The Faithful Witness

Revelation 1:5-7

5.    And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

6.    And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

7.    Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

Here upon our Earth, we see the Sun in all its radiance and feel the goodness of its heat.  Above our bony skulls is sky of blue and white, through which clouds sail, breezes blow, and birds fly; from which rain, lightning strikes, and snowflakes fall.  Gold and pink, purples and reds give our eyes delight with the Sun’s coming and going, and we are secure, here, in our green and blue home.  But, with the sun’s setting, the veil of sky is pulled away.  In the night, when the clouds are taken from our sight, we see the spaces of the universe, the cosmos revealed before us in the far-flung stars.  So far above our bony skulls that we cannot comprehend the depths of space… Infinity.

Our minds filled with wonder and awe, our bodies sensing transcendence – though some of us may fear, tremble and cower in the night; some of us may revel in the darkness and name the stars as our own; and some of us may imagine the night sky as a poetic kind of ceiling for our Earth.  The truth of existence, once revealed, cannot be ignored without willful ignorance.  Is the Earth, our home, insignificant in the vast reaches of Space?  Are we no more than a bacteria crusted rock hurling through space/time?  Scientists will take out their telescopes and microscopes for the answer.  Poets and philosophers will lyrically lament and laud with symbols and syllogisms.  Spiritually minded people will find meaning in the gaps of their intellectual understanding.  Pleasure seekers will take advantage of the night with probings and pursuits they would not undertake in the light of day.  Most of us, however, will simply sleep.

The Faithful Witness is the one who does not cower and hide, who is awake and does not ignore.  The Faithful Witness does not dissect or pretend or fear silence and limitations.  The Faithful Witness does not close in upon himself and drown out life with too much noise.  The Faithful Witness testifies.  He comes with the clouds so that he may bring light to others, pours out his blood in death so that he may bring life to others, descends to brown soil so that he may wash others clean.  The King of kings, the highest of high rulers, rules not with a bony skull, with sticks or stones, or the pink and gold and flaming silver of stardust.  The solidity of Earth causes us to feel at home, secure in our blue and green sanctuary.  But the true Sanctuary, with the infinite depths of the true holy of holies, is hidden from our earthly sight.  No where in the far-flung universe can that to which the faithful witness testifies be seen.  Nor can the truth be felt.  Nor can the awesome, infinite truth even be known by us of bony skulls.  The truth can only be loved.  The rule of existence is love and the faithful witness is the one who loves without beginning and without end..

How do we, who are at home on Earth, receive the Faithful Witness?  With telescopes and microscopes, with sentimentality and lucky charms, with sticks and stones and the self-centered limitations of our bony skulls.  Him we pierce with our scalpels and switchblades and self-inflated ideas, with the lances of our arrogance and the swords of our desperate feelings.  But, we do not truly see the Faithful Witness whom we pierce.  We are blinded by the created light of sky and the light of our own making.  One day…

One day that is not a day we will see without seeing… and then we will know without knowing even as we have always been known…

Christina Chase