Who Hurt You?

How have you been hurt?

Who hurt you?

How did they hurt you?

Did someone betray you?

Did someone tell a lie about you?

Did someone stab you in the back while smiling to your front?

How has it left you?

Do you no longer trust others?

Do you carry a hidden anger?

Do you blame yourself for what someone else did to you?

Do you carry a load of guilt?

Enough of the questions, right? Just a few more…

What burdens do you bear because of the pain you carry caused by someone else?

Have you been hurt by a church?

Has a church told you what a bad person you are, while you were struggling?

Has a church judged you instead of showing you grace?

Have the people in your life convinced you that you are worthless?

Have you convinced yourself that you are worthless?

Have you given up on life and just sort-of go along day to day feeling lonely? Hurt?

Do you think God cares about you, or do you feel so abandoned by a God you once believed in that you no longer believe?

Do you think the message of the gospel of Jesus the Christ is relevant for you?

Have you lost your faith, your hope, your “connection” to the Lord?

Today, are you feeling hopeless? Would you say life sucks? Do you wonder if anyone cares?

Does organized religion offer you any answers, or do you believe it is just a bunch of religious yakity yak, mumbo jumbo?

Is there a cloud of darkness that seems to hang over your life?

Have you made promises to yourself that you can’t keep?

Have you made promises to someone else that you can’t keep?

Questions, questions, questions keep coming at us. Where are the answers?

Are there answers, or do we struggle on without answers?

Stay with me, and go with me on a visit to the throne room of God. Don’t assume I’ve lost my mind, just stay with me for a few paragraphs. We will visit the throne room of God via the vision given to John on Patmos some two thousand years ago. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but just stay with me, and then decide.

In the throne room of God (if you don’t believe in God, humor me for a moment and stay with me), John sees a vision of Jesus the Christ as a Lamb that had been slaughtered. [Jesus was executed by crucifixion on the orders of the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.] The “Lamb” took from the “right hand” of the One on the throne a scroll, sealed with seven seals, and as he began to open the seals, various happenings were revealed.

The Revelation sounds like the great imaginings of a creative mind like Tolkein, or Lewis, or someone who writes fantasy well. But this is a vision, a Revelation, the Revelation from God. Here’s how John sees the opening of the fifth seal: “When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given…” (Revelation 6:9)

At first glance we might see this and ask what does that have to do with me? After all, we assume visions are just visions and who has visions anyway? We should keep in mind this is more than a vision, this is the Revelation.

So John sees a vision of all these “souls” under the altar; “souls” of people who had been killed for doing the work of the kingdom of God; for doing good things. It doesn’t make much sense to us when people are harmed or killed while doing God’s work, or some good deed? These “souls” under the altar had a question for the One on the throne. See, it’s okay to question God. We often find answers in the questions, and we certainly won’t find an answer if we don’t ask our question(s).

Sometimes we simply do not understand why things happen the way they do, and we don’t understand why some people keep on getting away with their mean and/or evil ways. How many more people will they hurt? How many more times will they hurt you? When you’re trying to do your best, why is it that some people are at their worst? These people under the altar had literally been killed for doing what was right—the work of the kingdom of God, and yet there were those who were so threatened by goodness that they had to carry out an act of evil. Your goodness is a threat to some people.

In the vision given to John, the “souls” under the altar had a question: “They cried out with a loud voice, ‘Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” (6:10)

How long? Is there a pay day some day?

The “souls” under the altar were given white robes and told to wait—“rest a little longer.”

There is a sixth seal… When it is opened, the “pay day” is revealed.

“Then the kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’” (6:15-17)

I’ll leave it there and let the Revelation speak for itself.