The Beginning

Revelation is at once the most disturbing, comforting, challenging, upsetting and contemplative book in the Bible. It stands, an open door, at the end of the 66 books of the Bible, as if opening up to a world we don't know yet in full.

So many approaches to it; so many have tried to decipher its meaning, and I've followed some of these efforts with much keenness. Too much, sometimes I feel, so much so that this time, I just thought of letting the images seep in graphically, without much thought as to what they exactly mean.

Which brings us back to the original intention of TMsquared. It was always meant to be a journey in which we'd allow the Bible to surround and penetrate us as a whole, rather than bits and pieces of it, to which we're so accustomed to subjecting the study of Scripture.

I suppose, in a way, that Revelation is meant to be less a book of exact prophecy, than one of graphic inspiration. In a sense, it signifies the future, in that it is mysterious, just as the future is mysterious. There are many unknowns, but we do know God and we do know his Christ. There are many dangers we do not yet foresee, but we do know the Father of Evil.

It's kind of like Star Wars, come to think of it; you can enjoy it on the surface, or dive deeper into hidden meanings -- either way the message gets across. That's the wonder of these multi-faceted works ;) As I read through the 22 final chapters of the all-time bestseller, these were some of my thoughts...

God is making all things new.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

But then of course, as we all know, man screwed it up with his choices generation after generation. So God sets about to redeem righteousness and restore the Creation. In revelation, it gets pushed a notch higher, in an amazing vision that depicts the new Creation as far surpassing the old.

T.S. Eliot wrote, in his poem East Coker, "In my beginning is my end." These words opened the poem. However, it all ended with the complete inversion of that phrase; "In my end is my beginning." The poem is indeed quite a microcosm of the human journey, the Biblical journey, from death to life.

All the words I write here can't match the stirring, blazing pictures captured by John in the last chapters of his Revelation. So in as few words as I can muster, I'd say the Bible ends with a promise that there will be a New Creation, and even more so, that the New Creation is NOW.

One could write it like this: "In the end, God began again." Revelation opens up into the world where there is no end, where all ends are merely beginnings of newer, deeper, wider, greater adventures. It's not just about heaven, not just about what happens at the end of the world. In fact, the world is ending everyday, and beginning everyday as well. Revelation tries to capture that, I think.

So here I am -- here we are -- left with a strange challenge; will we dare leave behind the so-called 'end' for a new beginning? Where the written Word ends, the living Word can begin. When messages of prophecy and assurance end, doubt, fear and uncertainty can begin. Do we dare? The promise is sealed, but still...

Yet, how can we live any other way, than to know that in all beginnings, there will be endings, and in all endings, there will be beginnings? (This is NOT related to David's theory of infinite tangents!) A world that's always fresh, always new, bright each day, bright even when it's dark, because the Light is there. Maybe that's heaven, or one man's opinion anyway.

Standing on this edge, not quite too sure what to do next, what to make of it all, I thank God for this great 172 day journey (including the 'prologue' and 'epilogue'!) that Soo Tian has so kindly shared with me, subjecting himself to certain pains and pressures. I only hope, my friend, that you have found this equally satisfying. Or equally unsatisfying, depending on how you see it ;)

But we all know that God works in strange, mysterious ways, and it's no use guessing what he'll do next, though I'm certain whatever adventures we jump into next, will be even more overwhelming than this. They will call for greater risks to be taken, pose greater difficulties, yield greater rewards, lead us further, deeper, higher.

Right now, I can think of little else apart from the six letters that await me tomorrow: d'NA and STM. And the three letters that sum up the past 11 years, begin to fade into yesterday: SPM. Considering the amazing things that have happened this year, the ups and downs, smiles, frowns and stoic looks... I know the next nine days will be nothing short of incredible!

So I lay down my pen... OK, admittedly, that's a nice way to put it, but technically it would be untrue. So I rest my fingers, and hereby end my entries on this blog. Now I await him who has dubbed himself my "sparring partner."

Amen.