A Blazing Vision

I saw someone … someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.  His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.  His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.  When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.  Then he placed his right hand on me and said:  “Do not be afraid.  I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!  And I hold the keys of death and Hades.  (Revelation 1:12–18)

This is clearly a vision of the risen and ascended Christ.  Sometimes in the midst of great challenges – or the mundane and normal routine, our vision blurs and our experience of Jesus gets sort of ho-hum as well.  You may have felt that more than once yourself.  That’s when you and I need a “flash of insight,”  a “jolt of vision,” like John’s here.  In fact, I suspect that is what John (the Holy Spirit) was trying to do for his congregation – to lift their sights beyond their immediate circumstance of worry, concern and fear – to a captivating and redirecting vision of Jesus.