Day 04 - Patmos – When God Speaks in the Silence

Today, we rose early, watching the first light shimmer on the Aegean Sea, as we boarded a private charter boat bound for one of the most sacred and stirring sites of the early Christian movement: the island of Patmos.

It was here that the Apostle John was exiled (Revelation 2:9).

It was here , in what seemed like the end of his ministry, hat God gave him one of the most powerful visions ever recorded. 

As Revelation 1 tells us, John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10), when God began to show him and speak to him.

But John’s introduction to this moment has a striking phrase:

“I, John, was on the island of Patmos because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 1:9).

Today, standing on the island, at the “cave of the apocalypse" where those words were first breathed, we reflected on the layers of meaning packed into that simple phrase — “because of the Word.”

On the one hand, John had been exiled because of his faithfulness in preaching the Gospel. Under Emperor Domitian’s harsh rule, proclaiming Christ as King was treason. The empire knew what was happening: Christianity wasn’t just a personal belief; it was a revolution sweeping across Asia Minor. John was labeled a political criminal, a threat.

Patmos wasn’t a prison with walls and guards. It was a barren rock where criminals — especially political ones — were sent to be forgotten, to die in isolation.

But there’s another thread we pulled on today….

John wasn’t just exiled because he preached the Word.

Maybe he was exiled for the sake of the Word.

Perhaps life had become too full for John. Pastoring the growing communities in Ephesus and throughout Asia Minor surely weighed heavily on him. 

Perhaps John needed margin.

Perhaps he needed an extended Sabbath.

And so, in God’s providence, John was pulled away, from the clamor, the cares, the urgent needs of the people and given the silence.

Given the solitude.

Given the space where, on the Lord’s Day, he could be still enough to hear the thundering voice of heaven behind him.

It was in that margin that John received Revelation, a Word not only for the churches he knew, but for generations yet to come. 

A Word that continues to reverberate through time, calling us to overcome, to endure, to hope.

Today, as we walked the sacred pilgrims path, up to this cave on Patmos, we were reminded:

In our own lives, suffering for the sake of the Word still happens. And yet, even more often, especially for us in the Western church, the call is not only to endure suffering, but to also to separate more.

To make space.

To pull away.

To find margin and stillness, so that we can hear God’s direct speech to our hearts for what lies ahead.

The Word comes in the wilderness.

The Word comes in the stillness.

May we, like John, be faithful to look up, to hear the voice that calls behind us, and to respond.

And when we leave that holy space of solitude, may we, like John, go back into the world — and set it on fire.

Fire in the Heart, 

Jerrell

Every wilderness holds a Word. Every exile leads us home.