What is Coming Upon the World
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
November 29, 2009--Advent I
Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36

Jeremiah 33:14-16 · The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: "The LORD is our righteousness."

Luke 21:25-36 · "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

"Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."

I. BEGINNING

We all know how the world is going to end, right?

Solar activity is going to create increased neutrino emissions. In fact, the neutrinos themselves are going to become a new kind of super-neutrino that will begin to boil the earth's core, slip the continents off their bearings, and cause worldwide cataclysm, precisely on December 21, 2012.

Or perhaps global warming will melt the ice caps until the entire world is submerged by water. People will eek out a living on small human made reefs, while being terrorized by pirates aboard old oil tankers. Their only hope will be Kevin Costner who will somehow have grown gills.

Or perhaps a very large asteroid will head toward the earth, requiring either action in space by Bruce Willis or the steady leadership on Earth of President Morgan Freeman to save us.

Or perhaps a virus engineered by the military will accidentally get loose, mutate and wipe out 99% of the world's population, leaving only a few survivors who must choose between Mother Abigail's colony in Nebraska, or Randal Flagg's in Las Vegas.

Or perhaps an unknown cataclysm will scorch the entire earth, leaving only gangs of cannibals and pirates, against whom decent people must defend as they make their way along the road.

Or perhaps a self-aware computer network will take control, launching US missiles at Russia, knowing that the Russians will counterstrike, and annihilate human civilization in a nuclear holocaust in the process.

Or perhaps a mad Romulan will drill into the earth's core outside San Francisco and drop red matter into the earth, creating a black hole to swallow the entire planet.

Those are a number of ways that we have imagined for the world to end. In earthquake, in fire, in flood, in plague, in impact, in war.

On top of all the pop culture references are the religious images of great beasts arising from the sea and the earth, a dragon who commands the beasts, four horsemen representing death by war, famine, pestilence.

These are the kinds of things we think about when we think about the end of the world. They are not happy images, they are often disturbing, bleak images that cause nightmares in children and anxiety in adults.

II. The Text

And so it seems odd that we should begin Advent, the season that leads up to the joy of Christmas, with images of apocalypse. Shouldn't we be given images of Mary and Joseph, packing their bags and heading off to Bethlehem for the census? Shouldn't we start with the Annunciation or something sweet like that? Why do we have to start off Advent with this crazy apocalyptic? And if it's not John the Baptist talking about the End Times, we get Jesus talking about the end of the world.

"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken."

"Signs in the sun and moon and the stars." Right there it sounds like those 2012 doomsday prophets might be on to something. "Distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves "--perhaps the writers of Waterworld weren't too far off?

"People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world."--Whatever it is that is coming upon the world does not sound like it will be a happy event.

There's a reason that folks in the mainline churches don't like to talk about apocalyptic texts in the Bible: they're scary. And another thing, they tend to be used a lot by people we're not terribly fond of.

III. Revenge Fantasies

For, very often, the people you see talking the most about apocalyptic texts are the same people who seem to really be looking forward to the events described in them.

Ye ars ago, one of the local channels here in DC used to carry a television program hosted by televangelist Jack van Impe and his wife Rexella (they still may--I am not often home on Sunday evenings). In each program, Mr. van Impe would read headlines from the past week and attempt to show how these headlines were a fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecy and that the End Times were right around the corner. ("The European Union is the Twelve-Headed beast of Revelation! Never mind that they have more than 12 countries--they're going to kick out a few.") The most distressing thing about all of this was that they did all this with these big old smiles on their faces.

But it does make us uncomfortable, because when people talk about the Second Coming, it always seems to be in this manner: " Jesus is coming back soon: get your act together otherwise you're going to be left out and you're going to be cast into the lake of fire." Apocalyptic always seems to be about revenge fantasies expressed by Christians against people they don't like: "Oh, just you wait until Jesus comes back--then you'll get yours."

Many in the mainline churches bristle at this use of the texts. It seems so fire and brimstone. It seems so exclusionary--so much more about sending people into the fiery pit of hell than it does about the loving God that we like to proclaim. Apocalyptic embarrasses us. It sounds like something from a bygone era of Christian faith--back when we really needed God to come and kick some sense into our enemies-- but hardly appropriate to a mature faith in an inter-religious and pluralistic world.

And yet, I am of a theological school that believes that Christianity is essentially an apocalyptic faith. That Christianity, without a healthy sense of the apocalyptic, is non-sensical.

IV. A couple of things about ApocalypSes

But that requires that we be clear about what we mean when we talk about apocalyptic faith.

Apocalyptic faith is one in which there is a hope for a decisive end to history. The big ten-dollar seminary word for that is "eschatology", a word that literally means "words about the end". Christianity is an apocalyptic faith because it has always believed--and Jesus always proclaimed--the in-breaking Kingdom of God.

Now "kingdom" is also one of those words that is off-putting : it uses royal language, images of patriarchy and masculine rule. The status quo and the powers that be. But the word Kingdom could also be rendered: reign, rule, dominion, realm, perhaps even "commonwealth". I kind of like "Commonwealth of God".

But what the Kingdom, or Commonwealth of God represents is an inversion of the present order. It is a time when instead of injustice, justice shall reign. When the oppressed are set free, when the prisoners are released from captivity, when the weak are made strong, when the righteous prosper. It is a time governed not by force but by righteousness. It is a turning of the world on its head.

This is the reality breaking into the world that Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke of. This is the reality that John the Baptist announced. This is the reality that Jesus proclaimed and in whose life, death, and resurrection we see breaking into our midst. It is a wonderful, transformative reality. It is at the core of our Christian hope. Without it our faith is not nearly so radical as it is meant to be.

But if that's what we're waiting for, then why do we have all these scary texts to talk about it?

To understand that, we need to know a couple things about apocalyptic texts.

First, apocalyptic texts actually constitute a genre of Biblical literature. That genre uses numerology, symbols, signs, portents, strange and mythical beasts, and all manner of highly symbolic imagery to convey its message. Most of the symbols can be very easily unpacked. Beasts from the sea mean "false governments", beasts from the earth mean "false religions". For example: 3 is a number of heavenly perfection, 4 a number of earthly perfection, together they make 7--a number of completeness and perfection. 40 is a numerical code meaning "a sufficient number". 12 is a number relating to both Israel (tribes) and the Church (disciples). 666 is a Hebrew gematria where you add up the numerical values of the letters in a word to yield a number. Here, the numerical value of Nero Caesar in Hebrew is 666. Colors have meaning: white is victory, green is life, pale green is death, red is war, and so on. Apocalyptic literature cannot be read simply as a story that describes literal events. It was never meant to be taken that way.

Secondly, there is an assumption in apocalyptic literature that the world is so far beyond redemption that it cannot be fixed by ordinary effort. That is, there is no call for reform in apocalyptic literature. There are no marching orders, no calls to action. The reader is told simply to hold fast in faith and be patient.

All of this relates to the third, and final, point. Apocalyptic literature is not written for people who are comfortable now to warn them about dire events that will be coming upon them. It is written for people who are already experiencing those dire events.

Apocalyptic messages are geared toward people whose worlds are already full of distress in the sun and moon and stars, whose seas are already turbulent, and whose lives are already dominated by "fear and foreboding". Apocalyptic messages are not meant for those who are sitting pretty to let them know that one day all their enemies will be destroyed. They are meant for those who have lost hope, who are oppressed, who feel that the world has gotten so wrong that it cannot be fixed. Apocalyptic messages say: do not be afraid, all these events are happening according to a plan--and the plan ends with nothing less than the victory of God and the establishment of God's Kingdom on Earth.

It has been said that in our modern world, the only people who truly understand apocalyptic literature are populations in the Third World, or other oppressed peoples. They understand what is at the heart of apocalyptic literature: HOPE.

V. END

And because these are messages not of gloom and doom, but of hope, we read them at the beginning of Advent. A season of expectation. A season of patient endurance. A season of hope.

I said earlier, that without our hope in the End Times, in the coming Kingdom of God, our Christian faith is not nearly so radical as it is meant to be. And I mean that.

Because we have been given a vision of what that Kingdom, that Dominion, that Commonwealth will look like. A vision of justice, of peace, of righteousness, of community, and of God's direct governance in the world. When we lift up that vision, we see all the ways the present order falls short. We realize that no government, no church, no political party, no mass movement, no cultural phenomenon, no country, no club, no organization measures up. All fall short of justice and righteousness. Our Christian faith is radical because it places its faith in something higher than any earthly power. It is radical because it rejects not only the powers of the world but the assumptions of the world --the "well, that's the way it's always been" attitude that tyrannizes so many. The attitudes that accept privilege and station as necessary and inevitable, that make compromise with injustice out of a sense of expedience.

No, Christian faith always looks higher. And that makes it radical. That makes it subversive. And that is what makes it a difficult thing to actually do. Because Christian faith may place us outside the halls of privilege and power. It may put us in the sights of those who would seek to wield hate and fear. And the most powerful weapon we will have in our defense is our greatest: hope.

And when we find ourselves in a disadvantaged position because of a loyalty to something higher--a loyalty to love, to justice, to righteousness, mercy, and grace--then we become the ones for whom the apocalyptic message was preached and can remind ourselves of the message of hope contained therein:

"People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."