When I was 6 years old, I took my guinea pig to Mr Jordan, a vet in Cambridge and was entranced by the attention he paid to me and Jean-Pierre (don’t ask me why I called him that!) quite as much as by the mites he had retrieved from the lesions on my pet’s back and showed me down the microscope.  The white powder he gave cured the problem as the organophosphate it contained was more toxic to the mites than to guinea pigs or small children, though the danger of using it in either of them led to its exclusion as a topical medication a few years later.
Mr Jordan revealed more to me that day than mites down a microscope, demonstrating that veterinary medicine was the profession for me. At the same time, two hundred yards down the road at the Round Church, a God was being revealed to me who loved me and my guinea pig as well, though I don’t remember God’s love of creation being a major part of the teaching then, more’s the shame. Even so when I was ten, I gave my life to Christ and from then on I’ve been keen to see a link between my faith and what was to become my profession.
So, over the years I’ve become a veterinary ophthalmologist working at the vet school in Cambridge and a lay minister serving a tiny church just north of the city. Last year I was 60 and set myself the challenge of writing a thousand words on each book of the Bible. I finished that with a week to go, and so ended up fascinated by the Book of Revelation.
Are you confused and perplexed by what Revelation says? That’s a shame because to reveal means to open, to make clear.  In the weekend we have before us we’ll have a go at making clear how Revelation reveals our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ and what he wants to do in our lives.