Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you (Psalm 16:1)
If you remember from two weeks ago, when we celebrated All Saints’, we noticed that although the Book of Revelation is the most famous apocalypse of the Bible, there are other apocalypses in the Bible. Indeed apocalypse does not mean “the end of the world” as we so often assume, in Greek it means literally a “lifting of the veil”, a peek into the future. For this reason, we also call apocalypses “stories of destination”, which I guess is a nice way to put it. And today’s lessons are a great example of that because we have two apocalypses that are not from the Book of Revelation: One is this passage from the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, and the other one is this passage from Chapter 13 in Mark’s Gospel. This passage of Mark is actually quite famous because it has been interpreted in many ways, and it’s a known as “The little apocalypse“. “The Little apocalypse“, this expression makes me smile, it ‘s kind of cute if you want my opinion, and I think it’s cute because, if you think about it, we have a tendency to think of the apocalypse as something gigantic, terrifying, and extending to the ends of the earth. So how can an apocalypse be a little apocalypse? Well, as you may have already figured out, it’s really because of the length of the text. We have 22 chapters of apocalypse in Revelation, but only a few verses in Mark’s Gospel, stuck between Jesus’s last visit to the Temple and his crucifixion. And yet, I had to think about this idea of a little apocalypse meaning more than “a few verses on the theme”, because if we take the time to listen to what Jesus tells his disciples today, it may well be about very concrete little apocalypses indeed, those things that feel like they are the end of the world, and yet are not the end of the world, not yet.
Let me explain.
The disciples have just left the Temple and we know that things didn’t go that well in there. Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem and has immediately encountered a lot of opposition. if you remember from last week, Jesus has deplored the attitude of the scribes who abuse the poor, “devour the widows’ houses”, and Jesus has also much criticized all the religious leaders who pray in public for the sake of appearances, enjoying the privileges of their stratus and neglecting their duties. This is certainly a very sad state for a religious institution when they reach that point. Unfortunately, it is still something that we have to suffer in our times. You may know that our very own Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, just had to resign because he neglected to deal seriously with some sexual abuse that has taken place in the Church of England. And we know they have the same kind of problems in the Catholic church, don’t they. Appearances and saving face often take precedence over protecting the victims or just assuming our responsibilities. Jesus was both very grieved and very angry with that, as he is probably still today. And so I guess one of his disciples was trying to make him feel better by showing him that, nevertheless, the Temple was a beautiful and sturdy place. But Jesus would have none of that, and he then predicts the fall of the Temple, that was indeed destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.
And that’s when it gets interesting because, when Jesus announces the destruction of the Temple, the disciples assume Jesus is talking about the end of the world. It would make sense, wouldn’t it. The Temple was the center of the world for the Jewish people, the place where God dwelt. If the Temple was to be destroyed, certainly the end was coming and that’s why they ask Jesus: When will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are to be accomplished? And Jesus starts reassuring them: When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed, this must take place, but the end is still to come. Jesus will talk about the end later, but the destruction of the Temple, this dramatic, terrifying event, as dramatic, as terrifying as it is, it’s not what you think it’s going to be. And so that’s why I guess we can talk about a little apocalypse indeed. It feels like the end, and yet, it’s not the end. Not yet.
Well, I don’t know what you think but in this sense, aren’t we all a little familiar with little apocalypses? These things that happen that are terrifying and are certainly painful or very painful and yet are not the end, not yet? It can be on a collective level as well as on a more personal level. It feels like the destruction of the Temple: What you fought was sturdy and secure, it all comes crashing down and you feel exposed, in the open, and do not recognize your own world anymore. Again, it can be a personal event, or a collective one. In recent history, I have this image in my mind of New Yorkers stuck in shock and disbelief seeing Doctors without borders setting up tents on the Fifth avenue to have room to cure all the people who were getting infected with the Coronavirus. We can also think of 9/11 of course, and all other scary political and social events that took place in our lifespan, and made the world as we used to know it unrecognizable. Jesus talks about those events as well as naturals catastrophes like earthquakes and human disasters as famines. And I guess, we even have those little apocalypses in our own lives as well. When everything we thought was beautiful, safe and secure come to crash down. It may be a divorce, a disease, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job.
Kate Bowler is a Christian author who tells the story of how she reached her mid thirties having it all: a great job, a beautiful house, a wonderful husband and child. She had to work very hard to get where she was, finishing her Phd, and she also had many difficulties conceiving, but there she was, finally. It all came crashing down in a few days though after a devastating diagnostic of a stage IV intestinal cancer, and she wasn’t even feeling sick. She has this expression that I find very telling, she says: I didn’t realize how “paper thin” the walls surrounding my life were. And indeed, for how many of us, how many times, the walls we thought sturdy and secure turned out to be a house of cards. We all had our apocalypses, these moments where we cannot recognize our world and even our own lives. We talk a lot these days about the end of times as if we had invented the idea. The thing is almost every generation has felt the world was unraveling, and often because their own personal world was unraveling. They believed it was the end of the world in the year 2000, as well as in the year 1000, and in the in between, wars, invasions epidemics made them believed so as well. The first Christians believed it was the end of the world too. But Jesus reminds us that yes there will be the end, and I think it’s safe to acknowledge that disasters are pilling up and history is accelerating, and yet we also need to realize that it is also the cycle of our lives and we don’t necessarily need to be completely caught in it. These are but little apocalypses.
So how do we deal with that?
I can’t imagine that Jesus mentions wars, naturals catastrophes and human disasters as something that is just what it is or something we need to get used too. These are indeed apocalypses, the end of a world we have known, whether it is our little world or a bigger one. It’s scary and painful and it grieved Jesus so much that sin has inflected such suffering on us. Wherever he went, he tried to alleviate suffering, and so should we. And yet. Yet as bad as it is, Jesus wants us to know that this is not the end, not yet, in the midst of all of that something keeps going, we keep going and even more, something new comes to life. Jesus says: This is but the beginning of the birthpangs. I had a conversation recently with one of you and we marveled at thinking of our lives as having both many challenges and in the meantime experiencing in them how God has seen us through. How many times have you thought it was the end, maybe the “end end” or just that you wouldn’t, couldn’t, recover from something, and yet in the end God has brought you to a new place and given you a new life? It doesn’t annihilate the suffering, but it takes us beyond the suffering. Today, people have many different beliefs and a lot rely on their own strengths and their own wisdom to deal with the cards that are given them, and sure, there is some sense in that. But I think we should rejoice at being Christians because when things get bad, we have someone to turn to, someone who loves us, someone who suffered like us but who is also much more powerful than us, someone who, as the psalm puts it, offers his own being as our refuge. Those moments of crisis are also an invitation to make a choice: Will we live in trust and faithfulness, not matter how scared and discouraged we may feel, or will we despair and turn away?
So again I invite you to offer yourself during this healing service, whatever sickness of body, mind, spirit and whatever little apocalypse you’re going through. Jesus is heading to the cross as he offers his disciples those words of comfort and encouragement in what is going to be the worst of times for all of them. They have to believe he can carry it all, they have to believe he will see them through, and so should we.