THE BOOK OF REVELATION

 

I want to tell you about a book of love. This book is reluctantly read and studied and largely unappreciated yet this book is one of the most important amongst holy writ. This book is The Book of Revelation and this is why it is a book of love……

 Some two thousand years ago, during the bleakest period of Church history, there was on the island of Patmos an exile, a prophet and an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, the last apostle alive;  Peter having been crucified, Paul beheaded, Bartholemew skinned alive, Thomas and Matthew run through with spears. By the time of Patmos, the history of the Church included ‘the lining of Nero's colonnade with crucified Christians’ (Student Manual, The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, p 449). The Apostle that survived it all and would never taste of death was called by Jesus ‘the son of thunder’ (Mark 3:17). In his own writings he referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved and as the ‘other disciple’ (John 13:23; 21:20; 20:2-8). We know him as John The Beloved…..he who lives as ‘a flaming fire and a ministering angel’ and sorrows for the sins of the world….(D&C 7:5,6)

More than six centuries before John was even born, the Lord revealed to Nephi many of the things we now have in the Book of Revelation but forbade him to write them down because they were reserved for John (1 Nephi 14:19-28). And so to that rocky island prison, on a particular Sunday came the glorified, exalted Christ to the apostle whom He also called 'The Beloved' (Revelation 1:13-18; D&C 7:1; 3 Nephi 28:4-6). 

In the revelation John was given on that occasion, all the sinful and evil history of this world was revealed to him but completed with the glorious hope of Christ's return who would reign in peace, harmony and love for a thousand years. What comfort that must have been to John who, like the 3 Nephites, would sorrow for the sins of the world during his sojourn in this dismal telestial world (3 Nephi 28:9). This is a story of love...love for one cherished disciple and love for all those who accept and follow Christ and have a hope of eternal life through the virtue of his atoning blood.

When the Saviour appeared to John, it was as if He was saying to him: "You will be here a long time and you need to know everything that will happen while you are here but be comforted John, my Beloved, because I am coming back and when I come I will 'wipe away all tears....and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain...." (Revelation 21:4). Is this not love?

I long to see the paths he wanders

To and fro the length of the earth;

I wish to wipe his brow

At the end of the day

To uphold the magnitude of his holy work.

Let me hold him close

And soothe his heavy heart

As the time for final gathering nears,

And let me gather in my cupped hands

The hallowed drops of The Beloved’s tears.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Second Coming by Danny Hahlbohm)