And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures
and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb,
having each one a harp, and golden bowls of incense,
which are the prayers of the saints.
Revelation 5:8
“Is this heaven?”
“No, it’s Iowa.”
Truer words have never been spoken, at least in the opinion of Iowans. In June the grass is a verdant green, trees are in full leaf, and the cornfields are nearing the magical days when we can imagine Shoeless Joe and his teammates appearing from between rows of corn to converge on a field of dreams.
For me, some scripture passages read more like the script of a movie like Field of Dreams than like words for believers to live by. How do visions of strange living creatures in Revelation 5: 8 assure parents scared to send freshly graduated high school seniors into a world filled with evil? How do harps and golden bowls comfort parents of children scarred by horrors no child should ever experience? How can wafting incense reassure us when people we love dearly are wandering in darkness and despair and self-destructiveness?
Apparently, the vision is important because John reiterates part of it later in Revelation:
And another angel came and stood at the altar, holding the golden censer, and much incense was given him, that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. (Rev. 8:3-4)
In both passages, John describes the prayers of the saints as golden incense rising to God. The first passage could give the impression that the prayers are only those of saints already in heaven. But the second passage says, “the prayers of all the saints.”
Do you know what that means? It means that as believing saints, our prayers we on earth–for high school graduates, for vulnerable and damaged children, and for the lost ones we love–rise to God like sweet incense. If they rise to Him, He must hear them. And if He hears them, then we know He will answer them, though perhaps in ways we won’t understand in this world.
These verses say that our prayers matter. Our prayers make a difference in our lives and in the lives of those we lift up before the Father. On earth and in heaven. Today and for eternity. They provide the assurance we need when we are discouraged, when God doesn’t seem to hear and answer our prayers, when our high school graduates make stupid choices, when our broken children are not healed, and when the lost ones we love wander farther and farther away. When we want to shout, “God, do you hear me in Iowa?”
By his strange and magical Word, we hear God whisper into our shattered hearts, “Do I hear you in Iowa? No, dear one. I hear you in heaven.”
