Day 340: Revelation 1:4–11

John, your brother and partner in the tribulation, kingdom, and perseverance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of God’s word and the testimony about Jesus (v. 9).

We can be quite sure that John never sketched Patmos on his personal itinerary. I wonder what the old man felt as he was shipped like a criminal from his loved ones in Ephesus to a remote, unfriendly island. He had no idea what awaited him. God’s ways are so peculiar at times. Yet the greatest privilege of John’s life waited for him in these gravest of circumstances.

The most profound revelation in Revelation is the revealing of Jesus Christ Himself, not only in visions but in authority. The word “revelation” (meaning “unveiling”) is translated from the Greek word apokalupsis. Thrown onto a boat transferring criminals, John had no idea what God would “unveil” to him upon the island of Patmos.

Imagine John’s frail, aging frame as he held on tight while the sea vessel tossed its long way across the Aegean. John probably pushed his gray hair out of his face to look at the few other prisoners sharing his destination. Don’t picture a bonding experience. No one would likely carry him through a small group of worshipers while he said, “Dear children, love one another.” Exile was intended not only for overwork and overexposure to elements; it was purposed for crazing isolation. Yet the tactic would be wasted on John—just as it can be wasted on us when Satan tries to force us into isolation.

John most likely would have preferred death. His long life may have frustrated him. If forced to remain on earth, exile from ministry and isolation from those he loved was certainly not the way he envisioned spending his senior years. I can’t imagine at one point or another in the labors forced upon him that John didn’t slip on the jagged, rocky surfaces and rip his thinning skin like paper. He had no bedding for his aching body at the end of a day.

I also can’t imagine that he thought, “Finally! A little peace and quiet for writing a new book!” He couldn’t have expected to meet Jesus on that island as he did. Beloved one, how many testimonies do we need to hear before we accept that sometimes the places and seasons we expect Jesus least, we find Him most? And oddly, sometimes the places we expect Him most, we find Him least.

Yes, when Christ returns to this groaning soil in His glorious splendor, every eye will see Him. But until then, He sometimes comes with clouds. God’s glory is so inconceivably brilliant to the human eye that He often shrouds His presence in a cloud (see Exod. 16:10; 24:15–16; Lev. 16:2; 1 Kings 8:10; Luke 9:34). But one day, as Revelation 1:7 says, the clouds will roll back like a scroll and Christ will stand before us revealed.

He has much to disclose to us in the meantime, and we’ll be greatly helped when we accept that clouds are not signs of His absence. Indeed, within them we most often find His presence. In the July 29 entry of his classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote figuratively of clouds:

In the Bible, clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. “The clouds are the dust of His feet” (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. . . . Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child—a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. . . . Until we can come face-to-face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God’s character, we do not yet know Him.74

I’ve been on Patmos myself when the clouds that settled on the island obscured what might otherwise have been a beautiful view. I wonder if clouds covered the island when Domitian thought he left John to the island’s harsh volcanic mercy? I wonder how the old apostle “viewed” his circumstances? I wonder if he ever imagined getting off that island? Or what he’d see while he was there?

John had a critical decision to make while exiled on the unkind island. Would he relax his walk with God at the very least and at most resist? After all, no one from his church or ministry was watching. Would he lie down and die? Goodness knows he was weary. Or would John the Beloved love Christ all the more and seek Him with his whole heart amid the rock and wasteland?

His answer rises like a fresh morning tide baptizing the jagged shore: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (1:10 hcsb). And there He was: the Alpha and Omega. The first and last Word on every life. Every trial. Every exile.