“Apocalyptic
Visions”
Luke
21:25-36
November 29, 2009
It’s the First Sunday
of Advent. Stores and advertisers have been proclaiming their
vision of Christmas and tugging at our emotions with Christmas carols since well before
Halloween. Parents and grandparents have been
going over shopping lists and checking them twice. And
now we gather for worship on this last Sunday in November and find little of what is so
plentiful at WalMart, Target, and the Mall.
As we gather to worship God
on this first
Sunday of Advent we are greeted by the sober tones of “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”
and the even more somber and longing music of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”. Although we do not find ourselves under the
occupation that faced first century Israel; we do find ourselves, as Time magazine has
noted, coming off a decade of broken dreams. And
so we begin the season of Advent with sobering music and apocalyptic visions that point us
to a future beyond the trials we encounter every day.
Please listen for how the
Spirit is
speaking to us through Jesus’ powerful and shocking words found on pages 80 and 81 of
the New Testament section of your pew Bibles from the gospel of Luke chapter twenty-one
verses twenty-five through thirty-six….
While speaking to his
disciples
about the times to come Jesus said, 25“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. 26People will faint from fear and foreboding
of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27Then
they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28Now
when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your
redemption is drawing near.”
29Then [Jesus]
told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree
and all the trees; 30as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves
and know that summer is already near. 31So also, when you see these things
taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32Truly I tell you,
this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33Heaven
and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 34“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, 35like a trap. For it will
come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36Be 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.”
This is God’s word to
us…
What images come to mind when you hear the word,
apocalypse? Some of you no doubt can picture a
scene from the Francis Ford Coppola 1979 classic “Apocalypse Now” featuring
Martin Sheen’s descent into the heart of darkness in war-torn Vietnam and Cambodia. Others of you might see images from LeHaye &
Jenkins’ best-selling “Left Behind” series of books. While still others of you might picture Mel Gibson’s
2006 film “Apocalypto” which tells the story of a Mayan tribesman’s journey
to escape human sacrifice and rescue his family.
No matter what your mind’s
eye envisions it
is likely something to do with the end of the world as we know it or some other
cataclysmic event. But did you know that the
word “apocalypse” simply means “revelation” or an “unveiling”? And despite what some might think, the word “apocalypse”
appears nowhere in either the New Revised Standard Version or the King James Version of
the Bible. Instead, the only Bible where you
will find the word “apocalypse” is in the Greek New Testament and when
translated into English appears as the word “revelation.”
For example, in Galatians chapter one
verse twelve Paul says, “For I did not receive” the gospel “from a human
source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through an apocalypse—a revelation of
Jesus Christ.” And still further on in
the next chapter Paul writes, “I went up” to Jerusalem “in response to an
apocalypse—that is—a revelation.” Of
course the most famous use of the word apocalypse comes in the title of the last book of
the Bible in John of Patmos’ apocalypse, The Revelation to John.
The point here is that our apocalyptic
visions whether they come to us from the imagination of Hollywood directors or talented
writers of religious fantasy fiction, these interpretations of apocalypse have little to
do with how God and the writers of the Bible use this word.
Throughout the New Testament: apocalypse as revelation points to lives
transformed by the love and grace of God found in Jesus Christ. Apocalypse is really about God revealing a much
hoped for future in which we all have a part to play.
Many Bible scholars consider this morning’s
passage from the twenty-first chapter of Luke to be Jesus’ Apocalypse. Beginning several verses before our passage for
today Jesus outlines the signs of the end in verses 8 through 11; the time of testimony
preceding the end in verses 12 through 19 and the fall of Jerusalem immediately preceding
our morning’s passage in verses 20 to 24. What
may not be immediately apparent to our casual reading of Luke chapter twenty-one is that
the destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus predicts happened ten years prior to Luke writing
his Gospel.
In other words what Luke relates is what
happened in the years 66 to 70 when the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Luke’s point seems to be that believers were
not to interpret the fall of Jerusalem, which was as fresh in their minds as all of those
images of the Twin Towers collapsing are in our minds, as a clear sign of the end of the
world. Nor should we be quick to point to
“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” as proof that the end of the world
is upon us. No matter how many best-selling
books proclaim such a vision of Christianity that is not what Jesus has in mind.
No these apocalyptic
visions are not
outlined in Luke’s Gospel to scare us into faith or drive us to Costco to stock up on
supplies to endure whatever tribulations some emailed rumor of the end is trumpeting. Instead, biblical apocalyptic visions are meant to
draw us together, they are there for us to encourage one another in faith and remind us
all to look to God no matter what trials we face.
Kathleen Norris captures this understanding of
apocalypse in her book Amazing Grace when she writes “We know that marriages,
families, communities, nations often come together and discover their true strength when
some apocalypse—some new revelation of the faultiness in our lives—has occurred.” Norris continues, “For some reason we human
beings seem to learn best how to love when we’re a bit broken, when our plans fall
apart, when our myths of self-sufficiency and goodness and safety are shattered. Apocalypse is meant to bring us to our senses,
allowing us a sobering, and usually painful glimpse of what is possible in the new life we
build from the ashes of the old.”
Just this past week Time magazine gave us all an
apocalyptic vision of the decade we are now concluding with their provocative cover story
which describes the first decade of the twenty-first century as a decade of broken dreams. The magazine’s editor, in the spirit of
apocalypse as revelation, talked to Matt Lauer on the Today Show about how this decade has
been bookended by the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11 and the financial
meltdown in New York over this past year. And
in between those catastrophic events we watched as a nation as one of our major cities was
reduced to resembling a third-world city by Hurricane Katrina.
It would be easy to consider all of the
trials we have gone through as a people over these last ten years and conclude that the
end must be near. After all that is what
normally happens when people think of apocalypse pointing to the end of the world. But if we take a more Biblical approach to
apocalypse as revelation these past ten years as described by Time magazine become an
opportunity for us to revision who we are as a people and head in a new direction. That is in effect what Jesus intends for us to
learn from this morning’s difficult to hear New Testament reading on the first Sunday
of Advent.
For how is it that Jesus follows up his
words about “people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the
world”? He does so with a parable about
fig trees and all other trees how when we see their leaves beginning to bud then we know
that the warmth and new life of Summer are upon us; that the kingdom of God is near. Such signs of good news for the hope of things to
come is not time for us to hunker down in fear, but rather to “be on guard,” and
“be alert at all times” readying ourselves for the coming of the Son of Man.
Instead of remembering the disasters of this past
decade which have led to so many broken dreams they may in fact reveal to us something of
the better angels of our nature—of who we can be when following Jesus Christ. After all, who can forget the way we came together
as a nation and indeed as a world after the events of 9/11?
Or what about all of the various relief efforts that began to flow into New
Orleans after we were shocked by the images that rolled across our TV screens. And even with the financial meltdown of this past
year we have been challenged to reach for new levels of generosity as friends and family
have had to endure so much loss and uncertainty.
Being on guard and alert at
all times, praying
that we may have strength for whatever we face is in part of what Advent is about, after
all. Despite the holiday cheer that retailers
foist upon us at this time of year when we come to church in the presence of God Almighty
whom we worship and serve we are reminded of a different vision of things to come. We are reminded that even as we go to Christmas
parties at friends’ homes or at work or at school that we are to take on a different
sort of attitude, one of longing, one of envisioning how the world might be different by
living the hope of the Gospel.
This new way of seeing the
world through
the lens of Advent is what the last verses of this morning’s passage outline, that
is, a life of following Jesus, after all is said and done, is not one of speculation or of
observation but of behavior and relationships. After
such a trying passage of scripture as the one before us this morning how are we to leave
the presence of Jesus? Overwhelmed? Terrified? Despairing? No, apocalyptic writing tunes our heart and mind
toward a renewed commitment to Jesus Christ.
We begin Advent with Jesus’ apocalypse
so that we can catch a glimpse of the end of the world as we know it and envision a world
where the birth of our Savior puts us on a new path. As
we move through Advent listening to the voice of one crying out in the wilderness in John
the Baptizer as well as hope being sung by a young expectant mother in Mary; we are shown
a new way of living. Just as the various
characters of Advent had their lives forever altered by Jesus may we as well see our lives
transformed by the revelation of Emmanuel—God with us.
The good news of Advent is not simply that Christ is
coming, but that his coming means we can hope, despite all that is falling apart in our
lives, our communities, and the world around us. Just
as the leaves on the fig tree offer hope in late winter that summer is coming again, so
God’s word, in Jesus, promises us new life. Advent
offers us expectation and hope for something new. “Stand
up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (v. 28). “Be alert at all times (v. 36).
May we leave this first
Sunday of Advent
worship with a renewed commitment to
preparing for God’s kingdom breaking forth among us, as we await the radical,
earth-shattering welcome of the Prince of Peace—the little baby, the risen Lord.
Amen.
