Thursday, 14 May, 2004

The focus of these devotions is switching to Walter Wink’s book “The Human Being.”



I regard a “revelation” as any new idea that bursts upon the world with sufficient force to bring about positive change in people and history. A revelation begins as a private, subjective experience that happens to individuals. But if it has cogency, it becomes a public, historic occasion. What we call a revelation is a positive mutation in the history of thought or being…it was Jesus who exposed the Domination System with such devastating effect and envisioned God as nonviolent and all-inclusive. There were antecedent revelations, of course, but the revelation Jesus brought was so at odds with the world’s power arrangements that we have yet to take it measure.



Revelation changes the way we see the world as it is. I would add that a revelation of God’s gracious Reign is not a picture of some far away place or time. It is, instead, a word about what is at hand….it is about the grace of God at play in a world of tyrants and powers that do not know of such grace. That is why revelation has the power to knock us off our feet and cause us to look again at what is all around us. When we have been bowled over by a revelation of God’s Reign, we are invited to begin to stand up in the face of all the powers of Domination that seem to have a hold on the day. I suppose the question we need to ask is how one determines if the revelation is one of the Reign of God. I would suggest we start with unconditional and eternal love of all.



Connection: If you have the chance, open up the Gospel of Mark and read through the first three chapters (a random suggestion). By what is being displayed here, are you able to tell what has been revealed to Jesus? I suppose you could also do this with many of the stories of Acts…etc.



In this day Lord, be glorified in the life of your people. Open up our lives to the eternal presence of your gracious love so that in our life together, we will witness to the vision that is always beyond what is set in stone. Amen.