Revelation 1 - Stop the Bleeding
There’s a great expectation when you are playing hockey. You sit in the dressing room together as a team, music playing. You have your own little ritual of how you gear up and often you sit beside the same guys (at home or on the road). Before you hit the ice some guys talk a lot. Other leaders say very little. You are all preparing mentally for the game that’s just before you.
I vividly remember playing for the Spokane Chiefs in the fall of 1989 after being traded there from the Saskatoon Blades. Spokane had a tremendous team of young talent. I was traded to Swift Current later that season, but I loved playing for the Chiefs. They would go on to win the Memorial Cup the following year (1991). It was such a fun team to play on. We had a Vietnam vet as our trainer. He was a chain smoker, but he loved us. I knew from the moment I got into the dressing room that I loved the team. To a man everyone came to me and shook my hand and said 'Welcome to the Chiefs, happy to have you here.' Trust me, that doesn't happen with every team you are traded to. And coaches can't force that kind of camaraderie.
When I arrived the trainer already had my nameplate, 'Bell' affixed to my stall and he was sewing up my new jersey with the same name. We had a head coach, Brian Maxwell, who was a drunk (at the time, he later went sober) who had been an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings the year before. Maxi was super fun to play for. He was the epitome of a player's coach. The guys knew he loved them. He was a former fighter from the NHL and he’d fight with the guys during practice. The Chiefs were owned by the Brett brothers (one being the former Hall of Famer with the KC Royals) and they were super cheap. So cheap that they wouldn’t hire a bus driver. Our assistant coach, Gary Braun, had to drive the bus to road games. Brauner was also a former fighter - a giant of a man. Ask me sometime to tell you the story of how Brauner fell asleep driving the bus back from a road game in Kamloops (our bus went back and forth across the lines in the Canadian Rockies and 20 young hockey players went a millisecond away from death that night). Seriously scary.
We were a tight team. We had a ton of fun and laughed a lot. But we were a team ready to fight. The really fun games were when we went on the road to Seattle (a team I would later be traded to). Seattle always sold out (the old arena downtown held about 6,000 fans) and they played crazy loud Gary Glitter 'Rock and Roll' whenever they scored. Anyway, when we played at home, and all the Chiefs were dressed and ready to play, our team leader Pat Falloon (who later had a good NHL career) would peek his head out and report back to us how many fans were already in the building. If the fans were light Pat would say, "There's a lot of fans out there dressed like seats." And we'd all laugh. We’d then walk the long stairs down to the rink and hit the ice in the old Spokane Arena. There’s nothing quite like a team that loves each other and that is ready to go out and play hard, ready to rock.
It may be a bit of a stretch, but the early church was ready to rock, ready to do whatever it took to follow Jesus. They knew the mission and they had just experienced firsthand, direct witnesses, of the best player-coach to ever walk the face of this earth, Jesus Christ.
Revelation is meant to be inspiring, encouraging, and motivating. It’s meant to remind the church of the tough sledding ahead, but that the victory, the “Cup” if you will, is worth the fight. We hear at the outset of this chapter that the purpose of the writing was to show God’s people the Providentially orchestrated events of the first century. The introductory paragraph instructs that Jesus’ revelation was about events that must soon take place. Yes, as we will find out in chapters 19-22 the Book also gives us hope and clarity about God’s eternal promise, but the intro makes clear what the purpose of the Book is and to whom it is written (verse 4 says generally the book is to the seven churches in the province of Asia and verse 11 calls out the seven churches by the names of their cities in an ordered clockwise loop of what is now Western Turkey).
The reader is blessed if he hears and puts God’s word into action (1:3 and Luke 11:28). What the intro does not say is that the Book is all about end times divination and the 88 reasons why Jesus must return by 1988. It is not a direction to say that Christians must live in fear in a bubble while the communities around us burn. It is not the manifesto of a doomsday cult. Indeed, very much to the contrary.
Revelation is a warning to the early church to get their heads screwed on straight. When we’d get down a few goals when I played for the Spokane Chiefs, our head coach would yell at our whole bench, “Somebody’s gotta get out there and stop the bleeding!” “Stop the bloody bleeding.” And then he’d send a new line of young men on the ice ready to fight and to do just as he’d asked. Sometimes we need a kick in the pants. And sometimes we need a reminder that the game is long, but we gotta get out there and fight.
Revelation is like that. It is a warning to the early church, reminding them who Jesus is and what the battle is going to look like. Jesus is the ultimate fighter. He always leads from the front. If you are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, you play on a line with Jesus. Jesus is the first to rise from the dead and the ruler of all the kings of the world (1:5). Jesus reigns. Yes, now. Nothing is beyond His power. All glory is to Jesus, for Jesus freed us from our sins by shedding His blood on the cross (1:5).
Jesus is the Almighty One who reigns forever and who will bring judgment on those who pierced Him (1:7). Jesus is not an angel or a created being. He is God, the Alpha and the Omega (1:8 and 22:13). John gets the role of the coach and reminds the church who Jesus is and what lies before us as God’s children. We need warnings and challenges from God because we can get down a few goals; we are so prone to drift. We need alignment and recalibration. We need a daily reminder of God’s grace and that we are God’s children that Jesus expects to serve him and to “stop the bleeding.” Step into the gap and do what is needed for your team to win, for Christ’s team to win. We are called to serve well, to fight well. We are called to press on, to patient endurance and resilience.
Yes, we can get down. The odds can seem insurmountable. We may indeed face the Neros of this world. Jesus tells John not to be afraid (1:17). Jesus says the same to you today. Do not be afraid. Follow God! Trust God. Get out on the ice and skate - and finish your checks! John in turn relays the message from God to the early church. I very much expect that they got the message and that they increased their courage, and their faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus reigns. He holds the key to life and death. He holds all things together - those in the unseen world and in the world we see.
Do not be discouraged. God is forcefully growing His Kingdom today. God is patient, kind, and merciful. But He is also fierce and just and powerful. Jesus is the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come - the Almighty One” (1:8).
Lord Jesus, please increase our faith today. Please help each of us to find others to encourage today. Help us to be kind compassionate and strong. Help us to lead today with love from you. Amen.
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