Art Reading Scripture

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1631 Mariakirken, Bergen, Norway

I looked and there was a white horse! ... And out came another horse, bright red; ... I looked, and there was a black horse! ... I looked, and there was a pale green horse! Revelation 6

St. John had many visions of the woes of the earth and its people that signaled to many the end of the world. Among them is this image of the four horsemen of the apocalypse from Revelation 6. The rider of the white horse is a tyrant conqueror who seeks an ever expanding empire. The rider of the red horse brings war and slaughter. The rider of the black horse brings famine. The rider of the pale green horse brings death by pestilence and plague. Throughout the ages the omens of tyranny, war, famine and disease have drawn people to fear the end of the world. In 1631 people were aware of the power struggles between the churches and kings, the Thirty Years War following the Reformation, the bubonic plague, and the reality that one crop failure could signal the beginning of a famine. As often as the world experienced these things the world has never learned the end of these things. In many and various ways they are strived against, but in as many and various ways they arise again. Authoritarianism, famines due to wars and climate change, the potential for pandemic are still with us. Tyranny, war, famine, and pestilence are realities of our age as much as they were of ages past.

At the top of the painting God peers through the clouds to see these evils ride across the sky. At the bottom corner a demon stares out of the earth with gaping mouth to consume those who suffer, who fall, and who have no defense. Does God allow evil to happen? Is the source of evil the devil, Satan, the ancient serpent dragon of Eden? From the beginning when Adam and Eve ate of the knowledge of good and evil humanity has learned well the means of and consequences of evil. In a world created good and very good the only thing one might learn from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is "What is evil?" Yet upon being exposed in their bid to know these things, be free in relation to these things, they did not take responsibility for what went wrong. Instead, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent, and ever since people have blamed either God or the devil. Why does God allow evil, tyranny, war, famine, pestilence? Is Satan to blame? (The devil made me do it? Spiritual warfare?) Rather than blame God, Satan or something else, we quote Pogo. "We have met the enemy and it is us." We have learned these evils. We suffer from the consequences. We confess our sin and responsibility, rather than deflect it to something else. We repent to seek something else, the essential goodness of the world, each other and creation. In Christ we become disciples of faith (trust), hope and love for a world that knows fear, despair, greed, hate, and the whole host of evils.

Perhaps rather than see these things as the harbingers of the end of the world that inspire so much fear and cause so much suffering, we might attend more stridently to seek the end of these things, so the world may go on in the goodness intended by God. Rather than listen to the visions of Revelation in fear or dismissal, listen to them call people of faith to resist and lovingly respond to the plagues of humanity against the earth and one another. Listen to the call to keep the faith against the evils that make the world tremble in fear and instead, risk love. Rather than anticipate the end because of the omens of evil, strive against the evil seeking the goodness God intended for us and others, and for the world of many living things God created good.

Keep the faith. Say your prayers. Love like Jesus.

Pastor Tim Bauer