Awake and Clothed

Day 359: Revelation 16:1-21

“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”- Revelation‬ ‭16:15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

In each of John’s three visions (seals, trumpets, bowls), there is an interlude between numbers six and seven. Each of the pauses hammers home the idea of us all taking time to think about how we are living now, given the future.

In this interlude in Chapter 16, Jesus presses pause on the intensity of the bowls filled with wrath to give us a picture of whom He sees as blessed.

SIDE NOTE: These bowls also resemble the plagues in Egypt as you unpack them.

The word Jesus uses here for blessed is makarios, the same word He used during His famous beatitudes of Matthew 5. It means, in a fuller sense, someone whom God looks at and says, “How happy, how lucky, how fortunate!”

We are blessed, in Jesus’ eyes, if we do two things:

1)   Stay awake >> Be among those who will not be surprised at His thief-like coming.  We are ever watchful.

2)   Keep our clothes on >> In Galatians 3:27, Paul says that when we were baptized into Christ, we clothed ourselves with Him, and this by faith in Jesus.

May we keep this especially in mind with Christmas being today!

“Those, then, who are aware of the fact that Christ could come at any moment and therefore stay and maintain watchfulness and vigilance remain clothed in the righteousness bestowed on them by Christ, and they are blessed.” - Paige Patterson, Revelation, page 312