Reborn from Ashes

A few years ago, I attended a writer's retreat at Bethel Camp - a small camp situated in the hills of eastern Kentucky that is foundational to who I am today. It was a low-stress weekend meant to give attendees the space to write deeply. There was quiet, cool air, autumnal crispness, and all the coffee in the world. I loved it. 

While I was there, I began writing the first book in my second fantasy trilogy, Kindle the Flame. I won't bore you with details about the storyline, but the cast-list in the trilogy was quite large and included many fantasy-esque creatures, featuring primarily dragons, but also (among other things) griffons, elves, pixies, ogres, people, and phoenixes. 

The mythological phoenix has always fascinated me: a bird that grows to adulthood, eventually bursts into flame, and when it withers to ash, the same bird is reborn from the ashes, thus repeating the life cycle. 

This morning, I read through Revelation 4-5. I say "read through," by which I mean I read a verse, looked at the footnotes, looked at all the cross-references the footnotes took me to, and pored over the material intensely. It took me an hour to get through two short chapters. 

What a picture of the throne room of heaven! Three things stood out to me: 

1.) The sea of glass before the throne. Here's the description of it in verses 2-6a: "There before me was a throne in heaven with Someone sitting on it. And the One who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. Also before the throne, there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal." 

What an awe-inspiring scene! Even me with my vivid imagination can hardly take it in. I looked in my footnotes where it mentioned the sea of glass, and noticed that in 1 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and other places in the old testament, there is described a "counterpart" to this, known as the Sea of the temple. 

Y'all, I've read through the whole Bible several times, but I couldn't remember this. I might have gotten so weighed down with page after page of cubits and temple measurements that I missed this entirely, but it came to vivid life for me today. I went back and looked at the references. 2 Chronicles 4:1-5 puts it best: "He [Solomon] made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high (30 feet long, 15 feet wide). He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high (7 1/2 feet). It took a line of thirty cubits (45 feet) to measure around it. Below the rim, figures of bulls encircled it - ten to a cubit. The bulls were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea. The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center. It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held three thousand baths (17,500 gallons)." 

What struck me here was this: as glorious as this surely was, as impressive and awe-inspiring as this craftsmanship was... it was just a shadow of what the throne room of heaven is. The temple of Israel was an earthly picture of the heavenly throne room, but no matter how intricate, impressive, and awe-inspiring, the Sea can't hold a candle to the "sea of glass." 1 Corinthians 13:10 says: "When perfection comes, the imperfect disappears."

I always think of The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis with this verse. The children come from Narnia to Aslan's country, and as they see it, they realize it looks familiar. And then Aslan tells them: the Narnia they knew... was just a shadow of the real Narnia. The beauty of the shadow was just a poor reflection, a distortion of the true Narnia where Aslan tells them to come "farther up, farther in." 

2.) The storm was another thing that snagged my attention. In Revelation 4:5, it says: "From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder." The footnotes say: "Symbolic of the awesome majesty and power of God (read: Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19:16-19) and also is the conventional old testament depiction of God's coming in mighty power to deliver His people." 

If you think about it, John's revelation is the story of the end - the final judgment and the return and eternal reign of Jesus as the King of all kings. Here, at the beginning of this revelation, in the courtroom of heaven when John enters and sees it for the first time, this description of "flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder" fits right in: God is coming in mighty power to deliver His people. 

What hope! From Romans 8:24-25: "But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." (Patience: what I struggle to maintain as I eagerly long for that day). 

And then, 3.) The scroll. In Revelation 5:1, it says, "Then I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals." 

This scroll (in coming chapters) will hold the final judgment, the end of time, the end of sin, the punishment of Satan and his hordes, and the beginning of eternity. What was fascinating to me was that the scroll had writing on both sides. In ancient times, scrolls were made with the fibers of papyrus, and on the inside of the scroll, the fibers ran horizontally, which made writing much easier. On the back side of the scroll, the papyrus fibers ran vertically, increasing the difficulty of writing. 

There's no note beyond that regarding the make-up of the scroll (not in this chapter), but I was struck by how fitting that is. As we near the time when Jesus returns (I am not date-setting by any means), how much more challenging will be the refinement? 

Refining hurts, but how I hope for it. Jesus said in John 17:20-21: "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You." How can we be one with the Lord if we still cling to our sins, securities, and frailties?

The Lord showed me a tent meeting, like those used sometimes for revival meetings or prayer meetings in outdoor worship areas. People were huddled beneath it, praying, hands around shoulders, worshiping, and praising. 

Suddenly, the roof of the tent was on fire, and it burned away. Instead of fear on the faces of the people in the tent, they were smiling, laughing, joyous, because this was what they'd prayed for. They'd prayed for fire, for refinement, for a burning away of the impurities, and the Lord was answering. 

The fire took the shape of a phoenix (now you see why I began with that) and flew to another tent meeting, and another and another and another. Across the entire world, the fire-bird flew, burning tent after tent after tent, and though the security, the shelter, was burned away, the people beneath it had their hands up to receive the fire. 

From that fire came new life. It burned away the tents, but the people were stronger, bolder, more passionate than ever before. To me, the tents symbolized the transience of the church. We aren't here to stay. The fire burns away the places we've built for our temporary homes. It keeps us from setting our hope too firmly on our surroundings. It keeps our eyes lifted up to the Giver of hope.

How I pray that God will send His fire! Acts 2:1-4: "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit enabled them."