Advent is a season of expectation:
a time of expectant preparation
for our celebration of Christ’s birth 2000 years ago,
for the coming of Christ into our lives today,
and for the glorious return of Christ on the last day.
This Sunday our attention is drawn particularly
to Christ’s future coming in glory:
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,
and on earth nations will be in dismay,
perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves.”
and on earth nations will be in dismay,
perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves.”
Of course, this year things are a little bit different,
since this year we know that
when the ancient Mayan calendar runs out
on December 21, 2012,
the end of the world is upon us,
whether it is caused by a black hole eating up the earth
or a collision of the earth with the mysterious planet Nibiru.
And I’ve got to say that knowing this
certainly simplifies
things in my life:
I’ve told my daughter Sophie
to forget about getting those college applications done
and I’m thinking about canceling
the repairs on our leaking roof.
Speculation and prediction about when the world will end
is not really something unique to this year
and to enthusiasts for the Mayan calendar.
Last year the radio preacher Howard Camping
predicted that the world would end on May 21, 2011,
and, when May 21st came and went,
revised that to October 21st.
Prior to that, various groups and individuals
had predicted the end of the world in
1889, 1874, 1844, 1763, 1585, 1533, 1370,
1284, 1260, 1033, 1000, 992, 793, 500.
In fact, I think we can safely presume that pretty much every year
has been a candidate for the world’s end in somebody’s
calculation.
I must admit that
I don’t take end of the world speculations
very seriously,
and I suspect this is true of many of you as well.
But a lot of people do, so it is worth asking,
what is it that attracts people to such speculations?
I suppose that we might take a negative attitude toward them
and say that they are an expression of our human desire
for control over our own destinies,
a desire to put God on a timetable
that we can plan around.
This is certainly part of what is going on,
and it is why the preacher Howard Camping
has recently denounced his own attempts
to predict the date of the world’s end as “sinful.”
But I don’t think such predictions are only
manifestations of a sinful desire for control.
I think that they are also a sign
that one is living one’s life
in expectant hope of
deliverance.
Those who look for this world’s ending
seem to be those who have a profound sense
that something is wrong with this world,
marked as it is by sin and death,
and that we await a deliverer who will set things right,
who will “do what is right and just in the land.”
Perhaps people come up with dates for this world’s end
because they yearn so fervently for a world where,
as our first reading says, we can “dwell secure.”
In other words,
perhaps those most interested in the world’s
end
are those whose lives in this world are most insecure,
whether materially, socially, emotionally or spiritually.
whether materially, socially, emotionally or spiritually.
And perhaps people like me,
who tend to dismiss end of the world speculations,
might have something to learn
from those who take them
seriously –
not that the world will end on this or that date,
but the fundamental and undeniable truth
that my life is in
fact insecure,
that the life that I have so carefully constructed
could collapse in an instant:
through sickness, unemployment, betrayal or death.
The one thing that does seem secure
is that my world, my life, will end.
Perhaps what I need to learn is that,
as Jesus says in
today’s Gospel,
my heart has grown drowsy
with the concerns of everyday life,
so that I overlook
the fundamental insecurity and fragility
of my very existence,
not to mention the suffering of those
whose lives are far more insecure than mine:
the poor and the dispossessed.
To wake up to this insecurity is also, by God’s grace,
to awaken to an expectant hope for a savior
in whose love I can dwell secure.
The message of the Gospel
is ultimately not about the insecurity of this life,
but about the security of the love of God
that comes to us in Jesus Christ,
the love that allows us to face life’s insecurities with
hope,
knowing our redemption is at every moment at hand.
Because of the love that God has shown us in Jesus
we can look in hope beyond our insecurity,
not to a fixed date on which the world will end,
but to the certain advent in our lives of the God who is
love
and whose love will one day be fully manifest in our world.
