“With such violence Babylon the great city
will be thrown down, and will be found no more”
(Revelation 18:21)
I’ll confess that I never know what to do with the violent imagery in the New Testament. Some of it is easily understood once a little cultural background is provided. For example, Jesus’ “whip” with which He clears the Temple was likely less physically harmful than a snap of a towel (though, admittedly, I did give my friend Tim a pretty good welt with a towel snap when we were 11-years-old). The real harm Jesus did in cleansing the Temple was to embarrass the up-charging merchants. It was a social assault, not a physical one.
Similarly, Paul’s use of battle armament in Ephesians 6 is so metaphorical as to actually become pacifist in nature. One doesn’t need a real sword because they have the “sword” of God’s truth. (And, by the way, such metaphorical truth should challenge us in our own day around issues of firearms for personal protection).
But then there is Revelation, which is a hotbed of seething, flaming violence. Now, obviously, Revelation is completely shrouded in metaphor, so maybe the best way to approach this passage (and others like it) is in the same manner that we approach Ephesians 6. Maybe. But this revelation is about an actual people. Babylon’s reign had ended, but pretty much every commentator agrees that “Babylon” is a stand-in for any oppressive, God-profaning political regime. “Babylon” could represent the Third Reich. “Babylon” could represent ISIS. And this is precisely the rub for me.
I don’t want to see anyone destroyed – no matter how profane their life currently – because I think the greater witness to God’s power in Jesus Christ is found in His ability to call forth amazing transformation through His amazing grace. I mean, truly imagine a world in which ISIS fighter after ISIS fighter laid down arms and quit planning suicide bombings and planting IEDs in favor of following Jesus Christ. Truly imagine that. It would be AMAZING! And, naturally, we believe that such transformation is possible for God. It may be without precedence, but so was resurrection before God did that too.
So that’s the trouble. What to do with violent imagery when our souls ought to yearn for images of transformation. What to do when the New Testament offers us cold bodies when we want converts, destruction when we want redemption, rivers of blood when we want peaceful streams whose waters baptize former enemies into newly-adopted brothers and sisters?
I don’t have a full answer (I know; I’m disappointed too). The best I can decide upon is this: the process of transformation often feels like utter destruction in the moment. Anyone who has ever taken up a new work out routine knows what I mean. Bodies can ache in ways that feel absolutely injured, but that’s really just old weaknesses being replaced with new strength. Similarly, anyone who has ever made their heart vulnerable through counseling knows that there is a lot of darkness and tears before hope and new life begins to emerge. Catch someone after a rough work out or a hard counseling session and they may very well claim that they’re being destroyed. Catch them after transformation has begun and they’ll testify that they’ve been changed.
So, that’s what I got. The violent imagery is like that to the hard road of growing new gifts, new skills, new capacities for faithfulness. It looks and feels like all crosses until the day that, all of the sudden, it is all resurrection. Let this be our hope in the violent imagery of the Bible. Let this be our hope whenever violence wrecks our world. Our God is certainly big enough, after all, to sustain us in just such hope. Amen.
