Day 9, On The Road To Pentecost: JESUS, AFTER THE RESURRECTION

Revelation 1:9-20

When in a vision John saw Jesus on the throne of heaven he said, “I fell at His feet like a dead man” (Revelation 1:17).  It was an overwhelming moment for him to experience the Jesus of the Resurrection.  John saw Jesus, 

clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash.  His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.  His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters.  In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in its strength (Revelation 1:13-17).

No wonder John fainted upon seeing Jesus.  Yet, Jesus reached out and touched John and spoke words to him that His disciples had come to hear often, “Do not be afraid” (vs. 17). 

In this vision John  saw Jesus in all His glory, the glory of heaven, sovereign, holy, all powerful, even frightening.  Perhaps this is why the first words out of Jesus’ mouth were, “Do not be afraid.”  Being in the presence of God can take away your breath.  You don’t treat moments like these lightly.  These are holy moments, life transforming moments, sacred moments.  Moments that changed the trajectory of your life. 

When you stand in the presence of “the first and the last…the living one” who “was dead” but is now “alive forevermore,” words don’t come easily and silence might just be the order of the day.  When one sees Jesus in His resurrection authority holding, “the keys of death and Hades” in His hands, it is time to be still and know that God is God (vs. 17-18).

This is the Jesus we encounter on the road to Pentecost, the Jesus who fills the life of His followers with the power His Holy Spirit.  We serve the risen Savior, the living Lord, the “Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end,” the one “who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens” (Revelation 22:13, 3:7).

The world doesn’t take Jesus too seriously, but those who have encountered the resurrected Jesus do.  The one we serve cannot be held in a grave.  

Up from the grave He arose,  

with a mighty triumph o'er His foes. 

He arose a Victor from the dark domain,  

and He lives forever, with His saints to reign.                                                                                -- Robert Lowery, 1874