Eucharistic meditation

Revelation 16:4-6: Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying: You are righteous, O Lord, the One who is and who was and who is to be, because You have judged these things. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink. For it is their just due.

One of the threads running through Revelation has to do with the Lord avenging the blood of His saints, as He promised to do, with an oath, in the Song of Moses. Near the beginning of the book, as the fifth seal is broken, the martyred saints IN HEAVEN pray that the Lord would do just that: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (6:10).

Later, when the seventh trumpet sounds, the twenty-four elders worship the Lord because He is preparing to carry out this request: And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying: “We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come, Because You have taken Your great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great, And should destroy those who destroy the earth” (11:16-17).

And when the harlot-city is destroyed, the city that is drunk with the blood of the saints, the hosts of heaven all join in singing praise for the Lord’s vengeance: “After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God! For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her’” (19:1-2).

And in the middle of this is the vision of angels pouring chalices from heaven onto earth, giving blood to those who have shed blood.

Revelation describes a worship service. The hosts of heaven gather around the throne of God, the trumpets of preaching are sounded, and then the chalices of the Eucharist are poured out on the earth. Here at this table, the Lord pours out the chalices from heaven onto the earth. We have prayed for justice to be done; in the preaching of the word the trumpets have sounded; and here at this table, as we drink the wrath-wine that has been poured from heavenly chalices, we begin to see the Lord keeping His promise, to avenge the blood of His saints.