under rocks

Sometimes it seems like the big shots have a lot of advantages. Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady get a lot of calls that other quarterbacks don’t. Presidents can sometimes seem to make their own rules. And the Saudi prince can evidently get away with murder.

They’re not really getting away with anything, though. Jesus sees, and he doesn’t forget. Look at this vision of the end from Revelation 6:15-16: “Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!’”

That makes for kind of a grim Advent message, but it’s really at the core of Jesus’ mission here on earth. He came to redeem for God’s purposes some of his original creation, and he is delaying judgment until all he intends to save have come to know him. Until that time, it seems like powerful men and women are having things all their own way. But judgment will come.

When it does, there will be a lot of people hiding under rocks. And look at the first on the list: kings, princes, generals, the rich, the mighty. Along with everyone else, slave or free, they’ll run from judgment and hide from Jesus’ angry face.

As dark as this passage is, it’s a reassuring one for me. It reminds me that doing the right things and clinging steadfastly to hope in Jesus is of far greater advantage that the things I tend to envy. And I’m also reinforced in my often-wavering desire to be more like Jesus than the people our culture looks up to.

In the end, those men and women will be cowering and skulking before Jesus, and he’ll say to me, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s the ultimate outcome of Jesus’ birth.