Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 287 · October 14
No Man Could Number
“After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;”
A crowd photographed from a height, where the counting works for a while, then the faces stop being faces and an estimate takes over.
John has just been given a number, and a precise one: an hundred and forty and four thousand, twelve thousand from Juda, twelve thousand from Reuben, twelve thousand from Gad, the tribes counted off one at a time. Then he turns and looks. After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number.
The composition is what he stops on. Of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, which is the song sung two chapters earlier about why the Lamb is worthy: thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. An uncountable crowd is also the oldest promise in the book. Abram was taken outside at night and told to try. Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. John is looking at that sentence finished.
An elder puts the question and answers it himself: These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Nobody in that crowd arrived comfortably.
That crowd is a warning as well as a comfort, and the warning is about the seating. Every language is there, which makes yours one among thousands, and your congregation's way of doing things is not the house style. Anybody who finds other kinds of Christian hard to sit near has a difficulty with the destination itself. Nothing here suggests the multitude gets sorted into separate halls.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 287 is Mercy Holds You Up (Psalm 94:18).