Nov. 29, 2015
Luke 21:25-36
Apocolyptic language has always been confusing. In fact, I suspect that its early readers were just as confused by it as we are. It is likely that even its writers didn’t know exactly what they were recording.
“Apocolyptic” generally refers to end-time visions – strange images of God’s final victory. The language is often cosmic. It’s not so much about personal salvation as it is about new creation or the restoration of creation and the ultimate expression of God’s glory. It is big and strange and bizarre. It’s about signs in the sun and the moon and the stars. Its about dragons and serpents and beasts. Its about rivers turning to blood, suns set on fire, the earth quaking and lightning flashing.
Apocolyptic has always been strange and yet its always been captivating. We’re fascinated by end-time predictions. Not long ago the “Left Behind” series of books sold millions of copies to readers who could hardly put them down. Movies on the theme regularly become big hits.
Have you ever wondered why? I would be interested to hear your answers. Why are we so drawn to it?
Why is it in the bible? If even the early Christians didn’t understand it, why would they have included it in their canon of sacred, God-inspired scriptures?
I do have a thought about that. I don’t believe that they are included, I don’t believe that apocalyptic images are included because they give us a play by play preview of what the end times look like. Nor are they primarily even about the end-times. Rather, these images are for the now and they are meant to encourage and lift up those living in the now who are subject, for one reason or another, be it persecution or malaise, to the hopelessness of a world that is no more than what we simply see – no more than what meats the eye. It is hope for people who say, “Is this all there is?”
I’m reminded of the movie, “The Matrix.” I remember loving it, in fact, being amazed at the Christ story it told. One image from the movie that comes to mind is the very end. Keanu Reeves, who plays the Christ figure, emerges from a phone booth just having defeated the enemy and saving the world from captivity. And, all around him on the sidewalks are people rushing about, this way and that. They are all going on with their normal business having no idea that one among them has just set them free. A whole cosmic drama has unfolded on their behalf and none of them even knows it. They are oblivious to the truth of the world in which they live.
This is what apocalyptic does: It reminds us that there is more – that this in not all there is. It reminds us that in signing on with Christ we have signed on to a world that is richer with meaning, deeper with purpose, broader in time and space, stranger in mystery, and more beautiful in glory than we can possibly know. Here’s how one theologian puts it, “The message of our gospel passage is simply this: a transformative chain of events was launched at the announcement of the coming of the infant, God-incarnate, the strangeness and peculiarity of which can be proclaimed only with the help of this frightening apocalyptic imagery.”[1]
In other words, there is so much more, and this “more,” this “man on a cloud with power and glory” is here with you now. He’s teaching in the temple, he’s healing the sick, he is dying on the cross, and he is rising from the dead. He is the Jesus you know; he is the Jesus you worship. He is yours and you are his, …and he is nothing less than God Almighty.
It is ironic that our Advent activities often do the very opposite of what the season intends. Rather than awakening us to a God-incarnate and to the implications of being adopted into the eternal life of this God, Advent (or the days leading up to Christmas) often exhausts and depletes us.
What we really need in Advent is a good scare. We need somebody to say, “Be alert!” “Wake up!” “Pray that you might have the strength to escape these things so that you might stand before the Son of Man!”
I doubt those words alone will do it. Being told to “wake up” isn’t the same as actually waking. But, maybe we can be guided to it. We’ve got apocalypses of our own to draw upon – moments that humble and amaze us and remind us of the fearful and wonderful world we’re a part of. Think of them, and to jog your thinking I’ll share a few.
One that hit me hard was the birth of our first-born. It wasn’t simply the miracle of the new life that had come into our world. It was a few days later when they told us we could take him home with us. What a wonderful and fearful moment of stepping out into a completely new reality.
I had a similar mix of emotions when I graduated college. I remember as a sophomore being on top of the world. There was nothing I didn’t know.
Two years later, having just graduated, I remember stepping off of campus for the last time struck by the overpowering awareness that what I knew most was that there was so much I didn’t know. I shared the excitement of a whole world of possibilities and the fear of not being ready for them.
I had another moment of it just the other day. The Fairfield East clergy were here for lunch, but before eating I thought we would have a little program. I showed them a video from a church in Plymouth where the ministry team is highly invested in the work of blessing. That church blesses everything! They bless school teachers, and children, and backpacks, and tools, and youths on mission trips, and food for the hungry, and warring nations, and famished lands, and anything else that they think to bless. It seemed easy enough at first – a harmless gesture if not completely effective – but then one of the pastors reminded us that a blessing is also a bond. “Did you think you could call upon this God? Did you think that you could beckon the power of God almighty and not also find that you would be a part of God’s response?” Suddenly, we couldn’t just bless and move on. Suddenly, a blessing brought us into the work of our creator. And so, we blessed one another, one by one with oil from the Episcopalians, and lunch felt like much more than just lunch.
Sacred and challenging at the same time. Excitement and Fear. Wonder and terror. That’s what Advent is all about. “Wake up!” says the first Sunday of Advent. You are alive in the world of God the Almighty!
That world, you might imagine, is like a canyon, deep with ages of browns and reds, blacks, grays, and greens all layered upon its walls. It is vast and amazing. It goes on for miles and miles with an emerald green river running through it. You are at its edge and in you might fall, but you might also stand with your feet firmly on the ground taking in the beauty and wonder of it all, and knowing that all those layers were built, and the ages were past, in the blinking of God’s eye.
Know too that this is our God. God has come and God is coming! Be scared. Be excited. It is Advent and there is more going on than we know.
[1] Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, page 22.