Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The year was 2002. I was 13 years old. The country had recently survived Y2K, a contentious presidential election, the September 11 terrorist attacks, 4 major hurricanes, and dozens of tropical storms, one of which was a direct hit on my home. My dad had just lost his job and had to start commuting nearly four hours roundtrip for his new one. My grandpa died.
And then, one day in the spring, I was home alone, when the sliding glass door on my house began to shake. Suddenly, I heard a deep, resounding BOOOMMM coming from far away. I looked outside and didn’t see a soul on my cul-de-sac, even though the workday had ended.
I came to the only, logical conclusion. It was the end of the world. And all the Christians had been raptured – taken up to Heaven before the Great Tribulation on earth. All the Christians. Except, of course, for me.
The apocalypse was here.
Things had not gone as planned. Maybe I had prayed a prayer wrong, or maybe my pastor had failed to seal my Baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Whatever the case, here I was, the last member of my family still earthside. And all I could do was wait for the violence and destruction to begin.
“There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence.”
“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”
A half-hour later, the kitchen door opened, and my mom and sister walked in. My dad got home from his new, faraway job, just a little later than I expected. A neighbor called to ask if we had heard the “sonic boom,” when the space shuttle reentered earth’s atmosphere, on its route back to Kennedy Space Center.
Ohhhh…so it wasn’t the apocalypse after all. Just a cascade of disorienting circumstances that had sent my anxiety into a tailspin.
—
After hearing today’s scripture readings, maybe your heart rate went up a little, like mine did on that day in 2002.
Our Daniel and Mark readings are undoubtedly “apocalyptic.” They prophecy a chaotic and violent end and warn their readers to stand at the ready for all that is coming. It is tempting to avoid these passages, because they are disorienting. They stress us out and make us feel bad. And worse than that, they make us feel obligated to prepare for a future of unthinkable difficulty.
What does apocalypse have to do with Christian hope?
Well, I think we have often misunderstood the apocalypse. So, let’s talk about what it means for something to be apocalyptic…
In informal conversation, when we say “the apocalypse,” we’re most likely referring to the final and complete destruction of the world, or at least, the inhabitable world.
Scientists might speak of climate apocalypse, politicians of institutional apocalypse, and Christians throughout history have read into wars, storms, recessions, and generally bad vibes as signs of the impending final judgment.
But in the ancient world, apocalypse had a more nuanced meaning. The word itself comes from the Greek word, apokalypsis, which means “to uncover or reveal.” That definition ties the apocalyptic tradition to the prophets, because prophets are God’s messengers, revealing God’s active participation in human affairs.
Not all prophecy is doom and gloom, but much if it is a warning that God’s people need to get back on track. And that’s where apocalypse comes in. While apocalyptic stories often carry a sense of foreboding, their purpose is not to make us freeze in fear and await our fate.
As John Collins puts it: apocalypse “is intended to interpret present, earthly circumstances in light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority” (1).
In other words, apocalyptic proclamations reveal the perils of losing sight of God in the short term, while declaring God’s ultimate power over all things in the long term. In contrast to doom and gloom, they should encourage us to stay the course and carry hope through all of life’s trials. As we say in our birthday blessing, “our times are in God’s hand.”
It’s also good to remember that the dark future foretold is not so different from the ongoing fear and violence of our present reality. The drama of these stories casts a spotlight on the worst of the human condition so we can see it for what it really is. And in the process, we can see who we are, and who God is.
—
Today’s scriptures bring the trials of living, breathing, suffering people into the context of God’s power.
They reference many cataclysms and many terrors we ourselves can recognize – when human apathy and wills to power lead to bloodshed, institutional collapse, hunger, and collective trauma that would span generations.
This is demonstrated well in the book of Daniel, which occurs in the midst of a cycle of terror…
At one time, the Hebrew tribes were split into two nations: the Kingdom of Israel in the North, and the Kingdom of Judah in the South. In 732 BCE, war broke out in the Northern Kingdom when Assyria invaded, killing thousands, including women and children.
After the initial bloodshed, those who survived were systematically deported and displaced. The goal was forced assimilation of the Hebrew people, which would make it harder for them to retaliate against the Assyrian kingdom, by reducing their sense of shared identity.
During this period, Assyria took part of the Southern Kingdom, but they didn’t gain complete control. But in 597 BCE, Babylon took the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Known as the Babylonian Exile, this period saw several phases of forced displacement of the Hebrew people, led by King Nebudchanezzar the Second.
The war ultimately resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 587 BCE. Some of the Bible’s most hauntingly beautiful literature is written about the Babylonian Exile, including the books of Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations.
For those whose lives had been burnt to the ground by invading armies, this was surely the apocalypse. This was surely the end of the world.
Yet, it was within this hopeless context that Daniel’s prophecy rang out: “But at that time, your people shall be delivered.”
The world of the ancient near east may have been consumed by “war and rumors of war,” but the people of Judah would survive. Their times were still in God’s hand.
Fifty years later, the Judeans were permitted to go back to their homeland. They rebuilt the Temple. They rebuilt their lives. And God was with them the whole time.
In Mark, we hear Daniel’s words echoing in the voice of Jesus. Jesus tells his followers there will be destruction and bloodshed, terror and chaos.
And within the first months and years of the early church, Christ-followers would indeed face persecutions, executions, false prophets, and false narratives. They would be blamed for things they didn’t do, and pushed ever further to the margins of society.
Just as in Daniel, Jesus’ words are not foretelling some distant, future darkness beyond imagination. They are a clarion call and a comfort in the present darkness. Christ followers can rest assured, in all these trials, that the good news is still worth living out, and that God will sustain them in the end.
This is what apocalypse should teach all of us: God remains steady in the midst of our chaos, pain, and existential despair – in the very center of the worst thing that we can imagine. God doesn’t ignore evil, doesn’t celebrate injustice, and doesn’t revel in our suffering.
Our hope comes from a deeper well than the brutality happening around us and to us. And hope can be sustained no matter the circumstance, because it comes directly from the Creator of all things.
If you feel today that you are standing at the edge of apocalypse, consider this: maybe it’s not the end.
It may very well be the end of certain assumptions, communities, families, relationships, and ways of being. It may be the end of the world that you imagined, but it is not the end.
When the chaos of this world feels apocalyptic, we can see that disorientation for what it is: a clarion call to live like Jesus, to endure in the struggle, to love self-sacrificially, to pay attention, to rest in the care of one another, and to look for the life of the world to come.
We do not need to fear the apocalypse. With hope in our hearts, we keep moving forward, held steady in God’s hand.
1. Collins, John J. (1984). Daniel: With an Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature. Eerdmans.
Leah Wise 