Operation Epic Fury// Revelation 4–5,

It was Easter Sunday.

Dawn had only just begun

to lift itself over the city.

Somewhere

lilies were being carried

into church.

Somewhere

a priest was lifting bread

with tired hands.

Somewhere

someone who had slept rough

was waking cold

under a thin blanket

in a church porch.

And on the screens

the old empire was speaking again.

Open the fuckin’ strait,

he says,

you crazy bastards.

On Easter morning.

The day we dare to say

that death does not get the final word.

The day the women come running

from the tomb,

breathless,

half afraid to trust their own joy.

And there it is—

the old beast

still roaring.

Not with horns and heads,

not rising from the sea,

but from the glow of phones,

from podiums and flags,

from the mouth of a man

who has learned

that fury sounds like strength

to frightened people.

I looked,

and there before me

was a throne.

Not in heaven at first.

Here.

In the theatre of power.

Pax Americana.

The old Roman peace

with newer weapons.

A peace held together

by aircraft carriers,

oil routes,

and the threat of ash.

Babylon never really left.

It just changed its branding.

And around the throne

the voices gathered—

hawks,

markets,

men in suits

speaking of necessity

and collateral damage

as though children

were abstractions.

And day and night

they did not cease saying,

holy is strength,

holy is retaliation,

holy is the one

who promises to make them fear us.

But then

the vision shifts.

Beyond the noise.

Beyond the headlines.

Beyond the old men

playing God with the world.

A throne.

The real one.

And in the right hand

of the One who sits there

a scroll.

History sealed.

The grief of nations sealed.

The tears of Gaza.

The fear of Tehran.

The dead of Kyiv.

The lads in Leeds

lost to addiction and despair.

All of it held.

And no emperor

can open it.

No president.

No general.

No man with gold towers

and a mouth full of threats.

And I wept.

Because this is the sorrow

of our age:

so much noise,

so little wisdom.

So much power,

so little mercy.

Then the voice:

Do not weep.

Look.

I turned

expecting a lion.

Something triumphant.

Something that looked

like the world’s idea of power.

But at the centre

of the throne

stood a Lamb,

as though slain.

And that is the judgement.

Not only on Trump.

On every empire.

On every throne

that feeds on fear.

On every peace

that is only another name

for domination.

At the centre of things

is not the beast.

Not the swear word.

Not the missile.

Not the strongman.

But wounded love.

Scarred mercy.

The Lamb.

Still standing.

Still walking

the streets of this wounded world.

Still found

among the battered and bruised,

in hospital corridors,

hostels,

alleyways,

bomb-sites,

and church porches.

Still opening the future

with pierced hands.

And all the thrones of men

begin to look what they are:

dust

pretending to be eternal.

- Rev’d Jon Swales