Sermon 11/29/2020 “Apocalypse Now!”

Sermon 11/29/2020 “Apocalypse Now!”

Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection at VTS in Alexandria, VA
Text: Isaiah 64:1-9, 1 Corinthians 1:3-9, Mark 13:24-37
Day: 1Advent, Year B, during a pandemic

We can tell a new church year has begun when the readings turn apocalyptic. In fact, today’s readings not only warn of a future apocalypse—a catastrophic change in reality—they demand “Apocalypse now!”

This demand for apocalypse may be fulfilled this very year, 2020, if we are to believe what passes for prophets in our day and age. For example, a computer program developed in 1973 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology predicted 2020 would be when a series of catastrophic events begin a 20-year demise of human civilization.

But Jesus himself warned us that even he didn’t know when the final apocalypse would be. He later proved his warning by telling his disciples some of them would still be alive when he returned, a prediction that apparently didn’t happen.

Why would our church year begin this way, though, demanding a new world order, a new reality, NOW, in this this season of waiting that is Advent?

As our passage from Isaiah attests, we demand God “tear open the heavens and come down” when the current situation is intolerable. We want God to rip apart whatever of our reality is repugnant to us, whatever is unjust or unacceptable. Things must be VERY BAD indeed to wish for apocalypse, which my online dictionary says is either the complete final destruction of the world or an event involving destruction or damage on a catastrophic scale.

We have seen a few apocalyptic events in our lifetime. The 2004 tsunami, for instance, that hit countries in the Indian Ocean the day after Christmas killed 230,000 people and changed the coastline of 12 nations, the location of the North Pole, and even altered the rotation of the Earth. Who would demand such an apocalypse, much less an apocalypse that ends everything forever?

Isaiah wanted God to redeem Israel from captivity, where God had put them in time out for their refusal to repent of their callous indifference to the poor and for putting themselves first at the expense of others. Time and again, God’s people had failed to heed God’s warning and amend their lives.

If Isaiah demands apocalypse—the shake-up of what scripture calls the “dominions and powers that rule this world,” the Psalmist tries to reason with God for apocalypse.

• In verses one through three the Psalmist reminds God he is “shepherd of Israel” and his sheep need his intervention to be restored as a nation.

• In verses four through six, the Psalmist tells God why he needs to come NOW: “We’ve suffered long enough,” he said, and “We are in pain in this reality.” And then, “Everyone is laughing at us and thinking you’re weak because you let others beat us militarily and deport us from the land you gave us.”

• In verses 15 through 18, we hear Israel turn to bargaining with God. “Save us! Intervene in this mess we have made of life, and we will never turn away from you again.” Well, you know how bargaining with God turns out; we humans find it difficult to stay faithful for our lifetime, much less all of us, collectively, across millennia. But this is our challenge, our work, as Christians in this time of waiting: To stay faithful, to worship and share to the love of God and to hand down the faith that is given us. Above all, Christ Jesus says, we must stay alert for the coming of God among us.

Today’s gospel lesson picks up this theme. It begins with the words, “In those days,” giving us the task of finding out to which days Jesus is referring. If we flip back to the start of the chapter from which today’s gospel lesson was taken, we learn that “those days” are the end of time when Christ Jesus will return and finish conquering evil. Jesus tells us “those days” will involve our suffering. “Those days” will be the beginning of the end of time, the beginning of the end of the existence we know.

• Was Jesus predicting the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem which occurred in 70 C.E.? Undoubtedly.
• Or did Mark write this prediction of an end-time apocalypse into his telling about Christ Jesus because the destruction of the Temple had already happened? Possibly. What we know, though, is that a million Jews died in misery in the siege of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and 100,000 were taken into captivity. Things got so bad the Jews resorted to cannibalism. A small band of Jewish Christians escaped Jerusalem and its siege because they apparently had heard and followed Jesus’ warning to “stayed alert.”
  What is undisputable is that Christ Jesus was using a kind of code, a scriptural code, a spiritual code, to tell his followers to pay attention to the wisdom of the prophet Daniel. Jesus referred to himself as “Son of Man, a term found in the Book of Daniel that prophesies one who “comes into God’s presence on the clouds and is given everlasting dominion and glory.” (Daniel 7:13-14)

“Pay attention,” Jesus said, “and don’t forget to stay alert for my return at the end of time. So, today we do what Christians everywhere do: We wait in hope and expectation of that day, whichever comes first:

• That day when Christ Jesus returns for all humankind, or
• That day when we, individually, will meet Christ Jesus in person at the time of our physical death. In either case—in both cases—an apocalypse is involved, either on a cosmic level if the end of time comes while we still live here on Earth, or on a personal level. During Advent we emphasize the coming cosmic apocalypse while we re-member, re-create, re-tell, and re-live the first coming of Christ into human history, born as Jesus of Nazareth, the “Son of Man” who bears witness to and points to the very God he is and was and will be.

We must—our lectionary insists—only celebrate when God “tore open the heavens and came down” as Christ Jesus (to use Isaiah’s phrase) on that first Christmas long ago while reminding ourselves Christ has promised to return and has instructed us to “stay ready.”

Our epistle reading, which is sequential week to week without regard to the other readings, just “happens” to remind us how we will be able to endure to the end, personally AND corporately as Christ’s Church:

“You are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul says, both to us personally and to Church of the Resurrection. “He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In the end, God is in control of all things except as he grants us the freedom to choose. Stay alert. Be ready, Jesus tells us, for when he will return.” How will you choose to stay ready?