November 27, 2011

 Apparently, Harold Camping has given up. He’s retired, quit preaching, and quit setting dates for the second coming. You remember Harold Camping. He’s the guy who predicted the world would end on May 21. His followers bought advertising all over the place, hyped it up, and stoked a media frenzy. When May 22 dawned, Camping regrouped, said that he had got his calculations wrong, and said, no the real date was October 21. After that, he threw in the towel. He has decided that whatever God was telling him, and is continuing to tell him, he will no longer announce to the world that date of Jesus’ return.

Camping became a laughing-stock. Already in the days leading up to May 21, there were jokes making the rounds; people making fun of the notion of the end of the world. I take it some people even through end of the world themed parties. We may think that with his exiting the stage, we will not have to deal with end-time speculation, but on the other hand, did you know that according to one interpretation of the Mayan calendar, the end of the world is coming on December 21, 2012?

It’s easy for us to have a jaded perspective on all those who predict the end of the world is near. It’s easy for us to make fun of people who sell everything, give up their livelihoods and lives in response to the calls of a charismatic leader to prepare for the end times. They are the stuff of movies, curiosities that come across the news media, but we don’t take either their beliefs or actions very seriously.

Perhaps we should. One of the central themes in the biblical texts, both Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament, is the belief in the coming of the Day of Yahweh. What precisely that day will look like is very much up for grabs in the texts, but that it will come, the biblical authors all agree. We may want to downplay or ignore such beliefs, but it behooves us, before doing so, to think more deeply about what those beliefs tell us about the people who held them, and about our own Christian faith.

Our texts offer us dramatic images of God’s intervention in history and of the return of Jesus Christ. In the Isaiah reading, the prophet proclaims hope that “God will tear the heavens open”, that mountains would quake and rivers boil. Jesus speaks of sun and moon darkening, the stars falling. These are images of the destruction of the world as we know it. But both the prophet and Jesus are more interested in other things. God’s coming for Isaiah is because of the people’s sins, but he ends on a note of hope,

“We are the clay and you are our potter, we all are the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider we are all your people.

There’s more than hope, here. The prophet recognizes God’s power not only to alter the universe, but also to shape him and his people. He pleads with God to remember who they are and to remake them, as God may remake the world.

God’s intervention in history and in our lives is the theme, not only of the passage from Isaiah but today’s gospel as well. It comes from what scholars call the “little apocalypse” in Mark 13. The chapter begins with Jesus and the disciples wandering around the temple, and the disciples marveling at its construction. Jesus responds to their wonder by predicting its destruction, that it will be desecrated by a desolating sacrilege. In addition to the temple’s destruction, there will be wars and rumors of wars and he urges his disciples that when the destruction comes, they must flee from Jerusalem.

Apocalyptic literature is among the most fascinating and most difficult genres of literature in the bible. It is very open to misinterpretation in the vein that people like Harold Camping and others put forward. It seems to be about the future, predicting events that will come to pass in some detail, so interpreters often look for parallels in current events. In fact, apocalyptic generally does not predict the future, but it interprets the present or recent past. In the case of Mark, it seems that Jesus’ words are describing what happened around the year 70, when Rome re-conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple.

Though it is full of fearsome imagery, apocalyptic is also meant to offer encouragement and hope. For the community to whom Mark was writing his gospel, the destruction of the temple had caused a crisis of faith. These Christians were fearful, persecuted, wondering about what it might mean to be followers of Jesus in these perilous times.

And here is where Mark transforms the apocalyptic message. Typically one expects to read descriptions of God’s intervention in history—tearing the heavens open, coming down and destroying God’s enemies. Mark doesn’t do that. He directs our attention not to the coming cataclysmic end of the world but to something quite different—to Jesus’ passion and crucifixion. He does it subtly, so that we might almost miss it.

He compares the second coming to the slaves who do not know when their master will return—whether in the evening, in the middle of the night, or when the cock crows, or in the morning. If you go forward a couple of chapters in Mark’s gospel, to the passion narrative, you will see those same times of day mentioned: It was evening when Jesus and his disciples gathered for the last supper; the middle of the night when Jesus prayed in Gethsemane while his disciples slept; Peter betrayed him as the cock crowed; and in the morning, the chief priests handed Jesus over to Pilate. So there’s a symmetry here for Mark, a symmetry between Jesus’ crucifixion and the Second Coming. Better yet, it could be said that Jesus comes to us in the passion, in his death on the cross. God comes to us in that love that is poured out for the world. But if we don’t pay attention, we might miss it.

Mark’s message is clear—stay awake, be watchful, look for the signs of Christ’s coming. Advent is a time when we look for signs of Jesus’ presence among us in the midst of a culture at war with itself, in the midst of all of the hustle and bustle of the season. In the midst of all of that, to take time to look for signs of Christ’s coming may be the hardest thing to do, to look for signs of Christ’s love shared with the world, with the poor, the hungry, and the homeless.

Christ comes to us, not in the shopping frenzy of Black Friday or Cyber Monday, or in the holiday orgy of football, or even in the return of the NBA. Nor does Christ come to us with the blare of a trumpet or the heavens being opened. Christ comes to us in the encounter with others, in the gathering of loved ones around a table, here at the altar, at home, and when we share Christ’s love with others. Advent invites us to look for signs of Christ’s coming, to look for signs of Christ’s love and to proclaim that love in a cold and darkening world.