said, “I am the door. Enter by me. Be saved and you shall go in and out and find pasture.” (John 10:9). Surely this is an invitation to return to Eden.
Jesus by his Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension has banished the flaming swords that kept you from communion with your Maker and all creation and propped the entrance onto heaven open. Get up and walk toward the open door. Marvel. See this thing that the Lord is doing for you today. Allow his grace to free you from the tempation to explain. Let the work of the Son release you from coveting what was never meant to be yours. The door that was shut now stands open for you.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving … and come before his presence with a song.
The Very Rev. Timothy Kimbrough is the director of the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies and the Jack and Barbara Bovender Professor of the Practice of Anglican Studies at Duke Divinity School. He was previously dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico