Casting crowns

Revelation 4 shows the 24 elders casting their crowns before the throne (Rev 4:10).  Though these have been given by the Almighty Father Himself, all the elders can think to do with them is throw them to the ground in His presence.  We can almost hear them singing Psalm 115 as they do it: "Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness."

The love and faithfulness of the LORD has raised them them to incalculable honour - robes and thrones and crowns.  Yet they gladly abandon all back to Him. Verse 10 is like a freeze-frame of the life of heaven.  All honour given and all honour returned.  It's an everlasting circle of deferral and praise.

On Trinity Sunday we remember that this is not simply the life of the future.  And it's not simply the dynamic of the creature and its Creator.  This eternal deferral to the Other is the everlasting life of God.  The Father commits everything into the hands of His Beloved.  The Son casts His crown before the Father, desperate that all honour be ascribed to His Name.  The Father lifts Him up and establishes Him as King over all.  The Son hands all power and authority back to the Father.  And the Spirit inspires and empowers this loving reciprocity.  Heaven is nothing but a participation in this other-centred glory.

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