Let's Get to Work While We Wait

Our year with the Gospel of Mark – Year B in the lectionary cycle – comes to a close today. Our journey with Mark started with Jesus proclaiming that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.” The words spoken by the prophets – and most recently by John the Baptist - were finally coming to pass. Now that God had come to dwell among us, the beginning of the end had finally arrived. As we come to the end of Mark’s gospel, Jesus is still talking about the End Times, but now, he is talking about what it will be like after he is no longer physically present on earth.

This passage from Mark is known as the “Little Apocalypse” because of its focus on the End Times. There are two books of the Bible that are categorized as Apocalyptic literature  – Daniel in the Old Testament, which we heard this morning, and The Revelation to John. Their sole purpose is to talk about how they see the End Times coming about. In addition to those two books, there are several apocalyptic nuggets thrown in, like the one we get today from Mark.

The apocalyptic literature of the Bible emerged out of oppressed communities. The context of the Book of Daniel was the Babylonian Exile, and the context of the Revelation to John was the Roman occupation of Israel. It is concerned with the end of human history, and predicts cosmic upheavals and the final judgement. Apocalyptic writing is always highly symbolic, and is never meant to be taken strictly at face value. The purpose of this literature is to provide encouragement to God’s faithful people during times of trial – whether it be persecution, oppression, or sort of injustice.

The people of God recognized that they could not win deliverance from their enemies by their own power, so they looked to God to make things right. Divine victory could not be won by military might. The only way they could prevail would be for God to intervene and set things right for the righteous.

Needless to say, this literature can be difficult for us to relate to on many levels. The language of apocalyptic literature is supernatural and deeply symbolic and cryptic, so it can be terribly difficult to understand and interpret. But also, I think that it is difficult for communities who are in a position of power to fully understand and embrace this literature. And that makes perfect sense, because the whole point of this literature is to assert that the earthly powers and principalities will fall so that the last will be made first and the first will be made last. It’s no wonder that most Episcopalians don’t spend a lot of time reading and quoting Daniel and the Revelation to John. 

But Apocalyptic literature isn’t just about sending a divine warning to those in power. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be much for us to do but wait and see how God sorts us all out in the end. The Apocalyptic literature of the Bible reminds us that the world had a beginning, and it will have an end. When God breathed creation into being, there was a purpose – a trajectory for it all. After the Fall in the Garden, the story was changed but there was still a purpose for creation. The post-Fall purpose was for God to bring about reconciliation between God’s own self and God’s creation, as well as reconciliation among God’s people. 

Whether it was the covenant with Abraham and Sarah, the covenant with Noah and his family, or the Exodus from Egypt, God was constantly at work trying to liberate God’s people from the bondage of sin – their own sin as well as the sins of their oppressors.

The penultimate moment in God’s story was when nothing else worked, God chose to dwell among us to bring about this reconciliation. The story of Jesus as told in the Gospels is very clear about Jesus’ earthly ministry. We hear how he lived here on earth, and we hear how he died, and how he rose from the dead. Eucharistic Prayer A in our Prayer Book calls it the mystery of faith  - “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Right now, we are in between the Christ is risen and Christ will come again parts of that mystery of faith. 

How do we wait? What do we do while we wait? Danish theologian Anthony Hoekema said it well when speaking of the End Times: “We do not know the exact time of the Apocalypse. While we await it, we must all live as though Christ died yesterday, arose this morning, and is coming again tomorrow.” What Hoekema is saying is that we should live in to the immediacy of God. The linear timeline of God’s story covers several millennia, and who knows how long that linear timeline will stretch? But if we allow ourselves to ignore the truths communicated in apocalyptic literature – no matter how difficult they are to understand, interpret, or embrace – then we are removing ourselves from God’s story. Our good deeds and our lives well-lived end up being only for ourselves, and only for the here and now. We must remember that the here and now is a very small part of God’s very large plan and trajectory for God’s creation. 

A lot of apocalyptic literature includes natural disasters as precursors to the Final Judgment. In today’s lesson from Mark, Jesus mentions earthquakes. Natural disasters seem to be commonplace these days, whether it was Hurricane Michael or the fires in California. When these things happen, talk of God’s providence always emerges – “Why did God allow this to happen? What is God trying to communicate? Is God punishing us?” 

Harry Blamires in The Will and the Way addresses this sort of question by saying, “The doctrine of providence does not claim that every misfortune (even natural disaster) is divinely purposed…only that it is divinely purposeful. There is a great difference here. We have no right to claim of any given misfortune…that it is directly expressive of God’s will: only that it can be made an instrument for the expression of God’s will. And so we can ourselves.”

In other words, God’s will is being carried out in all of the faithful, compassionate relief efforts that are happening in response to the natural disasters. God didn’t send Hurricane Michael to prove a point. But God has been and continues to send God’s people to prove a point – that God’s love can be the source of comfort. God’s love can rebuild anything that is broken. 

Our lesson from the letter to the Hebrews addresses this very issue of what we are to do while we wait for Judgement Day: “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together…and encouraging one another as you see the Day approaching.”

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Until that day comes, let us work while we wait. And let our work be the work of the Body of Christ  -  God’s hands, feet, eyes, ears, heart, and mind seeking to do God’s loving will in the world.