Revelation Ch 7 (Saturday of the First Week of Advent)

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth. They held back the earth’s four winds so that no wind would blow against the earth, the sea, or any tree. I saw another angel coming up from the east, holding the seal of the living God. He cried out with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given the power to damage the earth and sea. He said, “Don’t damage the earth, the sea, or the trees until we have put a seal on the foreheads of those who serve our God.”

Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: one hundred forty-four thousand, sealed from every tribe of the Israelites:

From the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand were sealed;

from the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Gad, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand;

from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed.

After this I looked, and there was a great crowd that no one could number. They were from every nation, tribe, people, and language. They were standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They wore white robes and held palm branches in their hands. They cried out with a loud voice:

“Victory belongs to our God
        who sits on the throne,
            and to the Lamb.”

All the angels stood in a circle around the throne, and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell facedown before the throne and worshipped God, saying,

“Amen! Blessing and glory
        and wisdom and thanksgiving
        and honor and power and might
            be to our God forever and always. Amen.”

Then one of the elders said to me, “Who are these people wearing white robes, and where did they come from?”

I said to him, “Sir, you know.”

Then he said to me, “These people have come out of great hardship. They have washed their robes and made them white in the Lamb’s blood. This is the reason they are before God’s throne. They worship him day and night in his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter them. They won’t hunger or thirst anymore. No sun or scorching heat will beat down on them, because the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them. He will lead them to the springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Commentary

This sealing of the elect from the twelve tribes of Israel, be it the Israel of the flesh or the spiritual Israel, or yet both, in the symbolic number of twelve thousand from each, is carried out in the face of all the horrors and trials to come, and as a call to vigilance and fearlessness in the time of persecution. It indicates that a “holy remnant” will be spared in the world, known to God, and it is ineradicable, and this is especially important to know in these times when persecution is being waged against Israel, aimed at its total destruction. Here the evil will of humans meets with the divine sealing, and that evil is powerless to withstand it. (Apocalypse)

The salvation effected by Christ is accomplished in the individual soul, which is more precious than the world. And the path of the individual soul consists in the feat of the struggle against sin, against the tragic rupture in the soul of fallen man. Its path consists in subjugating the flesh to the spirit and in taking up Christ's cross. This indisputable truth abides at the center of Christian life, and we are clearly conscious of it. But far from sufficiently understood is another aspect of the truth about salvation: salvation is not only personal and individual but also universal and omni-ecclesial. This is the truth about the reign of Christ in the world. (The Bride of the Lamb)