justice

As I read through the Bible each year, it at first seems odd to be reading Revelation during the Christmas season. I’ve come to appreciate and even enjoy it, though. Oh, I love reading Matthew and Luke in church and singing of angels and shepherds and Magi. But for me Revelation answers the “so what” question like no other book. One of the biggest “so whats” of Jesus birth is that finally, for the first time since the Garden of Eden, there can be justice.

And there will be. Revelation is provides a detailed description of the abuses that will come, figuratively or literally, in the last days. And then, this, from Revelation 11:19: “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a severe hailstorm.”
At the right time, Jesus will say, “Enough! No more! I’ve given you all the time to repent that I’m going to, and now it’s the age of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ!”

At that time, all of the predators and victimizers and bullies, and the greedy money-grubbers and gluttonous self-indulgers and selfish hoarders, and the ones who twisted all of God’s good gifts of sex and food and fellowship into lies that lure and entrap people - all of those who make it so hard to live for Jesus in this world - will face justice.

The wrongs will be set right. The right will be recognized and affirmed. This world will be the way it was created to be. Because Jesus was born and lived and died and rose to heaven for just that purpose.