Michael Osterholm was director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Asked when he thought Covid might become endemic, he said, “Every morning I get up I scrape five inches of crusted mud off my crystal ball. And every day, it seems cloudier and cloudier … Any modeling that looks beyond 30 days out is largely based on pixie dust.”[1]
As I said last week, humans possess prospective consciousness – the unique ability to imagine, anticipate, and plan for future events. We have so many ways to seek information about the future. I can think of eight:
- Scientific modelling and forecasting (reliable because logical, and great when it works, but it’s no crystal ball);
- financial analysis (e.g., market trends, economic forecasts);
- advice from futurists (e.g., professionals who specialise in forecasting developments in technology, society and global issues;
- AI and predictive algorithms (e.g., use of AI tools to anticipate consumer behaviour, lifestyle trends, and disease outbreaks);
- psychic readings and clairvoyance (e.g., consulting mediums and clairvoyants who claim to have supernatural insight into future events or personal destinies);
- dream interpretation (e.g., advice from people who claim the ability to explain the symbolism of our dreams to reveal the path of future events);
- astrology and horoscopes (e.g., consulting astrological charts and horoscopes to gain insight into future events based on the alignment of celestial bodies);
- religious prophecy and scriptures (e.g., insight into future events or personal destiny through interpretation of apocalyptic texts; or randomly selecting a text to discern “the will of God”).
So many options! Today, we’re going with option “h.”
Turn with me to Revelation chapter 4. The previous two chapters comprise short letters to seven congregations scattered through western Turkey. Chapter four marks the transition to apocalyptic literature, although we have encountered it already in chapter 1.
It’s a vision of heaven. There’s an open door, and a voice inviting John up to see “what must take place after this” (v. 1). In ancient Middle Eastern cosmology, and in popular culture today, heaven was “up” above the dome of the sky, with a door to “heaven,” the abode of the gods, at its highest point.
In 4:1-5, John borrows this imagery for his vision for the throne room of the one true God. There are 24 elders, seated on 24 thrones, dressed in white and crowned with gold (v. 4). They probably represent the 12 tribes of Israel (the “old” covenant) and the 12 Apostles of the church (the “new” covenant).
There are glorious pyrotechnics around the throne (v. 5), reminiscent of the thunder and lightning when God appeared to Moses at the summit of Mt Sinai and gave him the Ten Commandments (Ex 19). There’s a sea of glass, and four “living creatures” (vv. 6-8) – more on them in a moment – and there’s more about the 24 elders (vv. 9-11).
This is apocalyptic literature: big on symbolism, mystery, and the fantastic. It’s not like a telescope allowing us to see future events with microscopic precision. Nor is it a clear glass window through which we see the future. It’s more like a stained-glass window whose hues and colours emphasise the omnipotence, omniscience and sovereignty of God.[2]
So much has been said about this chapter. I want to highlight two simple points: one theological, the other ethical. First, we must not confuse John’s vision of heaven with the popular images of heaven we often carry in our minds.
It may seem as though heaven and earth are two very different realms. But we know that God loves the material universe. We know that God loves matter, and anti-matter, since he created such a lot of it. The world we inhabit is God’s creation which God declared to be “very good” (Gen 1:1-31).
Yet creation has felt the impact of human wrongdoing and needs to be purified. In chapter 7, a “great wind” does this work – scorching the earth, troubling the sea, uprooting trees. Revelation reminds us that God’s people will come safely through all such judgements because they are united with Christ. That is a great comfort in times of trouble.
Later, in 17:1-8, John speaks of Babylon, the world’s corrupt economic and political systems, in all its diabolical hostility to God. As biblical scholar Tom Wright observes, the whole Book of Revelation
is about the creator and his creation, which reaches its full glory in the coming together of the lamb and the bride, the husband and wife, in loyal and loving faithfulness, and what he sees in Babylon is the deepest and darkest parody, the thing … which is so near to the truth and yet so far.[3]
Heaven is where God “dwells,” but God is not bound by time and space. There are many indications in Scripture that the future of our life with God is not the replacement of this present universe with a new one, but the perfect restoration of this universe, returning it to the ideal God intended for it, and for us.
When God thinks of heaven, I don’t think God imagines it as a place where people sit passively on fluffy clouds playing golden harps. When God thinks of heaven, he sees a garden, a tree, a river, a city, a temple, a throne, a king. He sees a countless multitude of people, and countless numbers of angels. There’s music and singing, light and love, justice and peace, the place where all our best hopes and dreams come true.
And all of this – all of it – is curated and nurtured and celebrated in a renewed and restored world, third planet from the sun.
My second point is this: the gospel compels all of us to honour our Creator by worshipping him. Revelation 13:8, that famous chapter about “666,” paints a bleak picture of “all those who live on the earth” worshipping the hideous “beast,” rather than the slain Lamb, and suffering the worst of all fates.
By contrast, Revelation 14:7 has an angel declaring, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
Back in chapter 4:11, the 24 elders do precisely that, and I want to draw your attention to one glorious word in that verse. In chapter 4, there are two hymns of praise to God. In the first, the four “living creatures” sing ceaseless praise to God, extolling God for his character – his holiness and eternal nature.
These four creatures represent the king of wild beasts (the lion), the king of tamed beasts of burden (the ox), and the king of the birds (the eagle), alongside the human creature. All express their dependence upon God, each one keeping watch over God’s creation and adoring God in their own unique creaturely way.
But there is something different about the second hymn (vv. 9-11). Tom Wright puts it well:
Creation as a whole simply worships God; the humans who represent God’s people understand why they do so. ‘You deserve,’ they say, ‘to receive glory and honour and power, because you created all things.’ There it is: the ‘because’ that distinguishes humans from other animals, however noble those animals may be in their own way. Humans are given the capacity to reflect, to understand what’s going on. And, in particular, to express their understanding in worship.[4]
What is happening in heaven in Revelation 4 is what ought to be happening day and night on earth. The worship of the beast is false worship because it mystifies what is finite (the world, the human). The worship of God is true worship because it clarifies what is infinite.
John shows us how to worship this transcendent Creator, calling us to freely embrace this central purpose for which each of us was created: to worship the One who dwells beyond time and space, the Alpha and Omega, who in grace meets us in time and space, in the person of Jesus Christ, through the Spirit of Christ who unites us with God.
This is the glory of the good news. This is why we exist. This is what we are for. This is who we are.
I want to conclude by reading a poem by American poet and essayist Ross Gay, titled “Thank you”:
If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden’s dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.[5]
Sermon 822 copyright © 2025 Rod Benson. Preached at North Rocks Community Church, Sydney, Australia, on Sunday 17 August 2025. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020).
[1] “Osterholm: 5th COVID wave ‘absolutely’ possible,” wwsg.com, 18 Oct 2021; and “Covid-19 keeps firing 210-mph curveballs at us,” CNN, 18 May 2022.
[2] Robert H. Stein, A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible: Playing by the Rules (second edition; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 149f.
[3] Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone (London: SPCK, 2011), 151 (my emphasis).
[4] Wright, Revelation, 48 (original emphasis).
[5] Ross Gay, “Thank You,” in Against Which (Fort Lee, NJ: CavanKerry Press, 2006).
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