the anti climax of the seventh seal

We have had six seals opened the first four were the four horsemen of the apocalypse
the last two were loud.
A voice from heaven shouting and the sixth seal was the cries of the leaders of the earth. Then we see the courts of heaven in this long interlude where numberless throng the 12 tribes of Israel and the gentile world gather in heaven to sing and praise God.
Then the lamb opens up the seventh seal.
8:1 "When the lamb opened up the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour."

There is silence in the heights of heaven for 30 minutes. One episode of South Park or My Name is Earl, not even one Law and Order or CSI. Not even the length of the Chronicles of Narnia. 30 minutes.

Mother Teresa and Soren Kierkegaard both said that if the world was silent for 15 minutes the problems would go away. Perhaps this verse is what they read and stuck in the recesses and folds of their minds. A few minutes of silence that is the consequence of the seventh seal. Not the destruction of the world, but perhpas that silence is the ordering of creation. Heaven is silenced.

The folks who are into the imminent return of Christ see it being a grand and glorious affair. However, John says the seventh seal the final opening of the seals is simply silence. A silence so subtle that the world misses it. I think that what the gospel writers were talking about during the first coming. The heavens opened up and only a group of shepherds saw it. There was a star in the sky and there were some Astrologers in Iraq who were curious and the rest of the world was too busy to see the coming of Christ. Only an old woman and man, Simeon and Anna saw the Messiah at the temple when he was dedicated. 2000 years ago, the visions of what Christ was going to be got in the way of anybody see the reality. The Left Behind crowd, I suspect they will be Left Behind because their vision of the second coming is dictated more on their world view than God's view of the world. (Yeah, I am not discounting their faith just where their faith takes them is wrong. So, as Paul would do, I am correcting a false teaching.) I will probably miss it as well. But John tries to keep me straight, the only person I know who has seen heaven is him. He says that the climax of the return of Christ is silence.

So let me shut up and so we can find the silence of Christ's coming into the world.

joy,
Guido