NOTES for Rev 1:9-20

John describes his state at the beginning of the revelation and of his encounter with the Risen One with the words, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day" (v. 10; in the Synodal translation, "on the day of resurrection"). It is hard to say exactly whether this refers to the Sabbath day, or to Sunday, as the Synodal translation interprets it, or to one of the feast days traditional in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The only thing that is clear is that it was not an ordinary weekday.

The expression "to be in the Spirit" is traditionally used (from the time of the early prophets) to designate a special kind of ecstatic state, when God's nearness is experienced directly, when a person senses His presence like a gust of wind rushing in from outside, or like a mighty breath entering within and merging with his own breathing. At the same time John, as we see, hears the voice of the Risen One, who calls Himself "the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and commands him to write down what he has seen and send it (clearly for reading and study) to the churches of Asia Minor, with which the apostle's ministry was chiefly connected (vv. 10-11).

Turning around, John sees the risen Savior and recognizes Him, though He looks nothing like He did during those forty days after the resurrection, when He associated with the disciples and when John had to see Him for the last time. Now His appearance recalls not the first days after the Resurrection, but the Transfiguration: this is how Peter, James, and John saw Him on Mount Tabor, shining with the light of transfigured humanity (vv. 12-15; cf. Matt 17:1-2). Such a transformation is clearly not accidental: immediately after the Resurrection the history of the Kingdom had not yet begun, and the Savior Himself had not yet taken His place in it. But now, after the Ascension and Pentecost, the Kingdom has entered the world, and Jesus appears before His apostle already as its head, set by His heavenly Father in the place that He prepared for His Son before the creation of the world. As for the Church, its task in our world, which is being transfigured but has not yet been transfigured to the end, is to sanctify this world just as, before the coming of Christ, it was sanctified by that presence of God with which God blessed His people. Now this role has been given to the Church, which, according to God's design carried out by the Messiah He sent, is to become the living expression and embodiment of the Kingdom opened to the world so that everyone who seeks may share in it.

That is why John sees Jesus dressed in a long priestly robe, against the background of the menorah (the sacred seven-branched lampstand that stood in the Temple, after whose pattern the special lamps still used in synagogues are made). And just as the light of the menorah symbolizes the radiance of God's presence, in John's vision the light of the menorah, against which Jesus appears before the apostle, symbolizes the light of the new life with which the Risen One shines and with which the life of the Church, sanctifying the world, must be permeated. But, as we see, things are not so simple with specific church communities, and through His apostle Jesus conveys to them something important for their spiritual life and witness (vv. 17-20).