Anchored in Beauty
The Book of Revelation contains a series of visions that portray, in essence, how the God of Israel is going to change the world. This change is relatively sudden, dramatic, and historically disruptive on a scale that is nearly impossible for us to imagine. This is likely the reason that the unfolding visions utilize the apocalyptic language and imagery - God provides through John the Beloved’s visions and writings a means for us to begin to conceive of how God intends to send His Son to overthrow Satan and his emissaries, cleanse the earth of sin, and establish Israel in the fullness of Her destiny and promises. In the book of Revelation, everything changes - and the very real implications of such dramatic global changes make the uncertainty and upheaval of today look impossibly small and almost irrelevant in comparison.
This is why the Lord sets His throne room at the beginning of this series of visions. The throne room of Yaweh in Revelation 4 is portrayed as the very center and source of all beauty. One could rightly title this place, “the Beauty Realm”, both the climax and origination of all beauty. This place, and the God who dwells here, are more than beautiful to behold. This place is beauty - the essence of it and the defining statement of all beauty.
This is where the most spectacular sunrises and sunsets ever conceived had their beginning. This is where the most lush and gorgeous of tropical paradises find their home. This is where love itself originated, the place from which love invaded the earth and its inhabitants. This is the realm of crystal seas mingled with fire, with creatures so beautiful to behold that we might never look away from them, except the the being at the center of the throne radiates and thunders beauty so incomparable or undescribable that the creatures - who either can not or will not look away from Him - sing about its inexhasutably infinte and captivating power, forever. That they sing one phrase endlessly troubles no one in the room. To see God in His realm of astonshing beauty is to understand the challenge of endlessly being at a loss for words, while simultaneously being compelled to sing with all of your might, much like the manner in which a perfect sunset or a lakeside mountain pull our gasps of delight right out of our lungs.
The Urgency of Beauty
By setting this scene at the beginning of the visions that would unfold, Jesus makes the issue of beauty a matter of life and death. The Beauty Realm of the God of Israel is recontextualized from the place that contains the fullness of the longings of every human who has ever lived to something else entirely. To open the visions of catastrophic changes with indescribable beauty is to beckon us to anchor our hearts and souls within these chambers. Beauty becomes the great secret of perseverance, the escort into a stable heart, confident in the leadership and fierce loyal love of the Father, that enables us to bear the weight of the hour that the visions declare will soon crash in upon us.
The potency of this beauty was meant to sustain the willing heart by grace in the midst of the greatest calamity and storm in human history. The intensity of the beauty is meant to awaken such deep fascination that we would be more than adequately sustained in such an hour. This is beauty that goes far beyond the sustaining of the human heart in the midst of trouble - this is beauty meant to fuel a fire of delight and devotion that no hurricane of the nations rage - or even our own unstable emotions - could ever quench.
If this is so, then how potent would such beauty be in the midst of the lesser storms that are whipping around us daily today? The Beauty Realm of Revelation 4 could be likened to the anchor of a gigantic battleship, capable of weathering the most violent and murderous of storms and tidal waves. This is a powerful, life-giving, sustaining beauty that invites our heart to find its home there, confident that today’s pains are fleeting. His throne is eternal. Untouchable. It is our source of transcendant, endless pleasure that washes and renews every moment by magnificent moment we spend there.
Therefore, we get to throw that “battleship sized anchor” of His beauty over the side and let it stablize our emotions, quench our fears, and stoke the flames of our desire for him in the midst of the inferior storms of today. They are so small in comparison to the storms that room was built to endure. The light rains of today that will soon be the hurricane force winds of tomorrow offer the perfect moment to begin reaching and connecting now. We can use today by grace to learn how to anchor our lives in incomparable beauty. We can soar in our hearts. We can gasp at His radiance alongide majestic angelic beings and awestruck elders.
I encourage you to “go there” today in your heart. It will feel small, and simple. You will not feel the power of it all quite yet, and today’s problems will still feel bigger than the room God dwells in, waiting for us to draw near boldly. If you stay with it over time, and talk with Him as you do, asking Him to help you see and feel the power of His beauty, over time, the anchor becomes real and powerful. Your emotions settle. Your heart comes alive. Best of all, no headline or news report will be able to touch the transcendent joy that grace has cultivated and magnified in your life. We get to experience, as believers in Jesus, the glories of eternal life now, here, today.
Maranatha!