Love Letter

Passage: Revelation 2:1-7

This Advent our church is working through Revelation.  We’re all about Christmas cheer.  It’s easy to lose sight of the message at the heart of this powerful love letter to the church.  All of our ham-handed attempts to parse out the book’s symbols and pin down its apocalyptic events distract us from its most important parts.  Revelation is a letter first and foremost to a group of first century congregations struggling to maintain their identity in a world that wants to extinguish their faith.  More broadly it’s a reminder to the church in every time and place of who we are and to whom we belong. 

Many commentators and casual readers have mistakenly imposed a chronological division between the first three chapters and the rest of Revelation.  It’s assumed that chapters 2 and 3 address specific congregations in John’s immediate historical context, while everything that follows takes place at the end of time.  In fact John’s vision pertains to the continuous advance of the Kingdom of God, which occurs over the whole course of human history.  Much of what John describes throughout the book is happening to the First Century church within the Roman Empire; much of it is happening now, and has happened in all the intervening centuries.  There isn’t a future moment at which the dragon will go war against the church.  He’s been at war with God’s people from the beginning of time.  There isn’t a future moment at which a beastly representative of evil will lie and blaspheme.  The Roman emperor was such a beast; and human powerbrokers have been agents of evil for all our history.  Christians in every time and place profess the Lordship of Jesus only at great cost.

And as we read through the Lord Jesus’ messages to each of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, we can’t help but hear strains of his message to our churches, too – whether your church is a megachurch in an affluent suburb, or a small congregation in a struggling urban neighborhood.  Of the seven churches, the one I most identify with is the church in Ephesus.  Jesus addresses the Ephesians as a group of committed, hard-working Christians.  In spite of mounting social and political pressure, these believers have kept the faith.  They have proclaimed the name of Jesus Christ in their words and actions.  They have adhered to right doctrine and have rejected leaders who try to preach a gospel other than the one they received from the apostles.  This is a church that is doing everything by the books.

And yet somewhere along the line they exchanged their love for duty.  The passion of the gospel and the fire of the Holy Spirit have cooled as everyday life has taken over.  The hard work of learning the right answers and doing the right things has become the glue that holds them together and the fuel that drives their fidelity.  Somewhere along the line they’ve forgotten the real reason for all the risk and sacrifice: love.  God’s limitless love for them, embodied in Jesus Christ.  And their love for him, the one who gave up his life so that they might live.  At the heart of the Christian faith is not duty, but love.  Jesus urges his bride: Do not forsake your first love.  Return to the things you did at first. 

How did you spend the time with your husband when you were first dating?  What did you do for your wife when she was still your girlfriend?  What was your emotional response to your spouse's arrival back in the days when she or he was your future spouse?  Back when your passion was unbridled, how did you express it?

When the love of Jesus Christ first became real to you, what did you feel?  And how did you respond?  Think back, way back.  Past the years of dutiful service and anxious rule-keeping and passions cooled by the daily requirements of daily life.  Rediscover the delight of joy of being the apple of someone’s eye; the love of someone who’s committed their life to you; the peace of the embrace of someone who will never let you go; the hope of being reunited with the one you were meant for.  Come back to your first love.