ARYEH: the lion
“Stop weeping- behold the Lion…has overcome.”
Revelations 5:5
Meaning of His Name:
John was tough. A strong, can-do kind of man. Raised on the rustic shores of the Sea of Galilee, he followed his father into the backbreaking work of wrestling fish from those harrowing waters. There, in teams of five, men cast enormous nets, hoping to earn enough to pay the brokers (called tax-collectors or publicans) and to have enough left over to feed their families. Not exactly the sort of work for touchy-feely sensitivity! Yet this man, whose ferocious reputation earned him the nickname “Son of Thunder”, would one day be selected by God to inscribe that wildly apocalyptic book we call Revelation.
In the fifth chapter of his spellbinding story, John saw something that left him shaking in his boots. Something terrifying. Something so hopeless and so real that he couldn’t speak—something really bad.
He saw the end of the world.
As John stared hopelessness in the face, he began to cry. To weep. To choke on the loss of dreams and the end of everything and everyone he loved.
And all of heaven wept with him.
Do you know how he felt? Have your dreams been crushed?
Has your story ended before it had a chance to happen as you so hoped it would? Are you agonizing over a picture so bleak you cannot face reality?
Or even just worried that the grey will go on for the rest of your life?
As all of heaven and earth gathered to gawk at John’s vision of disaster, the silence of sheer terror choked the air.
And no one knew what to do.
They were mortified. Without solutions.
Lost.
But in that thunderous silence a sound was heard. Faint at first, just enough to make everyone hold their breath in hope. The noise drew nearer, closer to the crowd. And suddenly, there He was.
The Lion.
Jesus. God. The Savior. The only one able to overcome.
And the Lion became a Lamb… and the Lamb laid Himself on the altar… and let Himself be slain.
John’s tears dried as he watched in wonder as angels and creatures and elders and people by the thousands and thousands sang. The singing rose to triumphant shouting and victorious dancing, gathering each one into a worship of such passion that every part of their bodies were enveloped. Then, one by one, they fell on their faces before the beauty of what they were seeing.
The world gone wild in worship.
Why? What caught them so?
Here’s what I see:
when the hopelessness of their reality hit them full in their faces,
and there seemed no way out,
the One who could have
but shouldn’t have,
the perfect One,
stepped in to do what no one else could.
Are you watching? Listening for the Lion who comes close?
You’ll find him at the Cross when you lay all those burdens and worries and impossibilities at the feet of the only One in all the world capable of doing what no one else can.
For He is…. the Lion.
From My Heart,
Diane
Revelation 5
Amos 3:6-8
John 3:16
Matthew 11:28-30
I John 4:14