From Despair to Hope. Text: Mark 13:24-37. First Sunday of Advent.

Preached by Rev. James Murray at Dominion-Chalmers United Church, Nov 30 2008.

The end of the world is at hand.  Judgement day is coming.  Now there’s a joyful message most of us don’t usually associate with Christmas. This stern note of judgement is a challenging first hurdle, which we must overcome if we are to fully enter into the Spirit of Christmas.

The end of the world has been predicted by many religious groups over the centuries.  Most of those groups had visions of the return of Christ in universal glory, the judgement of the world, the resurrection of the dead, and the new creation of all things, as time and this world came to a close. In the past few decades, the Apocalypse has also come to have a secular meaning. During the Cold War, many believed a nuclear war would be an apocalyptic event, which would end all life, with no salvation or glory.

The prospect of such complete annihilation caused many people to give up hope. The years of the Cold War was a time of great existential dread. There was a creeping nihilism which fostered a sense of futility about life itself. If all of life could be wiped out, why bother caring about anything? Such a sense of despair causes great difficulties for us. In the growing medical use of pharmaceuticals, such despair was labelled under the umbrella term of Depression. It comes as no surprise to know that anti-depressants have been the most prescribed drugs in North America for the past fifty years.

This focus on predicting the end of the world is a turning away from the original meaning of the Apocalypse. Apocalyptic thinking was never meant to be a negation of this world.  It was supposed to give hope to those in desperate times, as they imagined a better world, a world where there would be help, and justice, and things would be put right. Isaiah's "Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down" is the cry of a people who realize that they've made such a mess of the world that only God can set it right. And this reflects a truth of personal experience: it's only after a crisis, with the stars falling from our sky and the ground shaking beneath our feet, that we can see clearly.

It is then we remember what is worth caring about and what is not. The true goal of apocalyptic thinking is to move us out of our present circumstances. It is a way to say to this world ‘This is not the only way things can be- it can be different, and it can be better’

The poet and religious writer Kathleen Norris has just written a book on the subject of Acedia. Acedia is not a term we use in our modern scientific world.  It is perhaps best known as the deadly sin of Sloth. Norris describes “The person afflicted by acedia refuses to care or is incapable of doing so. When life becomes too challenging and engagement with others too demanding, acedia offers a kind of spiritual morphine: you know the pain is there, yet you can't rouse yourself to give a damn.”

Apocalyptic thinking is not supposed to create the spiritual numbness of acedia. It is supposed to be hopeful thinking. It moves us from acedia to hope.  It is supposed to be forward looking and forward moving, which has the effect of revolutionizing and transforming our present circumstances.  

How often in times of trouble have we prayed, "God give us life, so we may call upon your name. Our prayers make a promise to use our lives to better purposes next time, as we do a better job of resisting the temptation of those dangerous sins of sloth, anger, pride, greed, malice and everything else that would deflect us and diminish our better selves. The act of hoping, changes what is possible.  It opens up the door for God to act in this situation. The German philosopher Ernst Block went so far as to say ‘the future is God’s essential nature’. When we meet God, we meet the future.

Have you ever noticed in the Bible, how it is always God who is trying to get people to do something new? It is God who asks Noah to build the ark. It is God who asks Abraham to hit the road. It is God who asks Moses to set the people free. We don’t see people asking God permission to do something new. God is the source of all that is new.  When we meet God, we meet the future. So Apocalyptic thinking is not about Ending it all. It is supposed to be hoping for God’s new future to happen.

Back in the 1960's the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann wrote an important book called The Theology of Hope. Moltmann said “Hope’s statements of promise anticipate the future. In the promises, the hidden future announces itself, and exerts its influence on the present world, through the hope it awakens in each of us.” Moltmann believes hope is at the heart of the Christian message. The purpose of apocalyptic thinking is to give us hope, which will inspire us to make the most of this life, to always be ready and awake to the possibilities this life provides. He says “hope then opens our faith up to the future of what Christ seeks to do next.” Faith is how we find the path which leads to true life. It is hope which keeps us on this path. 

The result of Moltmann’s work means that prayer is of vital importance. When we pray to God and ask for something, we are engaging in a form of spiritual defiance. When we pray, we are asking that things be different from how they are now.  Prayer is an attempt to visualize an alternative future, a different outcome than what the present circumstances might otherwise suggest. Prayer is an attempt on our part, and on God’s part, to change things. The theologian Walter Wink goes so far as to say “History belongs to those who pray”, to those who dream the future into being. The future belongs to whoever can envision a better way, and by so hoping, offers that possibility as one of the choices we are then free to make.

So what does all this have to do with our preparations for the celebration of Christmas? The birth of Jesus Christ can only be good news for this world if it addresses the reality of the bad news we are faced with today. We need to be honest about the addictions which sap us of our energy. The obsessions which divert us from what really matters. The lingering fears which cripple us. The deep seated resentment and anger which boils over all too easily. If we can name the demons which trouble us, God is willing to help us. But it is hard to speak of sin and demons in this world today.

We live in a world which is so spiritually deadened that it doesn’t even know the name of the spiritual malaise which has us by the throat.  We are afflicted by sloth, acedia, which robs us of our ability to care and to act.

We live in a society which says there is only the material world. It has banished the spiritual world from our view. And this material world is not satisfying our need for a whole, balanced life.  This material world is not taking care of God’s good creation in a healthy way.

This material world encourages us to buy Christmas presents this year to support our troubled economy. It forgets that the gifts we give at Christmas are given to reflect the transformative gift God has given us in Jesus Christ. The gift of Jesus offers us a vision of hope. Hope that a different kind of world is possible. Hope that we can make such a possible change into a reality.   

God’s gift of Jesus at Christmas is the gift that shows how your life can change.

That our world can change.

For God is with us. Amen.

Sources:

ACEDIA & ME: A MARRIAGE, MONKS, AND A WRITER'S LIFE by Kathleen Norris, Riverhead Books 2008

Theology of Hope by Jurgen Moltmann,  SCM Press, London, 1967