November 2001 BOOK OF REVELATION      (continued from previous issue) By Carlos Mesters

The mission of the persecuted people (7:1-17)   continue 2.     The message of the census (7:1-8) As they look into the mirror of their past, the persecuted people discover their future. At the sixth seal the anger of God will destroy the power of the mighty (6:17) and protect the lives of the little ones marked with "the seal of God" (7:3). The little ones therefore are not to be frightened by the calamity about to fall upon the mighty, nor by the powers that persecute the members of the communities. Instead of wasting their energy fighting those powers directly, they should strive with all their might to prepare for the future by imitating the people of the Exodus. They should, without any delay, organise themselves into an egalitarian and fraternal society as the Law of the Lord asks them. For when at the sixth seal the mighty oppressors will fall and rot under the plagues of history (6:15-17), the little people will have to be ready to show themselves to the world as a new and united society opposed to the oppressive system of the roman empire. 3.     The innumerable crowd (7:9-17) The vision continues. John sees "a huge number, impossible for anyone to count, of people" (7:9). All of them, men and women, dressed in white and holding palms in their hands, stand before the throne and praise God with the angels of heaven (7:9-13). John does not know who they are. Surprised, he asks for an explanation. For this crowd does not come from among the twelve tribes, already marked with the seal of God (7:3-8). It comes from the entire humankind, "from every nation, race, tribe and language" (7:9). They are the men and women "who have been through the great trial" (7:14), that is, the persecution by the empire. They washed their clothes in the blood of the Lamb (7:14). Like the twelve tribes they have come out of Egypt and are now as it were, in the desert before the throne of God (7:15). Under the protection of the Lamb they suffer neither hunger nor thirst nor the heat of the sun (7:16). Jesus leads them to the springs of life (7:17). Their life is a service of praise to God (7:15). This means that the new Exodus does not concern merely the christian communities but the whole humankind. The communities should not think that they alone are resisting the empire. They should also not pretend to control the action of God in the world. Yahweh, the God who liberates, is not the property of the communities. They themselves are the property of Yahweh (Ex. 19:5). In the midst of oppressed humankind facing and resisting oppression, the communities must be signs of God by their fraternal organisation. Born of God, they must be to the world a service, a better alternative to obtain freedom and justice. As long as the persecution of the fifth seal goes on, the people of the communities must remain strong (2:13, 25; 3:11; 6:11) and resist to the point of death (2:10). For through their resistance and struggle they prepare the future which will appear when the sixth seal is opened. There remains "but a short time" to fulfil this mission (6:11).

. . . to be continued

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