Long ago, movies had intermissions. Time to get up, get a snack, then get back ready for more action.

In the book of Revelation, there are around 10 intermissions called interludes by Scott McKnight. They serve the purpose to redirect our gaze to heaven in between all the action of Team Lamb vs Team Dragon. These interludes enhance emotional appeal. While visions awaken fear and awe, these interludes offer hope for salvation, inviting confidence. ( Revelation for the Rest of Us, Scott McNight ).

In addition, this redirection is significant as it reminds us of spiritual reality. They focus on the risen Lamb with the marks of the slaughter who absorbed the sin of the world. The wrath of God against sin is satisfied. Much of modern liberal Christianity dislikes talk of wrath and sin. But as Richard Niebuhr so famously attested, modern liberal Christianity wants a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through Christ without a cross. We might prefer a gospel like that, but that is not the one we have. God’s wrath, unlike ours, is not capricious or out of control but a settled place of His holiness confronting our rebellion.

Therefore, these interludes serve the purpose of lifting our eyes to the salvation wrought by Christ. In Revelation 15, for this Sunday, we will look at how the sacrifice of the risen Christ is the center stage of this book. In a nutshell, this book is about true worship of the true God, a mystical marriage with Him brought about through the Church’s worship and our sacramental life. Christianity is inherently bound up with sacrifice and sacrament. There is no such thing as an ethical reduction or distillation of Christianity.

Finally, we will look at how our liturgy in Holy Communion joins the liturgy in heaven going on for eternity. Some would say, we cannot understand this book without the liturgy. Our liturgy allows us to live, in some way, in the heavenly liturgy going on for eternity. We should have symbols to help focus us in worship such as buildings, vestments, candles, chalices, incense all of which we see in this book.

These Old Testament typological symbols do not cease to be the symbols we need. They acquire a new purpose that point to a reality accomplished. Salvation won on the Cross and lived out in worship and sacrifice.

Alleluia!

+Philip