“After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments.” (Rev 19:1)
The Bible makes it very clear that injustices in the world happen at very deep levels. Throughout human history, we may observe that kings and authorities, do not merely do severely unjust things because of political reasons. The injustices happen because of deep seated and systemic reasons. The Book of Revelations, on several occasions makes it clear that the Kingdom of God brings to an end the merciless deeds and the authority of these powers. These unjust deeds are seen in two primary ways: One, sexual violence against girls and women; and two, severe violence against those who seek to follow the ethos of the Kingdom of Christ.
This is the background of Revelations 19.
In the Hebrew Bible, this victory over the unjust powers of evil is seen on many, many occasions. One dramatic scenario was in the works of the Prophet Elijah. The Prophet Elijah worked during a time when the reigning religion was based on the fertility cult of Baal and the Asherah. These were a part of the sexual deities of Ancient Near Eastern religions. Sadly, the worship of these deities became an intrinsic part of Israelite society. There were high priestesses, and priests of these deities, who would force girls and women into ritual “marriages” to these deities. As a result of this, people in power, would practice ritual sex, which was nothing but the systemic practice of rape, in the name of religion.
Jezebel, the Queen of Israel, was a high priestess of Baal and Asherah. Elijah, the Prophet sought to eradicate this evil practice. In his struggle against this evil practice of ritual rape, sometimes he had moments of heights. At other times, he had experiences of lows. A dramatic experience of highs is seen in 1 Kings 18. Elijah had to muster much strength to stand up against roughly 800 priests and priestesses of the Baal and Asherah. They had the political authority of the High Priestess and Queen Jezebel, herself, and the King Ahab. Yet, standing in front of this seemingly insurmountable political and religious power, Elijah proclaimed:
LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.
“Answer me, LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The LORD– he is God! The LORD– he is God!” (1Ki 18:36-39 NIV)
The low-class people (Hebrew Ha-am) were waiting for precisely this kind of a dramatic salvation moment. For too long they had to endure so much injustice and pain.
I call this a dramatic #MeToo moment.
They finally got their voices back to say, “The LORD, he is God! The LORD, he is God! No longer can the political and religious powers of injustice abuse us, and our boys and girls.”
Leave a Reply