It's a MET-a-phor. Reading Revelation.

 

“Then I saw … a lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” – Revelation 5:6b

Try to put an image of this lamb into your head.

It’s scary. This lamb has all the marks of a catastrophic ovine birth defect, a monstrosity that repels our gaze.

With the thought of drawing this creature for a church bulletin illustration, I searched the Internet to see how it had been portrayed in classical art. Also no pretty sights because seven eyes cannot be divided evenly on either side of a lambie’s nose and seven horns look like hideous stalagmites.

Other artists, with a nod to sacrificial symbolism, paint the little lamb laying on its side with it four feet tied painfully together and blood drizzling from its throat. Also not a tasteful image for church bulletins.

As we try to imagine what this lamb looks like, it’s helpful to keep in mind that the author of Revelation – whoever he was – was writing with poetic license.

In this sense, John is a little bit like Elder Cunningham, the spasmodic and woefully uninformed missionary in the musical The Book of Mormon. 

Sent as part of a Mormon mission detail to Uganda, Elder Cunningham is hindered by the fact that he is categorically unfamiliar with scripture or the actual Book of Mormon. When preaching to Ugandan villagers he makes it up as he goes along, substituting actual bible terms with Star-Wars references Mordor and Bobba Fett and claiming Salt Lake City is a myth.

When a naïve young woman realizes these are lies, her faith in God is shattered. But a wise woman in the village reassures her: “It’s a MET-a-phor.”

And that redeems Elder Cunningham’s whacky twaddle because, whatever he’s talking about, he’s glorifying God and talking about good things to come.

When reading Revelation, it’s good to keep that wise woman’s words in mind: It’s a MET-a-phor. And whatever John is talking about, he’s glorifying God and talking about good things to come.

Some of John’s metaphors are easy enough to figure out. The number seven is often used the scripture passages to suggest power or perfection, presumably based on the report that God created the world in seven (metaphorical) days.

The use of a lamb as a symbol of God’s redemptive power probably harkens back to the story of the first Passover in the 12th chapter of Exodus. God tells the Jews to slaughter an unblemished lamb and smear its blood on their doorposts.

For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:12-13)

The metaphor of a lamb as a sign of God’s salvation would have been familiar to John’s readers. The lamb’s seven eyes and seven horns would have been less likely to appall them because they would have recognized these features as insignia of great power – God’s power.

The super power of seven is a recurring theme throughout this passage. The scroll, itself a recognized repository of important and authoritative information, is sealed with seven seals. That number of seals enhances the significance of whatever information the scroll contains.

Alas, the seals stick like gorilla glue. 

“And I began to weep bitterly [John writes] because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.”

Members of the seven churches John is writing to may have been up to their ankles in spilled bitter tears. Some are threatened by dangerous adversaries, or torn apart internally by theological debate. Some are diluting their faith to make it more acceptable to judgmental and threatening neighbors. Some no longer find Christianity interesting and go through the motions of worship without real commitment. 

John is writing late in the first century of the common era. It is possible that the thrilling newness of the Gospel message is losing its luster. Many Christians are subject to severe persecution by religious and government authorities. They hold on because they have been promised that Jesus will soon come again to vanquish their enemies and reward them with everlasting life.

But no. Jesus has not come again. Christians are struggling to hold on to their faith in unsafe times and some are beginning to wonder if it is worth it.

They are desperate to hear new promises that all will be well, but God’s word is locked away from them by figurative seals that cannot be broken.

Thus enters the sacrificial lamb of God, evoking the super power to cast the seals aside one by one, the power divinely acquired.

John waxes poetic:

Worthy is the lamb that 

Was slaughtered

To receive power and

Wealth and wisdom

And might

And honor and glory and

Blessing. (Revelation 5:13)

John’s revelation is that fretful Christians can be reassured: the message sealed so absolutely seven times over is the same gospel declared by the Baptizer when the story began.

Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’  I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel. John 1:29

The Revelation of John, so often thought of as a gloomy series of predictions of future wars and calamities precursing the end of the world, is actually a reassurance to fretful Christians:

No matter how hermetically sealed from view the message seems in times of stress, the game plan has not changed.

God so loved the world that God gave God’s only son, so that everyone who believes in Jesus will not die but live eternally.

And that message you can seal in your heart.