Worship I’d like to See

FOCUS READING

Revelation 7:9 (NRSV)

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

DAILY BYTE

For the last three days of this week, we are going to focus on three specific aspects of the passage from Revelation you read yesterday. The first is this:

Revelation 7 describes a vision of a “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.”
If you’ve read Revelation, then you know that the writer loves using numbers. The book is riddled with specific numbers of things that people have been trying to decode for centuries. The number 7, which is the number of completion or perfection in the scriptures, is particularly popular.

So, I think it’s important to notice that in this vision in Revelation 7, the writer says the people who are included are impossible to count. No one could do it!

And not only that, but they are every different kind of person – from all places and cultures.

Think for a moment how radical this statement was and is. In the ancient world and still today, other nations, tribes and peoples on this earth did not and often still do not know or profess the name of Jesus.
And yet, there they are – every kind of person, standing before the throne and the lamb of God crying out in one voice!

We get a glimpse of this when we worship in church, I think. The kingdom of heaven breaks through as we worship with people of different backgrounds, colours, languages, even different beliefs. On a Sunday, we get to see a little of what this will be like for an eternity, and it’s good.

But it seems it will be even better.

More people. More languages. More tribes. More nations.
Because unlike our world now with borders, divisions, denominations, and religions – in the fullness of the kingdom, God wants us all singing praise to the Lamb together.

And I believe I’d like to see that. Wouldn’t you?