An Apocalyptic Season: A Reflection for Advent 1 2023

As I’ve noted, as the liturgical year has been winding down over the past few weeks, the Gospel readings turn to apocalyptic messages: Stay alert! Be bold enough to imagine a Kingdom where justice and compassion reign! Judgment is coming! These these themes become even more heightened today as we step into the season of Advent, that time of preparation and waiting for the coming of Christ: at Christmas certainly, but also in our own hearts and in our world. Today I’d like to explore how these apocalyptic themes play out in all of the readings today, and moreover, to remind us all that the doom-and-gloom, fire-and-brimstone version of apocalyptic Christianity that we see today has little to do with the message or spirit of the Bible — that the coming of Christ is not about endings but about beginnings, not about punishing sinners, but about freeing the sinned-against and bringing the outsiders in from the cold.

The apocalyptic theme comes in hard today in the opening words from Isaiah 64:

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!

As the oracle goes on, it makes clear just what this heaven-rending, earth-splitting presence entails:

You meet those who gladly do right,
those who remember you in your ways.
But you were angry, and we sinned;
because you hid yourself we transgressed.
We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. …
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.
Now consider, we are all your people. (Isaiah 64.1-9)

The tone of much of this may seem negative (though I’m not one who thinks any recognition of one’s sins equals an obsession with sin — it’s just honesty!), but this penitential spirit is book-ended by words of trust in God’s faithfulness: Those who do justice (as Micah puts it) will be met kindly by God, who is not only “Lord” but also “Father,” the heavenly Potter to the people’s clay. Again, the coming of God is understood to be a good thing, not a menacing one, and one in which those who have fallen away will be restored into faithfulness through God’s presence.

Psalm 80 offers up a similar theme:

Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, leading Joseph like a flock;
shine forth, you that are enthroned upon the cherubim.
In the presence of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir up your strength and come to help us.
Restore us, O God of hosts;
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.
O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angered despite the prayers of your people?
You have fed them with the bread of tears;
you have given them bowls of tears to drink.
You have made us the derision of our neighbours,
and our enemies laugh us to scorn.
Restore us, O God of hosts;
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved. (Psalm 80.1-7)

Here, again, God’s coming (evoked by images such as hearing, shining forth, and showing God’s face) is connected to the salvation and restoration of God’s people.

Skipping over the Epistle for now, the Gospel reading, from Mark (new liturgical year, new Gospel! So long, Matthew, you’ll always be my favorite!), starts off the new year with a bang, Jesus’ ‘Mini-Apocalypse’:

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. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come…  (Mark 13:24-37)

This is a textbook apocalyptic text: Things are going to be awful for a time, but God is coming in glory to save the day. So, prepare yourself and stay alert.

But this is where things start to get interesting from a Christian perspective. Note that Jesus says, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it became common to assume that Jesus simply got this wrong, or that it is indicative of the first Christians’ belief that he would return immanently, a belief that did not come to pass and send Christianity down a rather different road. (For example, the writings of the second generation of Christians are far more concerned with issues of Church order and governance than the first was.) But, while I don’t dismiss this idea entirely, I think it also misses the most important thing: For the apostles, the resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost were tangible signs that the apocalyptic coming of God had already happened and was continuing to happen in their midst. This is why Peter, on the day of Pentecost, makes reference to the famous Apocalypse of Joel:

Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. … This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2.14-21)

And this brings us to the Epistle reading, the prologue of 1 Corinthians. When we understand the critical association the first Christians made between the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and the apocalyptic presence of God, this text takes on a different flavour, one that’s far more in keeping with the rest of today’s readings:

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind — just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you — so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1.4-9)

Here we see how Paul is already wrestling with the ‘now but not yet’ tension in Christianity, the conviction that God has already come and acted decisively to save the world, yet at the same time, we await that action to come to its full fruition. This text comes at this tension from the other side: While yes, the people are still awaiting the full revelation of God in Christ, Christ has already come and “in every way … enriched” them, “so that [they] are not lacking in any spiritual gift.” And, through this presence of the Holy Spirit, Christ “will also strengthen [them] to the end, so that [they] may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul ends by reiterating that “God is faithful.”

I’ve ended with the Corinthians text today because this is where we are in this big story. As Christians we are in this ‘middle time’, when God has come and acted and yet we still await the full consequences of God’s presence and action to work their way through the whole world. We wait, with varying degrees of patience, but know that God helps us, encourages us, and strengthens us to persevere in faith and become God’s fellow workers in our shared work of bringing reconciliation to the world.

And so, for Christians, this is really the message of apocalypticism. It’s not about trying to decipher the whens of Christ’s return (in fact, he explicitly says not to try!), but about preparing ourselves, making our hearts and minds and lives ready, and participating actively in not only our salvation but also in advocating for, instituting, and living out healed and whole reciprocal relationships of good faith, within the Church, and especially in the world at large.

Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen Amen Amen!