David Capes
When you set out to write this book, you weren’t trying to write a commentary, but instead you were trying to talk through the book and help us have an encounter with Jesus. That’s the subtitle, Encounter with Jesus in the Book of Revelation. To be able to see these images of Jesus. But there’s clearly kind of a substitute world out there, where Caesar is not Lord, and where we’re trying to understand the world that is yet to come. Giving people some hope in the midst of where there’s so much power, so much dominance, and you’re not in the majority. Christians were not people in the majority. They were a persecuted minority, as Jews had been before them, maybe not to the extent that Christians were, but that’s a part of their story. That’s a part of how they’re living.
Shane Wood
Yes. Within that tension, our eyes can play tricks on us, and that was a part of the thread I’m trying to pull in the book. They’re at the end of the first century, the last living apostle has been exiled by Rome onto the island of Patmos. And that naturally conjures questions like, “is this really the kingdom Christ came to establish”, and “is Rome winning”? Because it seems like they are. What do we do with the fact that, when John dies, are we abandoned? So, it’s a time of crisis of faith, tension from physical and non-physical persecution has increased at the end of the first century. That naturally proffers specific
questions that revelation intends to answer. I believe it intends to answer it by, once again, having them encounter Jesus face to face, very clearly.
David Capes
And you know, there was another John who was in prison who hoped that Jesus was the one. But even he has some doubts, because he sends his disciples to Jesus and asks “are you the guy, or should we really expect something else”? You’ve got two John’s. It’s the story of two John’s.
Shane Wood
Absolutely. At the center of Matthew 11 and even, John and his brother, James and John, it’s the question of power. What really does power look like? And what John the Baptist saw in Jesus was not what he expected when he thought of a Messiah. And what John the Apostle on Patmos was probably expecting. He himself was in a time period of strife and struggle. And that’s part of what I tried to do in Thinning the Veil. By going through all 22 chapters, embodying that tension, that strain, that loneliness and questioning of where is God when Rome seems to be winning?
David Capes
I love the way that there’s this dynamic in Revelation, between what you see and what you hear. [John] hears a trumpet and he turns to see lamp stands. He hears a lion, or hears about a lion, and he turns to see a lamb. And he hears about 144,000 but then he turns to see and there’s a multitude that’s too great to be counted. You do have a section in the back of the book that talks about numerology and the importance of it. But it seems to me that things are always being shifted. What you hear isn’t always what you get. You’re seeing the Lion, who is the Lamb, and you’re seeing the trumpet, which also are lamp stands. The Son of Man is walking among them, present even though he seems to be, I’m sure, very absent [in times of persecution] among the seven churches.
Shane Wood
Yes, the book itself saturates your senses. It’s pulling all of you forward in order to answer the questions that I think are really at the core of who we are as people. There are smells in Revelation and tastes in Revelation and sight. But there is this constant twist, and I think that’s even what the Incarnation itself was. God that we could not see becomes flesh so that we could see him. And when we see him, it startles us. It jars us with things like grace, that we didn’t understand the depths of. Ideas like loving our enemies that is not natural to the way in which we typically function and move. Revelation, through its imagery, does the same thing when we encounter Christ. It inverts our expectations by drawing us deeper into the mystery.
David Capes
One of the chapters that you have here is about worship and worship being war. I thought that was an interesting way of putting that. What do you mean by worship as being war?
Shane Wood
In the book of Revelation, you have these two competing trinities. The word competing may be overstating it, because the competition is not as much from God’s side as it is Satan’s. This dragon and his two beasts which mirror the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And what they are all going toward or gathering toward is using their tools to gain worship.
In Revelation who you worship has a transformative impact on you, but it is also what’s being asked of Christians. Fight this battle by worship. Even Rome themselves understood that worship was essential to gathering the people. Which is why they populated their cities with temples and cultic rituals and parades. And because worship shapes us. It also guides our allegiances and in Revelation worship is war.
David Capes
That’s how you fight. And there’s a sense in which we become what we worship. When we’re worshiping empire and we’re worshiping power or money, let’s say that we begin to embody that. But when we worship something other than this left handed power, this one who loves, this lamb who’s also a lion, when we do that, then we are transformed into a different kind of person.
Shane Wood
That’s right! Worship is always transformative. Which is in some sense, something that I think is easy to overlook, even in our times of worship. You are becoming someone whenever you are engaged in worship.
David Capes
And early Christians are asked to recant [by Roman officials]. They said you can’t be a Christian anymore or we’re going to kill you. And the way that you demonstrated you were no longer a Christian was through worship, through offering incense to the Emperor. They captured you, capturing your heart, your loyalty, by capturing your worship.
Shane Wood
Absolutely, which is easy to overlook, I think, in a world that’s so busy and filled with distractions. But it’s the satanic goal all throughout history. If he can gather our attention and gather our worship, he can make us into something we never thought we’d become.
David Capes
That’s a great way of putting it. As you started this project, did you find out anything? Sometimes we write a book because we already know the information. But sometimes we begin writing something and then realize, I’ve never seen that before. Did you have any of those aha moments, eureka moments when you wrote this?
Shane Wood
Yes, often! I was startled by the way in which Revelation bends space and time in order for God to be close to us. You know, space and time and Revelation don’t function the same way for John on the island of Patmos. It would seem like he was away from God. But then Christ appears to him on Patmos. But then in chapter four, John is actually taken up into heaven. Like space and time and Revelation are malleable. But that’s intentional, because ultimately, we look at space and time as prisons, but God looked at it as a context to which he could interact with us and we could know him. That to me, was a pretty jarring moment.
The other one that comes to mind was, that I saw Revelation chapter 1:17-18 differently. It’s this beautiful moment where John falls down at Jesus’s feet, and it says, he falls down as though he is dead. And then it says, and Jesus reaches out and touches him. The first words Jesus said is, Do not be afraid. And my thought was, oh, my goodness, that is the book of Revelation, in short. Frankly, that’s the gospel. In our deadness, Christ reaches across the chasm, touches us and says, don’t be afraid. Follow me wherever I go. Follow me. I had quite a few worshipful moments while this book was unfolding.
David Capes
Well, it’s a terrific book. It’s entitled, “Thinning the Veil: Encountering Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelation,” by Shane Wood. Shane, any last words before we part today?
Shane Wood
Just thank you so much for having me on and for engaging the book. And hopefully we will continue to press deeper into the revelation of Jesus Christ.
David Capes
It’s a fantastic book. It’s an important book, because it takes the “scary Jesus”, and makes him less scary. He brings him close. People who have heard the podcast will understand what I’m talking about there. Dr Shane Wood, great to have you. Thanks for being with us today on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
Shane Wood
My pleasure.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
