Given up

I have a feeling that the Church has given up on the book of Revelation. I'm pretty sure it's not my imagination because I have been a pew sitter for at least 30 years now and I don't recall ever touching that subject. And now that thanks to collapses on Wall Street and debaucheries on Main Street it's starting to feel very "end timesy," my impression is more firmly confirmed by the deafening silence regarding the book with the flying scrolls and multi-headed beasts. It's as if you have suspected all along that your son was lying to you about doing his geometry homework, and then you found his textbook in the trashcan behind your house.

There are understandable reasons for why we would collectively throw in the towel on the Apostle John's ravings by the sea: they seem like hallucinations; they are too weird to analyze with any certainty; they have been the occasion of knock-down-drag-out theological fights within the Church for ages. They are just plain too hard to understand.

Nevertheless, the embarrassing thing (or is it the encouraging thing) is that Revelation is part of the Word God gave us. And you don't want to ignore 1/66th of the Bible manual any more than a NASA astronaut wants to ignore 1/66th of the shuttle landing instruction manual. The embarrassing thing, furthermore, is that the book itself comes with a solemn invitation to its exploration, distinct from any of the other books of the canon:

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place" (Revelation 1:1).