Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
December 1, 2002
Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37

I. INTRODUCTION

One of my favorite movies is Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s not just because it’s a fun-filled, action adventure in the model of an old-time serial, or that it’s exciting, or anything else. One of my favorite things about the movie is the God has a cameo at the end. In the film, the Nazis are seeking the Lost Ark of the Covenant, the gilded chest in which Moses and the Israelites stored the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Harrison Ford plays the adventure loving archaeologist who is trying to find the Ark before the Nazis do. Through a series of circumstances the bad guys end up with the Ark and stage an elaborate ceremony to open the Ark and examine its contents.

When they do, wisps of light begin to emanate from inside the Ark. Soon, specters begin to flow around the bewildered Nazis, including an angelic figure of incredible beauty. Suddenly, the angel’s face changes to a nightmare and fire issues from the Ark, consuming the Nazi archaeologists, Gestapo agents, and all the German troops in a fiery whirlwind that reaches up to the very heights of the sky, parting the uppermost layer of cloud until receding back down to earth, slamming the cover on the Ark, and leaving only our hero and heroine left alive.

And you watch a scene like that and you think: “How great is that!” You wonder why something like that couldn’t have happened in real life. Why couldn’t God have unleashed a good old fashioned smiting on Hitler and the Nazis before they ravaged Europe, killing six million Jews and tens of millions of others? How great would it have been to have seen the skies open over Auschwitz and God’s holy fire consume those committing mass murder and free the suffering prisoners. Why couldn’t God have unleashed his mighty power to have protected the thousands who died needlessly in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? So films like Raiders, where God makes a dramatic and decisive cameo appeal to us. Because we often hunger for something just like it.

II. THE TEXT

That’s the kind of image that leaps into our minds when we read Isaiah’s words:

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence–as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil–to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”

We’re not exactly sure who wrote the latter chapters of the book of Isaiah. Most scholars believe that the last 10 chapters of Isaiah were written by an anonymous scribe, perhaps of the prophetic school of Isaiah, in the years following the Babylonian Exile. In 587 BC, the Babylonian empire destroyed Jerusalem, the Temple, and all the palaces, and carried off the best and brightest into exile in Babylon. For 70 years, the Jewish people lived in exile, in a strange land, until the Persians conquered the Babylonians and let the Jews return to their land. And while they had some measure of local freedom–they were allowed to rebuild the Temple–they were still a very small part of a much larger empire. It is to those people and to their situation that this author writes: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!”

How it must have felt for those Jews, returning to the land after two generations of exile, finding Jerusalem in ruins, their past national pride a memory. And knowing that at the whim of the next great imperial power it could all be destroyed again. That fear, that uncertainty, that fervent hope that some day God would come and save Israel from her enemies. That God would tear open the heavens and just show the bad guys who they were up against.

And then we come to the New Testament lesson for today. Listen again to those words from Mark:

“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken, then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory.”

Many scholars believe that Mark was written for a Jewish-Christian community, perhaps living in Rome in the 60s. This would have been a time of great suffering and persecution for that community. These Christians were already becoming something of a problem for the Romans. Nero had blamed them for the fire that burned Rome, and things were getting harder and harder for them. How must they have felt to read those words: “the powers in the heavens will be shaken, then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory.”

III. VINDICATION

A. Bullies

There are many times that we feel that we have been unjustly wronged. Indeed there are many times when we have been wronged, when we have been victimized, hurt, and persecuted. Times when we wait for nothing less than the arrival of God to take care of our enemies.

I remember one time when I was a kid in elementary school. My best friend and I were walking along a path near our neighborhood when we were beset by two neighborhood bullies. They had my friend and me pinned down on the ground and were working us over. All hope seemed lost–these kids were in middle school. We were finished. And then suddenly–out of nowhere–my friend’s older brother and a friend of his appeared running down the path. The bullies tried to get away but could not in time and were eventually dragged back to the scene of the crime by my friend’s big brother by the shirt collar where they were promptly told to leave us alone or face the consequences. I thought, “How great is that!”

B. Defeating our enemies

There are times when we think of God’s coming just like that: like the best friend’s big brother who defeats the bullies and restores our sense of safety. Who makes the bullies quake in their boots. It’s comforting, right? Who wouldn’t want that.

But there is reason to pause here… The members of Al-Qaeda think in exactly those terms. We are the bully and God is going to punish us.

C. Final Solution Eschatology

Theologians have a term for this: “Final Solution Eschatology” which is a big fancy way of saying “The Bad Guys are going to get theirs.” It’s the idea that when God comes in glory, it will be a time when he will finally punish the wicked and the godless. A time when all our enemies get what’s coming to them. God’s kingdom is the final solution to all our problems.

Of course, the term ‘final solution eschatology’ is not accidental–the “Final Solution” was Hitler’s answer to the Jewish Question–extermination. Because the problem isn’t so much in the casting of the world in Us-versus-Them language and assuming God is on the “Us” side–though that’s certainly a problem. Rather the real problem starts when we get impatient for God to do God’s thing and decide to help him out a little bit. We know who the enemy is. We know who the infidel or the heretic or the blasphemer or the anti-Christ is. We know it’s only a matter of time before God exercises justice on such individuals–why not help God along? What better way to stay faithful?

There are many people who look forward to the return of Christ in exactly this way: when all the people they don’t like get vanquished by God. It’s interesting to note that no one ever says, “I hope I’m not one of the people God destroys when he comes”–there’s always a great deal of certainty when it comes to knowing who will get theirs.

IV. BACK TO THE BOOKS

A. Isaiah

But such hopes for vindication through the defeat or destruction of our enemies have much more to do with us than it has to do with God. Because such hopes can only be found in today’s scripture lessons if we read them into it. The author of the passage from Isaiah wants God to tear open the heavens and come down not to smite the enemies of Israel, but to make God’s name known to God’s adversaries, that the nations might tremble at God’s presence, the way Israel trembles at God’s presence. The prophets believed that it was Israel’s unfaithfulness to its covenant that had led to exile and as a result Israel trembles before God. This is clear in the prophet’s words:

“We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away…”

There is a recognition of fragility and dependency. There is no arrogance here–no hoped for destruction of others. Simply an acceptance of their position. Followed by a statement of humility:

Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever.

These are not the words of a prophet seeking the destruction of his enemies. They are the words of a prophet who in deep humility and sense of dependency addresses his God and hopes for the nations to do the same.

B. Mark’s “Nativity”

Similarly the passage from Mark does not allow us the opportunity to clothe our earthly resentments and animosities in religious guise. The passage from Mark does not describe the fate of those who persecute the community. Rather it is a message of hope for those who suffer–a promise that they will be gathered in to the people of God–but it is not a hope against the backdrop of vindication by vengeance. Hope for the presence of the Lord in our midst that is transformative not vindictive.

V. OUR EXPECTATIONS OF THE END

This is the first Sunday in Advent. It is a time of preparation for Christmas and the coming of the Lord. Over the next few weeks we light the advent wreath with an increasing number of candles, increasing the light as we wait for the Light of the World to come among us. It is a time when we wait for the Kingdom in the form of the King. A time when we sing “O Come, O Come, Immanuel.”

Mark doesn’t have a nativity in his gospel. That’s why it’s not read at Christmas time the way Matthew and Luke are. But Mark is read during advent because of its apocalyptic orientation and its imminent expectation of the arrival of Christ. So we don’t have any stories of a little baby in a manger, born in humility. But Mark’s gospel doesn’t need such a story–for Mark’s gospel is all about true discipleship and true messiahship. The one who tears open the heavens, is the one who walks the road of submission and humility, who walks the path to the cross. The Son of Man coming on the clouds with power is not one who will reign in vengeance, but who will reign in peace. One who shows us the true nature of messiahship and who calls us not to fantasies of revenge, but to be his disciples, even as we sing, “O Come, O Come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel…”