I mentioned something in my sermon this morning for Advent 1, in relation to the strong sense in the gospel reading, Luke 21:25-26, that before Christ's Return, there will be significant convulsions in the world, including in the sea (climate change?). The last aspect being a feature unique to Luke's account of Jesus' end-time predictions.
That something is the curious feature of today's world that despite its many convulsions - wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, threat of war in the Asia-Pacific region - there seems to be very little interest in the Christian world about interpreting these signs as signs of the time of the End.
This is a marked contrast to my youth - well a period roughly the 1970s and 80s - when the Bible was scoured for texts relating to then contemporary events, especially in relation to Israel (the re-establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, wars in 1967 and 1973), formation of the EEC with ten nations (predicted, it was argued in the Book of Revelation), expansion of the role of the UN as a prelude to a to-be-feared "one world government," and so forth. The interest of Russia in the Middle East was - naturally! - Gog and Magog of ancient scriptures forecasting invasion from the north. In 1980 I heard a Kiwi, Barry Smith, speak at Canterbury University, billed as "the world's leading prognosticator". I don't recall anything about what he said, save one focus was on the coming (or even, already present in hidden form) one world government which would require us all to have a personalised identity number - the mark of the beast!
Today's gospel text includes reference to these kinds of things taking place before "this generation" passed away - always a difficult text - but back in those days I recall a linkage to the re-formation of Israel in 1948: was one further generation 25 years on (note the Israel-Egypt war in 1973 = 1948 + 25) or 40 years on (note that the end of the world in the 1970s and early 1980s would be therefore before 1988 = 1948 +40).
In 1983 I had the opportunity to visit Israel and recall meeting an American Christian man in Jerusalem. On asking him what he was doing there, he replied that he was waiting for the Messiah to come. On some of the interpretations alluded to above, a perfectly reasonable idea. But some 40 years on from that visit, I occasionally wonder if he is still there ... waiting!
Anyway, with those days in my memory, it is remarkable that today, despite the huge focus on Israel at war through this past year and a bit, with new technology connecting us all into "one world", a once again expansionist Russia and the threat of rising seas and destructive high tides, I am unaware of any end-time anxiety like once featured in Christian discourse.
Or, have I missed something?
PS On just about any way of reading the writings of the 1970s and 80s on end time speculations, if a Trump figure had been foreseen, I reckon he would have fitted in well, in the thinking of that day, as the dragon/beast/antiChrist, especially with his tendency to deceive "even the elect." But that is not how Trump figures in the Christian mythology of today for many Christians!
8 comments:
I have friends who talk about End Times though not with quite the 1980’s fervour that I remember. There has been comment about a personal identification chip as the ‘mark of the beast’, which is quite possible. But I have mentioned that we have been in End Times since Jesus’ resurrection!
It does occur to me that, if 1000 years is as a day to the Lord, it has only been two days since End Times began. And three days is a common motif in Scripture so maybe the ‘soon’ is sooner now? Though, of course, it could be another 1000 years yet…
From a liberal perspective, we scoffed at all the end times carry on (while secretly feeling rather anxious). I remember all the hype with the year 2000 - "Y2K" - that was meant to create vast global computer errors, crumbling civilization. I remember feeling anxious but also angry - I'd finally got a girlfriend and now the world was going to end?!
I enjoyed Peter's sermon (had the pleasure of the receiving it first hand) drawing attention to the roaring of the waves imagery. I really like Moya's wise reflections here too.
The advent candle we lit on Sunday was for hope. I felt quite raw thinking of how important it is to hold both a sense of hope *and* non-avoidance of suffering and ordeal - the roaring of the waves - especially in our personal lives (when the "heavens" of our soul are "shaken), let alone in contemplating current world events and patterns.
The old ways die hard: As a world we yearn for a more caring and just life together (this spirit is still sonvery new), and this is so threatening to the part of us that still seeks to dominate and exploit.
An evolutionary faith - hope in an unfolding cosmos:
"From the beginning of time until now, the entire creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth. (Romans 8:22.
"In this passage, St. Paul seems to fully acknowledge evolution. It’s always seemed completely strange to me that there should be any resistance whatsoever to evolution or evolutionary thinking in Christian theology or practice. Christians should have been the first in line to recognize and cooperate with such a dynamic notion of God....
If our God is both incarnate and implanted, both Christ and Holy Spirit, then an unfolding inner dynamism in all creation is not only certain, but also moving in a positive direction. If not, we would have to question the very efficacy, salvation, hope, and victory that the Christian gospel so generously promises. Foundational hope demands a foundational belief in a world that is still and always unfolding.
I believe that as “children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36), we are both burdened and brightened by a cosmic and irrepressible hope—and we can never fully live up to it. We are both burdened and brightened with the gift of an optimism whose headwaters are neither rational, scientific, nor even provable to those who do not have it. Yet it ticks away from a deep place within us."
- Richard Rohr
Yes, everything you've said +Peter. Everything. Dad often spoke about these things at Sunday night "gospel" meetings. Hal Lindsey's book "The Late Great Planet Earth" was in our home library and I read it multiple times as a teenager. He also had Clarence Larkin's "Dispensational Truth" and I loved to pore over the incredibly detailed diagrams. I loved that book so much that I asked for it after his death and have it here at home. Dad particularly talked a lot about the parable of the fig tree, referencing it to the 1948 Israel event. He often did sermons which included passages from Revelation and it remains one of my favourite books of the Bible. I've wondered if church people still talk about these things so it's fascinating you've written this post!
Naturally I had to do a search and see what might be revealed in my search results - and yes - I found someone else interested in such things and a lovely read it is...
Jesus will most definitely return in 2024. Maybe
by Robin Schumacher. 25 Dec 2023
"the Bible isn’t shy about trumpeting the return of Christ"
https://www.christianpost.com/voices/jesus-will-most-definitely-return-in-2024-maybe.html
I also searched for the "Dispensational Truth" book and ADU Readers may enjoy having a look because it's available online via the Internet Archive. I'll give you a link that goes straight to one of the charts - it opens up in a special viewer and you can flip through the pages, zoom in, etc. You need to zoom in a lot actually, because the chart is so detailed! Serious but also fun (I find the pop-eyed smiley Sun both adorable and hilarious). First link goes to the chart...
https://archive.org/details/dispensationaltr0000clar_o0h0/page/n19/mode/2up?view=theater
I'll give you the 'landing page' for the book too:
https://archive.org/details/dispensationaltr0000clar_o0h0/page/n19/mode/2up
~ Liz
Almost all who take the view that the end is near - wittingly or unwittingly - ignore verse 32 (and it's parallels in the other gospels)
Yes Jesus' "apocalypticism" is no easy to interpret. Most biblical scholars see this as a core, historically reliable teaching of his ministry, though John Dominic Crossan, controversially, disagrees. Some, like Bart Ehrman, claims Jesus believed the world literally was about to end - and it didn't. I'm open to that being the simple case. Jesus himself did not claim knowledge of all things - he might have got that literally wrong. Does Jesus have to be "right" on everything? I don't believe being fully human (as per Chalcedony) and being perfect (*completely* sinless) are compatible. If we affirm a fully human Jesus, then he gets hungry, doesn't know everything, can't work miracles in his own town, fears death, gets angry and attacks people (in the temple) etc. A spotless, perfect Jesus is more angelic than truly human.
On the other hand, perhaps the world ending shouldn't be interpreted literally at all - and Jesus didn't mean that as such. Perhaps all eschatology and prophecy is deeply symbolic language that needs careful handling.
Jim Friedrich, Advent Homily:
"Who has not experienced apocalypse on a personal level—the exit from childhood, the loss of a job or a loved one, a scary diagnosis? And throughout history, apocalyptic episodes have periodically disrupted the stability of humanity’s collective life: the fall of empires, economic crashes, military invasions, revolutions, authoritarian nightmares, environmental crises, and the like.
In the Humphrey Bogart movie, Beat the Devil, a ship is floundering on a stormy sea. In his typical wise-cracking manner, Bogie says to a panicky passenger, “What have you got to worry about? We’re only adrift on an open sea with a drunken captain and an engine that’s liable to explode at any moment!”
...Apocalypse can be an unwelcome judgment on the way things are. It weighs the world in the scales of justice and finds it wanting. The judgment is not punitive, simply accurate. As a 14th-century English poem on the end of the world put it, the apocalypse judges “without revenge or pity.” It just tells it like it is."
"... especially with his tendency to deceive "even the elect.""
Deception, you say? And have you a comment on that good, abortion-loving, trans-promoting cafeteria Catholic President pardoning all his son's crimes since 2014, those known and those yet to be revealed? This is the meaning of grace, is it?
The meaning of grace is that I have published your comment when you didn’t give your name. Please use your name next time.
Biden was never the perfect candidate for President. He has become measurably less good as President.
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