Meditations from Zion

I really am trying to plow my way through these final chapters of Revelation, but it’s slow going. Not that I don’t understand what I am reading or appreciate the wonderful images and symbolism. I simply don’t know where the application for me, right now, might be hidden.

Revelation 11:3-5
And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” They are “the two olive trees” and the two lampstands, and “they stand before the Lord of the earth.” If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die.

I have always liked the story of the two witnesses in its seeming detail and yet, mysterious exclusions. After all, no one really knows who these two are or might be. Some claim they are Moses and Elijah (both seen at Christ’s transfiguration [Mark 9:2-9]) while others say they are two new characters in the end times story. In any case, they stand around for three and a half years prophesying and doing battle with anyone who tries to interfere with them. They are not depicted as particularly benevolent or nice. They are clearly on a mission.

And why just two? Are they symbols for two people groups or two types of ideas? Who knows? I don’t know. But based on the remaining events after their time, they do seem to represent a turning point, a kind of last chance to hear the message. After they finish their business, evil in the world brings out the “big guns,” that is, the Beast from the Abyss. Whoever or whatever this might be, it has the power to destroy the two witnesses and they remain dead for three and a half days. Then, miraculously, they are revived and ascend (or disappear). With their disappearance, there is a great catastrophic earthquake and 7000 people are numbered as dying. The survivors, even at this late hour in the long experiences of woes and angels and death and destruction, “give glory to God in heaven” [Revelation 11:13]. Go figure.

There are many examples in scripture about the number two: Noah’s ark animals two by two [Genesis 7:9] while Jesus sent his disciples out in pairs [Mark 6:7] and of course, there are a number of well known couples like Adam and Eve, Joseph and Mary, Jacob and Rachel. And we cannot forget the friendship pairs either: Ruth and Naomi or Jonathan and David. And like the yin and yang of Chinese tradition, the Judeo-Christians have their alpha and omega (the beginning and the end), light and dark, good and evil, heaven and earth, two witnesses are required to confirm a crime [Numbers 35:30], two lamp stands, two fish, and many more.

Who are the two witnesses in me? Do they speak the same message or are they opposites? Does one begin and the other finish? Is it the good cop/bad cop routine? Is it Abbot and Costello? Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin? The Smothers Brothers? Some duos are opposites while others are the same. Some compliment one another while others grind. Some war against each other while others make love and peace.

Is it possible the two within me are the old self and the new? Or my spirit and the Holy Spirit?

Part of the mission of becoming a follower a Christ is melding the two’s into one. The human model for that is supposed to be marriage where two become one.

I can well imagine that these two Revelation witnesses, once resurrected, also united. The work was finished.

And so, that is my application: two become one . . . eventually. Life is the process. Faith is the process. We don’t experience “one” until we have lived out the fullness of “two.”