This Hallelujah Banquet
Page 1
PRAISE FOR
This Hallelujah Banquet
“If you’ve ever wondered what the book of Revelation could possibly have to do with your life now, you’re not alone. Eugene Peterson asked the same question, and then he brought us the message of This Hallelujah Banquet. This is a wonderfully practical guide for finding joy and peace in a world that is sometimes anything but. Read it and be blessed.”
—Mark Batterson, New York Times bestselling author of The Circle Maker and lead pastor of National Community Church
“In This Hallelujah Banquet, with Eugene Peterson as an expert tour guide, we step into the book of Revelation. He wisely urges readers to resist the temptation to turn Revelation into a road map toward future chaos. Instead, he shows us how to navigate the world of seven first-century churches to notice the parallels between their struggles and our own. I highly recommend this book to anyone who desires to live as though the banquet with Jesus has already begun. Transformative, prophetic in the best way, and timely!”
—Kurt Willems, pastor, podcast host, and author of Echoing Hope
“The last book of the Bible is a revelation of Jesus Christ, but it is also a revelation from Jesus about the state of the world and the condition of the church. Peterson’s sermons on the seven letters to the seven churches speak to us about how we love, suffer, tell the truth, cultivate holiness, perceive reality, bear witness, and persist in commitment. Insightful and inviting, each chapter calls us to examine our lives so that we might endure till the end. This is Eugene at his pastoral best.”
—Rev. Dr. Glenn Packiam, associate senior pastor at New Life Church and author of Blessed Broken Given
“They say the power of a sermon is not only in what it tells but in how it transports. The sermons carefully captured in this book still retain that kind of transformative power, even in written form and years after they were first preached. This Hallelujah Banquet invites us to a place where Eugene Peterson’s warm and challenging words are still alive and proclaiming good news.”
—Mandy Smith, pastor and author of Unfettered and The Vulnerable Pastor
“Anyone who has read Eugene Peterson’s work knows that his pen pulses with the energy of the Spirit. And he brings some of his best work to bear on the last book in the Bible—Saint John’s Revelation. For far too long, this book has been preached as if it’s bad news. But Eugene reclaims it by helping us rediscover the good news that’s crackling on every page. So take this book and read it!”
—Daniel Grothe, associate senior pastor at New Life Church
This Hallelujah Banquet
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked (msg) are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. Scripture quotations marked (nrsv) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Copyright © 2021 by Eugene H. Peterson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
WaterBrook® and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Literary Agency, Colorado Springs, Colorado, www.aliveliterary.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Peterson, Eugene H., 1932–2018, author.
Title: This hallelujah banquet : how the end of what we were reveals who we can be / Eugene H. Peterson.
Description: First edition. | Colorado Springs : WaterBrook, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020020781 | ISBN 9781601429858 (hardcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781601429865 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Revelation—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Classification: LCC BS2825.52 .P485 2021 | DDC 228/.06—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020781
Ebook ISBN 9781601429865
waterbrookmultnomah.com
Images on title page, part pages, and Final Exams: copyright © iStock.com/Jobalou
Book design by Victoria Wong, adapted for ebook
Cover design: Pete Garceau
Cover illustration: arxichtu4ki/Shutterstock
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Editor’s Note
Beginning at the End
The End Is Where We Start
Ephesus
The Test of Our Love
Smyrna
The Test of Our Suffering
Pergamum
The Test of Our Truth
Thyatira
The Test of Our Holiness
Sardis
The Test of Our Reality
Philadelphia
The Test of Our Witness
Laodicea
The Test of Our Commitment
This Hallelujah Banquet
The Supper of the Lamb: A Benediction
Final Exams
About the Author
Editor’s Note
This Hallelujah Banquet was created primarily from a sermon series that Eugene H. Peterson preached at Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, during Lent in 1984, along with wider commentary and materials from his personal archives.
We at WaterBrook have selected and edited this material to read smoothly while remaining faithful to Eugene’s unique voice and pastoral intention. Our edits and additions have been limited. Besides correction of minor errors and some reordering for flow and clarity, the only changes have been to remove dated references (to technology, politics, pop culture, and so forth), replacing those with the principles Eugene was making, and to add related material from other work on Revelation in places where additional context is helpful in a printed setting. (For example, much of the opening chapter of the book—which gives valuable insight into Eugene’s thoughts on John’s ministry to the churches of Revelation and our need to return to these words of Christ through John—came from a much earlier 1967 sermon.) As well, we occasionally have inserted a few especially profound insights from his later writings on Revelation in places where they fit naturally with his earlier preaching.
We have strived to take no unnecessary liberties with Eugene’s words or thoughts and to present them to you with the craft and care that Eugene exercised in writing and preaching them. Speaking personally, as I have worked, I have noted with pleasure the special intimacy that comes from words meant to be spoken. I think Eugene would have smiled to see his sermons still “preaching” after so many years of Sundays.
A final structural note: each of the letters follows a similar outline. First, Christ presents a particular part of his character. Next, Christ examines the Christians. The examination reveals both strengths and weaknesses, and so corrective action is commanded. An urgent promise concludes each message. Far from a wooden devotion to this approach, Eugene honors its rhyth
m in each of the chapters. In these messages, we are confronted with how the end of one way of life—or even one version of our faith—can usher in a new and more vibrant connection with Christ. Every ending can become a beginning. It is this theme of examination and invitation that forms the core of Eugene’s teaching in this book.
When this book was first pulled together in the fall of 2019, we had no idea of the global changes that would come with the widespread pandemic of 2020. Now, as it releases at the beginning of a misty 2021, a sober attentiveness has come. More than anytime in living memory, it has felt for many like the end of the world. With that have come grief, reflection, and hope—all of which are present in these pages.
It’s with quiet joy and expectation that we at WaterBrook, with the blessing of Eugene’s family, present this special book to you. May it lead you to a deeper knowledge of the Lamb, who invites us all to his eternal feast, to this rich and timely hallelujah banquet.
—Paul J. Pastor, editor
The End Is Where We Start
The last book of the Bible, Revelation, has some of the best words to start the year, words that launch us into the pages of our calendars.*1 T. S. Eliot wrote in “Little Gidding,”
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.*2
“The end is where we start from.” The end of the Bible is the beginning of our new year’s existence. It functions for us in this way as it speaks to our mood and condition.
The characteristic mood, the typical mental stance, on New Year’s Day is a look to the future. We have a calendar of unused days stretching out before us. There is curiosity about them and fear of them. Amateur prophets make predictions. Astrological magazines and horoscope plotters are in their peak season. Articles proliferate in magazines and newspapers: the business outlook, the literary prospects, the political probabilities, the social changes expected. And with all this, no one can avoid these personal questions: What will it bring for me? What waits to be recorded in the diary pages of the new year?
The book of Revelation is the word of God that speaks to this combination of anxiety and hope about the future. For the person who is concerned with the future, the book of Revelation is the timely word of God.
In the course of our years, New Year’s Day is a day wherein our concern about the future is expressed. The book of Revelation is the part of Scripture that deals with our concern about the future.
* * *
When we begin reading the book of Revelation, we are first confused and then disappointed. We are confused by an author who talks of angels and dragons, men eating books and giant insects eating men, bottomless pits and mysterious numbers, fantastic beasts and golden cities. The language confuses us. And then we are disappointed because we don’t find what we are looking for. We want to know what is going to happen in the future, but we find neither dates nor names. We are fearful of what may happen to the world in the next twelve months, but we don’t find anything said that helps us understand the coming days. We have some hopes for our lives and for our families, but we find nothing that is said about our prospects. We go back to reading the political analysts and working the horoscope in the paper, escaping occasionally with a science fiction novel and making do as best we can.
So, what has happened? Has the book of Revelation—a holy scripture notwithstanding—failed us? Is the Word of God, though highly regarded in previous centuries, quite inadequate to communicate to our adult, mature world? We put the writer and reader of Revelation in a class with palm readers and fortune tellers—colorful but chancy.
Or is it that we just haven’t given it enough thought? Maybe what is needed is some hard concentration to figure out the symbols, arrange the chronology, and pin down the predictions. Many people have done just that. Obsessed with the future and unwilling to concede that the Bible does not have the final word on it, they twist and arrange the material in it until it finally does yield the word they want to hear. History becomes arranged in prophetic installments. Dates are set and personalities named. The future is known. There is no more uncertainty. But the end result, satisfying as it is, is not recognizable in the book of Revelation.
Maybe this book doesn’t need ingenuity as much as open attention. Maybe we have been so obsessed with questions about the future that we haven’t heard what Revelation said about it. Maybe we have so fixed in our minds the kind of thing that will be said that we are not able to hear what is actually said. For us, the future means dates, events, and names, and if we do not find them, we either give up in disgust or invent them and put them in anyway. Maybe, though, the future doesn’t mean that at all. Maybe God is trying to say something in the book of Revelation that we haven’t thought about before that is the truth about the future. Maybe this is a new word—a really new word.
This new, unexpected quality is characteristic of Scripture. Have you noticed how often people question Jesus in the gospel narrative and how regularly his answer ignores their question? Scripture is not an encyclopedia of information to which we go when we are curious or in doubt. It is God speaking to us his own word, telling us what he wishes to tell us and omitting what is of no significance. (Have you ever made a list of all those items you are intensely curious about but for which there is no biblical data?)
The book of Revelation really is about the future, but what it says does not satisfy our curiosity or match what we think are the obvious things to say. It is not a disclosure of future events but the revelation of their inner meaning. It does not tell us what events are going to take place and the dates of their occurrence; it tells us what the meaning of those events is. It does not provide a timetable for history; it gives us an inside look at the reality of history. It is not prediction but perception. It is, in short, about God as he is right now. It rips the veil off our vision and lets us see what is taking place.
The text gives us a summary of what lies behind the veil, behind the newspaper headlines, behind the expressionless mask of a new calendar. Behind all the imaginative caricatures of future events, there is God, who sits on his throne and says, “Behold, I make all things new….I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 21:5–6).
“All things new.” Well, we would like that. A new car, maybe a new home, certainly some new clothes. And as long as it is “all things,” we may as well expand our list. Some new neighbors, some new weather, a new political climate, a new world peace, a new society of brotherhood. As long as we are wishing, we may as well wish for the works.
But wait a minute. God does not say, “I will make all things new,” but said, “I make all things new.” It is in the present tense. If he is already doing it, why are so many things old and worn out? Why are we so quickly bored with things? Could it be that we have once again missed the point of the Word of God?
To get back on track, let’s look at the way the word new was used earlier. Isaiah was a spokesman for the Word of God about four hundred years earlier. There the Word of God was,
Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
The wild beasts will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise. (Isaiah 43:18–21)
That triggers the recollection of another famous instance of the word new. This time it is from Saint Paul in 2 Corinthians: “If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation
; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (5:17–18).
When God speaks from the throne in Revelation and says, “Behold, I make all things new,” he can hardly mean anything very different from what he has already said through Isaiah and Saint Paul. God is with men and women in Christ, meeting them personally, forgiving their sins, and filling them with eternal life. The new is that which God brings to humanity now—the new is now.
In one sense it is not new at all. It is the same new thing that God did at the beginning when he said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3); the same thing as when the Spirit of God came upon King Saul and gave him a new heart (1 Samuel 10:9); the same thing that the crowd around Jesus saw when they exclaimed, “What is this? A new teaching!” (Mark 1:27); and the same thing that Jesus said to Nicodemus: “You must be born anew” (John 3:7). If by new we mean the latest fashion, fad, or novel, then this certainly is not new.
God is with men and women in Christ, meeting them personally, forgiving their sins, and filling them with eternal life. The new is that which God brings to humanity now—the new is now.
On the other hand, if we mean essential life, our encounter with God, the receiving of grace so that our lives can finally be lived without guilt and with steady purpose, then yes, this is the absolutely new. It is that which can never be antiquated. It is that which puts into obsolescence all other experience and knowledge. And as we participate in this new thing, we become a beachhead from which all things are made new. We become the person Saint Paul spoke of—a new creature who has heard the good news and who shares this new report with his or her neighbors.