Do good—avoid evil
(11-15-2009)
The war with evil, Satan taking on the Archangel Michael along with prophesies of the end times, are a part of our readings for this Sunday. The apocalypse, or Armageddon, the end of the world, is said to be a part of the human subconscious—a natural angst/worry that is bred into our psyche. The readings from the Prophet Daniel and the gospel passage from Mark for this Sunday, may cause a bit of unrest in us and pump the angst.
A bit of background on our readings: Scripture styles; when disasters occur, the apocalyptic scripture writer usually gives warning—but also offers hope through faith in God. Such hope is needed while people are enduring great suffering to answer where God is in all this suffering. At other times, such hope expressed by the prophets may be a backward look offering an explanation of the cause of the disaster and suffering and seek an explanation of how God’s abiding mercy saved us—got us through the trials. For example, the writer may reflect that the disaster occurred because of evildoers, and we came through it because of God being with us and our abiding faith in Him. AND God prevails at the end—with the coming of judgment and condemnation against the doers of evil—our enemies.
The cause and effect and the cosmic results are a part of both of today’s readings in the style of writing called apocalyptic—prophesying the end of the world.
The Book of Daniel was intended to strengthen the faith of Jews in the 2nd Century before Christ and encourage them to stay faithful to the teachings of their ancestors, rather than turn to the attractive "modern" philosophies and lifestyles of their day. The author of the Book lived in a time when Greeks ruled over Israel. The Greeks sought to unify their conquests of various nations by establishing their culture, religions, and political system. It became criminal for Jews to practice their religion. People were killed for their faith. So the author of Daniel in today's selection is offering hope for the future. God’s justice will triumph, and even those overcome by death will rise to new life.
Mark is also offering hope in our gospel for today, despite it sounding a bit like gloom and doom. The early formed Christian community was undergoing persecutions and suffering greatly for their beliefs in Jesus the Christ. They often encountered severe persecution from both the Jewish communities as well as from the Romans who controlled “the world” of its day. The Christian-Jews were trying to understand what it meant when Rome destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, and then destroyed most of the city of Jerusalem itself.
Shortly after the destruction, as Christians grew in number and included gentile converts, Rome sought to destroy all Christians throughout the Empire. What ensued was more than 250 years of persecutionthousands were martyred for their faith in Christ. Early Christians believed that the horrible persecution, death, and destruction had to be explained in light of the Second Coming of Christ—which could happen “any day now”. He was due to return and give his judgment against the world and its evil doers who tried to destroy the faithful.
Like the early Christians in the time of Mark, we too see so much death and destruction around us, even that of natural disasters like the recent tsunami, hurricane and earthquake. Some say such horrific disasters along with human violence, destruction of innocent life, along with the list of innocent suffering, are the signs of the apocalypse.
However, if we look at our history such natural disasters and heinous criminal acts have been happening for centuries—so called Jihads, Holy Wars or the Crusades, murdering in the name of God. It will never be easy to explain why humans do such terrible things to each other and to our environment and planet.
And one question today may be the same one that confronted our early persecuted/martyred Jewish sisters and brothers and our early persecuted and martyred Christian sisters and brothers, where is God in all this suffering? The simple answer rings down through millennia: God is in us and with us.
For God in Jesus became part of the human story, including suffering and death in order to prove there is great hope in our human nature, not simply the presence of Satan leading along with human evil doers.
We know how to live and love better through salvation history and hope in Jesus Christ. He makes us better and helps us to make the world better by the way we choose to live in it and with one another. No evil can overcome the love of Christ in us. No Satan has that power without our surrender to evil. Despite all the evil that we see, hope comes in our response to God’s call for us to care for one another. Such hope is about to be the focus in our scripture readings in just a few weeks from now.
The “end of times” readings for this Sunday come near the end of another Church year, two weeks before Advent, before we start all over again liturgically. It is a time to take inventory of how we lived our faith in the past year, and how we hope to live out that faith and hope in the here and now in our family, or school, or work, or church, or in our community. We can continue to grow as signs of hope, as we look forward to a New Year in the Lord of hope, a New Year of grace at work in our lives. The grace begins here and now, not in some future time.
Blessed goodness, Fr. Gordon
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