Isaiah 34:1-2; 34:8-35:10 - The last five verses of this reading are more familiar to our ears. Jesus speaks some of these words when John the Baptist asks if he is the Messiah. The section before it details how God will destroy proud cities and make them into a wilderness owned by wild beasts. It's a strange section and rarely do we hear of animals being the inheritors. It is fitting and necessarily connected the words of promise that follow. God will take that wilderness and make it the place where salvation begins. Think about the "wastelands" in our time, the places and situations seemingly beyond hope. Even now God is working in these "wildernesses" and using His people to proclaim the promise.
Revelation 6:1-17 - Now we come to the strangely more famous aspects of Revelation: seven scrolls and the four horsemen. There's a lot of scary stuff happening in this chapter. When we come to the end, though, I'm reminded of Zephaniah. The prophet speaks of hiding as well, and even echoes the words, "who can stand?" For Zephaniah the promise of God is that His people will be able to hide from calamity. In this reading the martyrs "hide" under the altar. For you and I we "hide" in Jesus, clothed with his righteousness through faith. This doesn't solve our problem of understanding the scary stuff, but it answers the question, "who can stand?"
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