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The Book of Revelation · Patmos

In the Spiriton the Lord’s day.

A row of small clay lamps on a ledge, going out one at a time — and one very old man putting a hand round the last of them. Then a ship, an island of black rock, and a beach they row away from. Every scene below is a real frame from our animated film.

Real film frames Revelation 1 Scroll to begin
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The lit coast from high up, still burning gold Something dark moving across it Black smoke rolling in off the water Fires along a shoreline, and not the good kind The smoke covers a whole stretch of the map Lights going out underneath it Dark where there was light an hour ago
Scene IAnd Then the Smoke

Sixty years of lights coming on, and then Nero, and then Domitian. The man who writes this book does not introduce himself as an apostle or an authority. He says: I John, your brother and partner with you in the oppression, Kingdom, and perseverance in Christ Jesus. He is writing to people going through what he is going through. Revelation 1 : 9

Your brother in the tribulation.

Boots on wet cobbles at night Soldiers at a doorway with a written order Their shadows thrown huge across a wall A dog crossing an empty street Torchlight down a long alley Two lights moving away between the houses One lit window left, high up
Scene IITorches in the Street

It did not arrive as an edict read in a forum. It arrived as footsteps on a street at two in the morning, a list, and a door. The whole sequence stays at knee height and shadow level, and never once shows what happens inside. Revelation 2 : 10

A single lit window in a dark stone wall Warm light, and shapes moving behind it Closer — a room with people in it Someone stands up The window, dark The wall, and no light anywhere on it
Scene IIIThe Window

There is one shot for a congregation being taken, and it comes more than once: a lit window, seen from the street, and then the same window with nothing behind it. No sound, no struggle. Just a room that used to have people in it. Revelation 2 : 13

A woman with a child, pressed into a stone alcove A lamp carried down a vaulted tunnel Figures far down the passage, going deeper Two people crouched against a wall An old woman holding a sleeping boy A single lantern in a long dark corridor An empty arch, and stairs going down
Scene IVUnderground

They went underground, in the most literal sense available. The church of the first century met in tunnels cut for the dead, because those were the rooms nobody inspected — and that is where most of this book was first read out loud. Revelation 1 : 9

A row of small clay lamps burning on a stone ledge Two of them, close, steady The whole row, warm against the wall One has gone out — a curl of smoke where it was Further along, another dark Gaps in the row now Three left One left
Scene VThe Lamps

The image the book itself uses for a church is a lampstand, and it is taken at its word: a row of small clay lamps on a ledge, and one by one they stop burning. Nobody blows them out on screen. The row simply gets shorter every time you look at it. Revelation 1 : 20

The seven lampstands are seven assemblies.

One lamp alone on a stone slab The flame standing straight up An old man's face beside it, out of the dark He watches it He puts a hand round it, out of the draught The flame, cupped, still going His face lit from underneath
Scene VIThe Last One

And then the narrator arrives without a word of dialogue: an old man in a tunnel, putting one hand around the last lamp to keep the draught off it. He is the only one of the twelve still alive. He is about to be the last one they come for. Revelation 1 : 1–2

Interlude · Your turn

One lamp left, and the draught is cold. Keep it burning.

Cup your hand around the last flame, the way the old man does.

Press and hold to shelter the flame from the draught.

Two old hands in iron manacles The same hands, open, ropes at the wrist Marched down a quay between two ranks of spears He looks up at the gulls A very old man in the middle of a great deal of iron A ship waiting at the end of the stones He walks up the gangway on his own
Scene VIIThey Came for the Old Man

Rome did not execute him. Tradition says they tried and failed, and settled for removing him — an old man, past ninety by most reckonings, shipped out to a garrison island in the Aegean where he could not talk to anybody. He went up the gangway without being pushed. Revelation 1 : 9

The wake opening behind a ship A harbour getting smaller The coast becomes a line Open water, and one small vessel on it Grey sea to the horizon Fog, and something solid inside it A wall of black basalt cliffs The island, sheer out of the water
Scene VIIIThe Voyage

Patmos is sixteen square miles of volcanic rock about forty miles off the coast of Asia Minor — no farmland worth the name, a garrison, and quarries. The crossing takes a long time, and the island gets the entrance it deserves: a black wall coming out of the fog. Revelation 1 : 9

A boat run up onto a stony beach Hands helping an old man over the side He stands on the shingle, looking back His face, close, in the grey light The boat pulling away without him One figure on a very large empty shore
Scene IXPut Ashore

They put him down on the beach and rowed away. No trial to attend, no sentence to serve out, nobody to preach to. The most effective thing the empire could think of to do with the last living apostle was to make sure he was somewhere he could not be heard. Revelation 1 : 9

A figure on the rocks with the sea coming in A wave breaking below him Storm cloud over the whole island His face, wet, looking up A shaft of gold opens in the cloud It comes down and finds one man on a rock The beam, from far out at sea He opens both hands
Scene XOn the Lord's Day

I was on the isle that is called Patmos… I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet. He is alone, he is old, he is a prisoner, and it is Sunday. He gets a storm — and then a hole opens in it. Revelation 1 : 9–10

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.

Light coming down in columns around him His face, tears, eyes closed He stands in shallow water inside a ring of light Gold rings turning out across the surface The light closing round him Almost nothing else visible now
Scene XIBehind Me, a Voice

And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. That is the last ordinary sentence in the book. Everything after it is the vision — and the first thing he sees when he turns round is seven golden lampstands, which he has just spent this whole episode watching go out one at a time. Revelation 1 : 12

After the story

He calls himself your brother.

Not "the apostle", not "the elder", not anything that would have carried weight — your brother and partner with you in the oppression. He is writing to seven congregations having a very bad decade, from a prison island, as somebody in the same trouble. Whatever else Revelation is, it was first read aloud in rooms where people were frightened, by people who were frightened, and it was meant to help.

An old man's hand cupped around the last burning oil lamp A stone ledge with one lamp still lit and the rest gone out
The book’s own image for a church is a lampstand. The row simply gets shorter.

Voices of the island · hover or tap to turn

John John

"I John, your brother and partner with you in the oppression… was on the isle that is called Patmos."

— Revelation 1:9
A shaft of light finding one man on a rock The Voice

"What you see, write in a book and send to the seven assemblies."

— Revelation 1:11
A row of small clay lamps burning on a stone ledge The Lamps

"The seven lamp stands are seven assemblies."

— Revelation 1:20

The Book of Revelation

How closely were you watching?

1. How does John describe himself?

2. What is Patmos?

3. What does a lampstand stand for in Revelation?

4. When did the vision come?

What this story teaches

It was written from inside the trouble.

John does not write down to people who are suffering. He is a prisoner on a rock when he writes it, and he calls himself their brother and partner in the oppression before he says anything else.

"I John, your brother and partner with you in the oppression." Revelation 1:9

Isolation is not silence.

The empire's solution was to put him where nobody could hear him. What happened on that island has been read aloud in more languages than any letter ever sent from Rome.

"What you see, write in a book and send to the seven assemblies." Revelation 1:11

Watch what he sees first.

He turns round and the very first thing in the vision is seven golden lampstands — the same image he has just watched go dark one lamp at a time. The answer is aimed exactly at the fear.

"Having turned, I saw seven golden lamp stands." Revelation 1:12
Read the scripture itself. Revelation 1 · World English Bible

Revelation 1

1This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known by his angel to his servant, John,

2who testified to God’s word, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw.

3Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written in it, for the time is at hand.

4John, to the seven assemblies that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from God, who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before his throne;

5and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and washed us from our sins by his blood;

6and he made us to be a Kingdom, priests to his God and Father; to him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

7Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. Even so, Amen.

8“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

9I John, your brother and partner with you in the oppression, Kingdom, and perseverance in Christ Jesus, was on the isle that is called Patmos because of God’s Word and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

10I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet

11saying, “What you see, write in a book and send to the seven assemblies: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

12I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. Having turned, I saw seven golden lamp stands.

13And among the lamp stands was one like a son of man, clothed with a robe reaching down to his feet, and with a golden sash around his chest.

14His head and his hair were white as white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire.

15His feet were like burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace. His voice was like the voice of many waters.

16He had seven stars in his right hand. Out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining at its brightest.

17When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me, saying, “Don’t be afraid. I am the first and the last,

18and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.

19Write therefore the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will happen hereafter;

20the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lamp stands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven assemblies. The seven lamp stands are seven assemblies.

World English Bible (WEB) — a public-domain modern English translation. Read it freely, share it freely.

NEXT IN REVELATION

I died with my Master. It did not stick.

The happiest prisoner Rome ever jailed: the quarry, the goat, the fireside answer — and the morning the sea stops mid-wave.

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