Is This The End?
Sermon
Today is Advent Sunday, the first day of the New Year. No, not quite the usual New Year, but the Church's year. From today, we begin to read and study Mark's gospel for a whole year, interspersed around Christmas and Easter with readings from John's gospel.
Mark's gospel is thought to be the first one to have been written. Both Matthew's gospel and Luke's gospel are thought to be based on Mark's gospel, although there is always dispute among biblical scholars about these things.
We spent last year, the year of Matthew, working through Matthew's gospel, which in fact it contains the whole of Mark's gospel plus quite a lot of extra material.
This year we go to the source, to the earliest gospel, although not the earliest New Testament document, for several of St Paul's letters were written earlier than this first gospel.
Traditionally, the author of the gospel was thought to be John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas (Colossians 4:10) who accompanied Barnabas and Paul on a missionary journey (Acts 12:25; 13:3; 15:36-39). But modern research considers that to be unlikely, and suggests an unknown Greek Jewish Christian as the author, writing perhaps shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and so around forty years after Jesus died.
This was a time of impending persecution for Christians. The audience for the gospel seems to have been Gentile, unfamiliar with Jewish customs (hence Mark 7:3-4, 11). So the gospel was written to equip these new Christians to stand faithful in the face of persecution (Mar 13:9-13), while still continuing with the proclamation of the gospel begun in Galilee (Mark 13:10; 14:9).
Mark's gospel is fast! One incident follows rapidly on another, without pausing for breath. Mark highlights Jesus' message of good news, that the kingdom of God is available right now for human beings (Mark 1:14-15). And he points out too, God's message of love for humanity through the person of Jesus (Mark 10:45).
And so as this Advent season begins we share with Mark the anticipation of the saviour who is to come. Mark looks for the coming of light into a dark world, and so we begin this Advent season in darkness, not only in the darkness of Winter, but also in the darkness of desolate and terrifying prophecies about the end of the world.
In today's reading Jesus said,
"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."
And he went on to say, "Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place."
Yet the world is still functioning, 2000 years after Jesus spoke those words. Was he mistaken? And if he was, can he possibly have been divine? Can God himself be mistaken?
There are those, who live along earthquake fault lines, or within the vicinity of a volcano, or who have to endure terrible flooding or appalling drought, for whom the prophetic words of Jesus have already come true. For the people of Italy, for instance, trying to come to terms with the aftermath of a terrifying earthquake which demolished the local school, the sun has already been darkened, the moon has failed to give any light, the stars have fallen from heaven and the powers in heaven have been well and truly shaken.
From some perspectives the end of the world has already come, and this type of ending has happened again and again throughout human history. Quite apart from the horrors inflicted by human violence, there are always terrible natural disasters occurring throughout the world. Disasters in which many people lose their lives, huge numbers are rendered homeless, and thousands suffer horrific injury.
And no doubt similar disasters occurred in Jesus' generation as much as in ours. In his generation the world was that much smaller. Without modern methods of communication, the world simply consisted of the place where you lived and perhaps a little further afield with tales of foreign parts from passing merchants. So local natural disasters would indeed have felt like the end of the world.
Jesus was right in another sense too, in a personal sense. At the end of his own life when he was crucified, according to Matthew's gospel the sky was darkened for three hours and terrific supernatural signs were seen and heard. And two days later, Jesus himself appeared in great power and glory, gathering to himself his friends and disciples so that they should know his risen presence. So for Jesus himself, the world ended exactly as he had predicted.
But if we take this passage to be a prophecy of the end of the universe, then Jesus was wrong if he expected it during his own lifetime. Certainly his friends, including St Paul, thought that was what he meant, for in the first years after Jesus' death they were expecting his imminent return, heralding the end of the entire universe.
Today, 2000 years later with the universe still functioning pretty well, many people no longer consider a Second Coming of Jesus to be credible, although there are still many others who continue to expect an imminent Second Coming of Jesus. Yet God never seems to act when we human beings expect him to act. And he never seems to act in the way that we expect him to act.
The Israelites waited centuries for their Messiah, and according to modern Judaism are still waiting. And those who expected a glittering king on a shining white charger at the head of a vast supernatural army, were offered instead a baby born out of wedlock. God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and God's ways are not our ways.
Will Jesus come again at some unknown time? Jesus himself gives many warnings in his parables of judgement that God creeps upon us when we least expect him, and that we should therefore make sure we're properly prepared to receive him. But that has to be true of everyday life. God is always knocking on the door, but mostly we humans are so poorly tuned into him that we fail to hear him or to recognise him.
Advent is a time which can put all that right. It's a time of darkness which looks forward towards the coming of the light at Christmas. If we want to be ready to receive that light, then we need to use the dark hours of Advent to tune into God, to make sure we're well and truly prepared.
Mark's gospel is thought to be the first one to have been written. Both Matthew's gospel and Luke's gospel are thought to be based on Mark's gospel, although there is always dispute among biblical scholars about these things.
We spent last year, the year of Matthew, working through Matthew's gospel, which in fact it contains the whole of Mark's gospel plus quite a lot of extra material.
This year we go to the source, to the earliest gospel, although not the earliest New Testament document, for several of St Paul's letters were written earlier than this first gospel.
Traditionally, the author of the gospel was thought to be John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas (Colossians 4:10) who accompanied Barnabas and Paul on a missionary journey (Acts 12:25; 13:3; 15:36-39). But modern research considers that to be unlikely, and suggests an unknown Greek Jewish Christian as the author, writing perhaps shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and so around forty years after Jesus died.
This was a time of impending persecution for Christians. The audience for the gospel seems to have been Gentile, unfamiliar with Jewish customs (hence Mark 7:3-4, 11). So the gospel was written to equip these new Christians to stand faithful in the face of persecution (Mar 13:9-13), while still continuing with the proclamation of the gospel begun in Galilee (Mark 13:10; 14:9).
Mark's gospel is fast! One incident follows rapidly on another, without pausing for breath. Mark highlights Jesus' message of good news, that the kingdom of God is available right now for human beings (Mark 1:14-15). And he points out too, God's message of love for humanity through the person of Jesus (Mark 10:45).
And so as this Advent season begins we share with Mark the anticipation of the saviour who is to come. Mark looks for the coming of light into a dark world, and so we begin this Advent season in darkness, not only in the darkness of Winter, but also in the darkness of desolate and terrifying prophecies about the end of the world.
In today's reading Jesus said,
"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."
And he went on to say, "Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place."
Yet the world is still functioning, 2000 years after Jesus spoke those words. Was he mistaken? And if he was, can he possibly have been divine? Can God himself be mistaken?
There are those, who live along earthquake fault lines, or within the vicinity of a volcano, or who have to endure terrible flooding or appalling drought, for whom the prophetic words of Jesus have already come true. For the people of Italy, for instance, trying to come to terms with the aftermath of a terrifying earthquake which demolished the local school, the sun has already been darkened, the moon has failed to give any light, the stars have fallen from heaven and the powers in heaven have been well and truly shaken.
From some perspectives the end of the world has already come, and this type of ending has happened again and again throughout human history. Quite apart from the horrors inflicted by human violence, there are always terrible natural disasters occurring throughout the world. Disasters in which many people lose their lives, huge numbers are rendered homeless, and thousands suffer horrific injury.
And no doubt similar disasters occurred in Jesus' generation as much as in ours. In his generation the world was that much smaller. Without modern methods of communication, the world simply consisted of the place where you lived and perhaps a little further afield with tales of foreign parts from passing merchants. So local natural disasters would indeed have felt like the end of the world.
Jesus was right in another sense too, in a personal sense. At the end of his own life when he was crucified, according to Matthew's gospel the sky was darkened for three hours and terrific supernatural signs were seen and heard. And two days later, Jesus himself appeared in great power and glory, gathering to himself his friends and disciples so that they should know his risen presence. So for Jesus himself, the world ended exactly as he had predicted.
But if we take this passage to be a prophecy of the end of the universe, then Jesus was wrong if he expected it during his own lifetime. Certainly his friends, including St Paul, thought that was what he meant, for in the first years after Jesus' death they were expecting his imminent return, heralding the end of the entire universe.
Today, 2000 years later with the universe still functioning pretty well, many people no longer consider a Second Coming of Jesus to be credible, although there are still many others who continue to expect an imminent Second Coming of Jesus. Yet God never seems to act when we human beings expect him to act. And he never seems to act in the way that we expect him to act.
The Israelites waited centuries for their Messiah, and according to modern Judaism are still waiting. And those who expected a glittering king on a shining white charger at the head of a vast supernatural army, were offered instead a baby born out of wedlock. God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and God's ways are not our ways.
Will Jesus come again at some unknown time? Jesus himself gives many warnings in his parables of judgement that God creeps upon us when we least expect him, and that we should therefore make sure we're properly prepared to receive him. But that has to be true of everyday life. God is always knocking on the door, but mostly we humans are so poorly tuned into him that we fail to hear him or to recognise him.
Advent is a time which can put all that right. It's a time of darkness which looks forward towards the coming of the light at Christmas. If we want to be ready to receive that light, then we need to use the dark hours of Advent to tune into God, to make sure we're well and truly prepared.
