Readings: Daniel 12:1-3; Hebrews 10:1-14, 18; Mark 13:24-32
Every November, as we approach Advent,
our Scripture readings take an apocalyptic turn,
pointing us to a last day of terrifying judgment.
The prophet Daniel speaks of a coming time,
“unsurpassed in distress,”
when “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth
shall awaken” to divine judgment.
The letter to the Hebrews speaks of Christ,
our high priest seated at God’s right hand,
awaiting the day when
“his enemies are made his footstool.”
And Jesus in the Gospel speaks
of a time of tribulation and the days that follow,
when “the sun will be darkened
and the moon will not give its light
and the stars will be falling from the sky,
and the powers in the heaven will be shaken.”
On that day, people will be gathered,
from east and west, north and south,
to stand before the judgment seat of the Son of Man.
We hear these and similar warnings each year at this time,
foretelling a collapse of the world as we know it
and a judgment by which our lives shall be measured.
But we have perhaps heard these and similar words so often
that their sharp edge has grown dull,
worn down by endless repetition
of warnings of a day that seems never to come,
an apocalypse that seems never to arrive.
Despite the dire warnings issued each November
the world seems to go on its way as usual.
But perhaps these words should not simply
direct our attention to a future time of judgment—
about which, Jesus tells us,
no one knows the day or the hour—
but to our own lives now,
to what we might call the ordinary apocalypses
by which the fragility of our lives is unveiled.
Most of us, I would dare to say,
know the experience of having our world collapse
and of finding our lives measured by circumstances
and, seemingly, found wanting.
Perhaps I experience a professional disappointment
and the plans I had developed for my life
crumble in my hands.
Perhaps I lose a person whom I love,
through physical death or the death of a relationship,
and the one who served as a pillar of my world
is suddenly gone
and the ground trembles beneath my feet.
Perhaps I look at my efforts
to build a more just, kind, peaceful world
and see a world grown only ever more
unjust, cruel, and brutal
and my dreams of a better future
fall like the stars from the heavens.
This is the daily apocalypse of my life:
my world collapses
and my dreams and my desires,
my loves and my labors,
seem suddenly paltry and fragile and even foolish.
The 14th-century mystic Julian of Norwich
writes of a vision she received
in which she saw in the palm of her hand
a small object, about the size of a hazelnut,
and heard a voice that told her
that this was everything that God had made.
She saw the entire universe
as something tiny, something fragile,
when measured by the infinite power
and eternity of God,
and she wondered how it could ever last.
And the voice said to her,
“It lasts, and ever shall last, because God loves it.”
She writes, “we need to know the littleness of creatures
and to see the nothingness of everything that is created,
in order to love and have God, who is uncreated.”
If we pour ourselves into this fragile world—
investing our worldly dreams and desires,
our loves and labors,
with ultimate significance—
then we will be crushed when they inevitably collapse.
Julian writes, “this is reason why we are not at ease
in our heart and soul:
we seek rest here in those things that are so little,
where there is no rest,
and know not our God
who is all-powerful,
all-wise,
all-good.”
God allows Julian to see that creation is nothing,
apart from the love by which God sustains it.
But God also allows her to see
in the fragility of creation,
in the fragility of human hope,
the love of God shining through.
In the midst of a world that is perpetually passing away,
the power, wisdom, and goodness of God remains,
offering hope that everything in our life
that we love for the sake of God
will not be lost but will return to us
in Christ’s kingdom of love.
God gives Julian the insight that our world—
the world of our dreams and desires,
our loves and labors—
is both fragile and finite,
and yet sustained at every moment
by the infinite love of God.
And to live in this world
we must place our hope in that love.
As Martin Luther King Jr. put it,
the answer to a life of shattered dreams,
“lies in developing the capacity
to accept the finite disappointment
and yet cling to the infinite hope.”
In Scripture, apocalyptic warning
is ultimately a message of infinite hope.
Jesus promises us today,
“heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away.”
In the midst of a world
where our dreams and our desires,
our loves and our labors,
crumble around us,
where the light of love is darkened
and the stars of hope fall from our skies
we are invited to rest in Jesus’ words:
in his promise of victory over death,
in his promise of a world of justice and peace,
in his promise of love that endures.
And resting in those words,
sustained by the power, wisdom, and goodness
that knows neither limit nor change,
we rise again from the death of disappointment,
to dream and desire and love and labor once again,
as we journey on toward the fullness of God’s kingdom.
