The Christ of the Apocalypse: Epilogue

 In these talks based on my book The Christ of the Apocalypse: Contemplating the Faces of Jesus in the Book of Revelation, I focus on the portrait of Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelation. St. John offers us a message of hope in difficult times, and his language is rich and symbolic: • How do we interpret the Apocalypse? • Do we interpret St. John literally? • Is the Apocalypse about the end of the world? • Or is it about the beginning of a new creation? Images that have captured the imagination include: the Four Horsemen, the Antichrist, the Number of the Beast, and the Battle of Armageddon. Yet the basic facts about the Book often go unnoticed: that the Apocalypse is – from start to finish – a Revelation of Jesus Christ, who will return in glory at the end of time to usher in a new heaven and a new earth. Finally, I offer some reflections on the relevance of John’s message of hope in our postmodern, post-truth world and post-human world. With the rise of artificial intelligence, and as the universe gives way to the metaverse, John calls us to give brave witness to the truth of the Gospel and so begin now to become a new creation in Christ. - Monsignor A. Robert Nusca OVERVIEW: Introduction to the Talks Talk 1: The Apocalypse of John: A Message of Hope in Difficult Times Talk 2: The Faces of Jesus in the Gospels: The Portraits of Jesus that Emerge in the Four Gospels Talk 3: The Faces of Christ: Jesus in the Book of Revelation Talk 4: Jesus Walks among the Seven Churches: Christ as Glorified Angel Talk 5: The Visions of the Lamb of God: We Examine the Image of the Slain Lion/Lamb of God. Talk 6: The Divine Warrior-The Rider on a White Horse: Christ Returns in Judgement & Glory at the End of Time. Talk 7: A Fourth Face: The Faithful Transformed by God’s Grace Talk 8: The Promises to the Victors: What does Jesus Promise to those who give Faithful Witness to the Gospel? Epilogue: The New Jerusalem: John's Message for us Today! Quotes referenced in these talks, can be found here https://arnusca.substack.com/p/references-for-the-faces-of-jesus To sign up for free to Msgr. Nusca's website, please see arnusca.substack.com to receive ongoing articles as they are published. 

Transcript

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Through the kindness of our donors, the National Catholic Broadcasting Council presents Let Us Learn Together. Please join Monsignor Robert Nuska for The Christ of the Apocalypse. Epilogue.

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In this concluding talk, I would like to offer some reflections on the relevance of St. John's message for us today. As we've seen in some detail at the center of the cyclone of swirling images that fill the book, there emerges a remarkable, multidimensional portrait of a Jesus Christ who is at the same time, present with us on earth, who rules with God, and is adored with the Father by the angels in heaven, who will return again in glory at the end of time. John's is the apocalyptic, all-powerful Christ who is, who was, and who is to come. Beyond describing visions of the end of the world, John wants to transport his audience into a new world, and as the commentators observe, to leave them transformed through the experience. The alternating visions of order and chaos, the glory of heaven and the terrors of approaching judgment, are also designed to bring the reader to make a choice, to choose God, to choose Christ, to worship God with the angels for eternity in the new creation. Throughout, John's visions offer hope and consolation to the faithful on their journey of faith between two worlds. One world is visible, temporal, and spatial, historical, imperfect, fragmented, both living and dying. The other is invisible, eternal, transcendent, divine, everlasting. But through the life of faith and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian community is guided through the foreign land, the earthly city that surrounds us, with its empire of illusions, and is led safely to the city of God, the New Jerusalem. At the same time, as we've seen, the Christ of the Apocalypse functions as the mirror through which to reflect back to the faithful John's highest hopes for them, in the form of the fourth face. Here again is the human person transformed by the Holy Spirit and called to mirror the love, the light, and mercy of Christ to others. John wants to move the world of his audience away from the values of the worldly empire and in the direction of the everlasting city that will descend from heaven. So it is that John's visions are not only mystical, they are also political. The spirit of the age in which we live is that there is no God, but rather that I am God, echoing the attitude of Adam in the Garden of Eden. John's visions warn that the worldly powers will eventually establish altars to themselves and to the gods of their choice, and sacrifices will be demanded at these altars. The same time, as much as Revelation offers a strong critique of the Roman Empire, it is important to appreciate that John effects a powerful prophetic critique of the churches. Jesus warns against compromise with the values of the world and of a lukewarm witness to the gospel. Again, Jesus not only comforts and consoles, but exhorts, threatens, and issues a call to conversion. For John the Church is what St. Augustine refers to as a corpus per mixtum, an admixture of positive and negative elements, of weeds and wheat. Yes, there are many sheep within and many wolves without, but as Augustine observes, many sheep are without and many wolves are within. So the need to strive to live the life of holiness, as Jesus teaches us, and always to give credible witness to the gospels, as the lives of the saints show us. In our own time, the gospel and the church's teachings on the sanctity of human life, from conception until the end of life, its notion of freedom as a freedom from sin and a freedom for life in the spirit, its teachings on marriage and the family are all destined to place us in diametric opposition to the values of the modern cancel culture with its increasingly illiberal form of liberalism. One of the greatest challenges in our time will be to communicate and proclaim not only the mystery of our transcendent God, but the mystery of the greatness of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God. And what a powerful message to bring forth to our world today with the rise of artificial intelligence, as we hear so much talk of the fourth industrial revolution, here far beyond steam engines, the rise of factories, and the advent of digital technology, its advocates speak of a fusion of technologies that will blur the lines between the physical, the digital, and the biological spheres. It is said that these challenges will fundamentally alter the way in which we live, work, and relate to one another. In addition to the post-human, there's so much talk of the transhuman. Here, scholars study the history of the term transhumanism, which is described as a movement that would try and promote the evolution of the human race beyond its present limitations through the use of science and technology. Although Sir Julian Huxley, yes, brother of Aldous, and also the first head of UNESCO, is usually identified as having originated the term, scholars observe that in fact it has a much longer history. In the first canto of his Paradiso, Dante uses the verb transumanar as he describes his journey toward heaven, while leading us to reflect upon St. Paul's journey to the third heaven in the second letter to the Corinthians. In the world of Dante and of St. Paul, the mystery of the transhuman speaks to us of becoming more like God, more like Christ, divinized as the lives of the saints show us. And so, in conclusion, amid whatever changes and proposed global resets, John's visions invite us to never lose our focus upon God and the divine image within, the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in a field, the morning star that is already rising in our hearts. For nothing other than God is capable of filling that vast expanse of the human heart created to know, to love, and to worship God in eternity along with the angels. Yes, the gospel continues to call out to us to love and serve the poor, the sick, the lost, the lonely, and the abandoned, and in this way to mirror the light, love, and mercy of Christ to others. But in our own time, as the universe risks giving way to the metaverse, there are those who warn against creating a world dominated more and more by technology, a fragmented world that would override and ignore completely the importance of the spiritual, the psychological, and the mystical dimensions. Here, St. Teresa of Calcutta warns that the greatest poverty today is the poverty of not knowing who we are, of not knowing that we are children of God. The poorest of the poor today are those who do not know that they are created for greater things. Like St. John, St. Claire of Assisi invites us not only to follow Christ, but to become a mirror of Christ for others to see and follow. So too, St. John Vieni reminds us that we are each of us like a small mirror into which God looks in search of his own reflection. So when God looks at us, what does he find? Does God see himself reflected in us? Are we living so as to reflect the light and love of Christ to others? Are we bravely proclaiming the truth of the gospel? Are we doing so in a way that inspires others to live according to the gospel? Do we mirror Christ's own light, love, and mercy to our neighbor through our acts of kindness and works of charity? Are we living as temples of the Holy Spirit? Are we striving to make of our hearts a well-ordered city, in which God and Christ have been given their proper place at the very center? Have we entered into the spiritual struggle to cast off that old self and be renewed in the spirit, so that the everlasting city might begin its descent into our hearts through the life of grace? Saint Leo the Great reminds us that if we are indeed a temple of God, and if the Holy Spirit of God dwells within us, then what every believer has within their soul is greater than what they admire in the sky.