Maybe you’ve seen a certain Renée Zellweger and Tom Cruise rom-com from the mid/late 1990s with the now infamous line “You complete me.” At our wedding, the best man, in his toast to the groom, switched it up to say, to me, “You complete us.” That’s a lot of pressure, to complete someone else. Especially when many of us consider completeness as overwhelming and unachievable in a world that is constantly telling us we are lacking in something or someone. But in the book of Revelation that is exactly what the author tells us Jesus is doing. Salvation belongs to our God and is given by God to all of creation. We are made whole, complete, not because of what we do, but what Jesus does. Jesus does this not just for us, but for everyone, all nations. In a world and a church that is grappling with what it means to live out God’s grace and unconditional love, Revelation gets it and shows us a vision for what salvation, completeness, looks like: many nations, many people, who come with different backgrounds, stories, identities, but all are made complete in God, by God.
May we be that people and trust that God.
Holy One, you complete us. Surround us with your love that we would know and live this completeness we have in you. Amen. —