Blessed are those who are invited

 This weeks verses are Revelation 19:5-9:

Then a voice came from the throne, saying:

“Praise our God
all you his servants,
and all you who fear him,
both the small and the great!”

Then I heard what sounded like the voice of a vast throng, like the roar of many waters and like loud crashes of thunder. They were shouting:

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God, the All-Powerful, reigns!
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him glory,
because the wedding celebration of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.
She was permitted to be dressed in bright, clean, fine linen” (for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints).

Then the angel said to me, “Write the following: Blessed are those who are invited to the banquet at the wedding celebration of the Lamb!” He also said to me, “These are the true words of God.”  

  I have a friend who is obsessed with the book of Revelation. If there is a book about the Apocalypse, he will buy it. If there is a video on it, he will watch it. He doesn't even have a smartphone, but he will find a way. But all of the material that is out there seems to try to twist and stretch current events in order to stuff them into the tiny crevices in a few popular verses that foretell the end times.

But is that really the focus of the book of Revelation? Are we really going to be quizzed on which toe of the clay feet of the statue in the book of Daniel we are experiencing? Are we going to have to hit some kind of game show buzzer to indicate that we know the time is now, that the rapture is imminent, that we called it, that we are ready?

This week's verses are less sexy than the ones about multi-headed sci-fi creatures or global calamity. This week's verses are about God's greatness and about our place in his universe, and our responsibility in it. We don't have to debate what is in them, or when they will happen, or cherry pick facts from the news. They are eternally relevant.

A voice comes from the throne and tells everyone to praise God, regardless of who they are or how small. And the response that comes back is unimaginably large. The cheering crowd celebrates how great it is that God and the church are about to be reunited. It's the part in a wedding where the couple's overdressed relatives gently shove the terrified flower girl down the aisle to prepare the way for the bride. Everyone is preparing to stand.

And we get to see a glimpse of it before it happens because we have these verses. And we learn that the bride, the church, is clothed in purity, that our actions as Christians ultimately matter. That we will have something to show for it, even if our hands are pretty dirty right now.

And then come the true words of God: "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding celebration of the Lamb." We are really lucky to be invited. Not every creature in the universe is. And not only are we invited but we play a central role, together. 

When you think of the future, of the end of days, do you think of calamities and judgments, or do you think of a wedding? Because the wedding is where it all leads. It's not "watch out so you don't get stuck like a doofus getting attacked by weird half man half locust creatures." It's "let's follow God's regime together so we can fit into that nice linen wedding dress when the time comes."

If you can understand God's plan that way, you can understand why all of the people He invited were cheering so much.