Here comes Black Friday, even earlier than usual. Bell-ringers are appearing outside stores. Advertisers are shifting the consumerism-as-therapy machine into high gear. And Christians say: This is a good time to think about the world falling apart.
We're not trying to be morose. We're starting Advent.
The season of Advent (four Sundays preceding Christmas) traditionally begins, not with backward-looking remembrances of circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth, but with eerie images of cosmic mutations and grand promises of a future in which Jesus plays -- to put it mildly -- a noticeable role. Don't wear the tacky Christmas sweater just yet; track shoes and a hazmat suit may capture the mood better.
Advent's watchwords are preparation and waiting. It's about looking outward and ahead. It's time for Christians to declare that God's previous incursion into human affairs through Jesus Christ is not the end of the story but the foundation for a future hope of God bringing ultimate promises to fruition.
Advent Is About Preparing To Recognize Jesus
It's really a shame how passages such as Mark 13:24-37 have been arrogated by the "Left Behind" camp and others who view the Bible as an encrypted map of the future, leaked by God to code-breakers, who derive from it a deity who's itching to snuff out the multitudes. Instead, this passage orients us to the future in a very different way, and for different ends.
Jesus' instruction here is part of a much longer speech. Notice the words "after that suffering": He has just described a situation of awful destruction, persecution and sacrilege. The themes and imagery make this speech similar to other literature of the time, literature meant to interpret current events and political circumstances.
What great devastation is he talking about? He's not predicting the Greek economic mess or the Indianapolis Colts' current season; his words must have resonated with those who knew (firsthand or from reports) of the siege of Jerusalem, which effectively ended the Jewish-Roman War of 66-70 C.E. The first readers of the Gospel according to Mark likely read it as the fumes of ruin -- and failed promises -- still hovered in the air. The war had been a time when many Jews (including some who were Christian) expected divine intervention, believing God was ushering in a new order.
Jesus deliberately separates his description of the war from his statements about his future reappearance. His point? The war -- and perhaps every other war to be waged -- will not be the occasion by which God's intentions come to fullness.
Why was the war a false sign of God's activity? Perhaps the war's end, another decisive Roman victory, indicated as much. But I think it's the means of the war that's the problem. Jesus will not exercise power like the world's rulers and would-be rulers do. He won't be changing the world with conventional tools and tactics.
False signs remain everywhere; they are events and trends we rely upon to inform our ultimate hopes or fears. Consider Iran joining "the nuclear club," the death of Osama bin Laden, the recommendations of the congressional supercommittee or the outcomes of the Arab Spring.
Important stuff, those things. But we Christians are still waiting and watching. We suspect God has other ways.
It's not that we don't find hope (or worry) in certain large-scale political developments. We do. Still, if we expect our pet political and social causes get to be identified (exclusively) as God's causes, we're mistaken. If the change we seek for the world embraces new forms of dominance over others, then we've missed the point. Those revolutions will not be theologized. Jesus' speech instructs us to direct our vision elsewhere to find signs of God's presence.
The outcome is not just about waiting for another physical appearance of Jesus in the future, although some Christians put great stock in that hope. I think it's also (and more fruitfully) about patiently and watchfully training our attention on where Christ might be manifested today. And so in Advent we ask where Christ and his message are apparent within -- and outside! -- of Christian communities. Where are God's desires becoming actualized? We may be surprised.
Consider the unfolding Occupy movements. Is God at work through all their aspects? Probably not. But do they manifest God's activity in some aspects? People of faith are keenly attentive.
WATCH Faith Leaders Respond to Eviction From Zuccotti Park
Advent Is Dangerous
The impulses behind Advent should alarm those who are overly enamored with the current system (who probably number more than 1 percent), as well as any others who are overly confident in their ability to engineer what's best for the world.
Advent expresses the insistence that all is not right in our societies. That's a dangerous expression. Stoking hopes for a new world order, for justice really to be for all, usually implies that old systems, governments and loyalties aren't what they're cracked up to be.
Notice: The transformation anticipated in Mark 13:24-37 is such a monumental and all-encompassing upheaval, its description must resort to symbolism. The symbolism is unnerving, even though it was familiar to ancient audiences. It suggests that, in the face of the God's desires coming to full fruition, every other power (symbolized by sun, moon and stars) receives notice and sees its light go out. No aspect of human existence goes untransformed when God enters in for good.
The claims of Advent should rattle all who benefit from exploitative and domineering forms of power. This means a lot of us, of course.
Advent Is Busier Than It Looks
Waiting and watching for Jesus in our midst is not about passivity. His words in this passage commend readiness and alertness, not patient inactivity.
Everything I learned about waiting I learned as a kid waiting to be picked up by my mother. Whether I was at school or soccer practice, I couldn't stand it when she was late. Today, I could use a cellphone to find out where she is. Then, I had to cope by doing all I could to lessen the distance or the time between me and her, wherever she was. I walked to the corner in the direction from which she would drive. I squinted, looking for the right car color or headlight tint. All my senses were fixed on the road.
That's the kind of waiting this passage has in mind, an active waiting that has come to know full well that the one who is coming is recognizable, even before fully arriving.
Jesus' message about his appearance encourages advocacy, not idleness. Expectancy means looking alertly for opportunities to come alongside Christ and embody Christ's purposes in the present, as well as in the future. We expect he's all around us.
For us living north of the equator, it makes sense that Advent coincides with winter's dimmest and longest nights. We light candles, whose tiny, pathetic flames stand defiantly against the night. They say: No matter how much waiting -- and working -- lies between now and the dawn, we are not giving up hope.
Editor's Note: ON Scripture is a series of Christian scripture commentaries produced in collaboration with Odyssey Networks. Each week pastors from around the country will approach the lectionary text of the week through the lens of current events, providing a religious voice that is both pastoral and prophetic.
Joel S. Baden: The Problem With Rationalizing the Bible
Advent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Christian Season of Advent
I disagree with this article because I too enjoy the season of Advent. I don't think of it as preparing for the second coming, but rather a time to reflect and prepare myself for the coming of Christ into my life. I meant that spiritually, not second coming literalism. Advent is about evaluating what you have been doing, and considering if it's what you want to, and/or should be doing. Are you minding your spiritual household so to speak. At the end of my time (not all time) I may encounter Christ personally and have to give an accounting, and I may not. The actual fact of the matter is irrelevant, because if I am living out my faith through prayer and service to my fellow men and women, then I'm encountering Christ in this life...and maybe the next. Advent is about preparing to welcome a new spiritual aspect into your life that may not have been there before, not preparing for the apocalypse.
That says it all...lots of speculation, no proof.
Excepted from The Four Pillars of the Kingdom
Available now on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.
http://bit.ly/joesbookshelf
The cloud symbol is used throughout the Judeo-Christian scriptures to refer to the white "veil" through which the Spirit of truth comes to the open mind and heart through internal revelation.
But it's not just one revelation. The Christian "seven seals of revelation" which are opened by the son of man are synonymous with the "seven chakras" of Hinduism and Buddhism. It's a universally recognized phenomena.
The "coming" of the son of man can be better understood, however, by the following statement Jesus made about the future coming of the modern son of man:
"The days will come when people will want to see one of the days of the son of man, and they shall not see it. So they will look here and there, but do not follow them. For as the lightning lightens all parts under heaven, so shall also the [work of the] son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected by his generation." (Luke 17:20-25)
Jesus was not speaking of himself in that instance, because he was accepted by multitudes of Jews, Greeks and others in his generation. Jesus was speaking of the next son of man whose message (work) is sent before him, as Isaiah prophesied, and can be seen in a flash, like lightning, all over the world.
See http://messenger.cjcmp.org/prophecies.html
All those events have taken place, and are even now still taking place. Meanwhile, as Jesus predicted, the son of man has been "first rejected by his generation and suffers many things."
That is consistent with Isaiah's prophecy that the son of man would first be stricken and afflicted, that he would suffer many things, that he would be "hidden in the shadow of God's hand," and that the work he sends before him would be rejected for so long that he would fear his work was in vain and for naught.
You see, all that prophecy has been fulfilled, but not in the way religious people have expected.
Just read http://messenger.cjcmp.org/prophecies.html and http://messenger.cjcmp.org/christianity.html Also listen to his songs at http://www.soundclick.com/ttap
What *DID* Christ succeed in? And please be specific. Differentiate between what he did and the other virgin-birthed demi-Gods: Horus, Bacchus, Dionysus, Krishna, Buddha, Marduk...
The more you read comparative mythology, the more it is evident that the story of Christ is only a tiny kernal of history piled high with recycled myth prevalent or historically/mythologically important in Palestine at the time.
As for the story of Jesus, what we read in the official church canon is not the actual story of Jesus. He was actually a spiritually "anointed" son of man, and the Avatar for the passing age. And his prophecies, when properly understood, help to explain what has been happening, and what will happen.
The truth is that the proud and militant will be rendered contrite of spirit by the prophesied judgment and the truth, which will then enable the humble, gentle, reasonable, peaceful and "meek" majority to inherit the earth.
His first trip here was a massive and ridiculous failure.
Goal #1: Secure the Holy Land for the Jews, and expel the Romans. Result: FAILURE, arrest and execution.
Goal #2: To redirect the Temple away from usury and those acts that Jesus considered unfit for his people. Result: FAILURE! The Jews, specifically the Saducees and the Pharisees, not only turned Jesus in for what he attempted to do to and through the Temple, but Jesus certainly had minimal or no impact on the evolution of the Jewish faith.
Goal #3: To return to finish his work within a generation of his death. FAIL! "Matthew 34l: "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." I still don't get how such an utter Failure of a God/Avatar/DemiGod would entice those that have been railroaded and disappointed for 2000 years to get excited again.
My question to the believers: What, exactly did Jesus succeed in when he came the first time? He taught a little, rebelled against Roman occupation feebly, and was arrested, tortured and executed just like a mortal man who had no divine purpose or aid. Why expect better next time?
The first time I tried raising the ‘believer-defections’ issue on wnd.com, they’re reply was similar: “See Ya!” When I was 10-12, (…no-longer-a-virgin), there was a monk-in-training at the local novitiate WEARING a “chaste-makes-waste” slogan-button.
...We all chortled at the word 'chaste'!
Statistics aren’t everything, but ‘round my birth there were 180,000 (American) nuns; Currently? 70,000.
In 2009-10, Germany, Belgium & Austria lost, roughly, ½-1 million faithful, directly attributed to the ‘R.I.C.O.-method’ of clerical-supervision, aka, pretending clergy...‘don’t’’!
Perhaps if this (alleged) ‘spiritual-message’ wasn't so ‘cleverly-hidden' under criminal-sexuality, and I.O.R.-Vatican-bank-practices didn’t make Ken Lay, ('Enron'), slap his own face & feel like a rank-amateur, I'd still be Christian, (Catholic).
Then again, perhaps if/when Republicans come to grips with Black-Americans shunning the party-O’-Lincoln, I'll try ‘republicanism’; (I’m caucasian).
On both issues, holding-one's-breath comes...highly un-recommended!
Being Neo-Pagan has meant avoiding a LOT of conflicts, not the least of which is being forbidden to ‘proselytize’, ('cajole-coerce') others on their spiritual-journey.
When the pope welcomes former P/M Blair into the church, ignoring Mr. Blair’s public statements, (that he’d do ‘it’, the Iraq-Pillaging, all over again), &/or, R. Williamson, what-the-hell am I to think about all this ‘sins-against-life-talk’, (re abortion, marriage equality), etc.?
And even with degrees in Literature and Comparative Mythology, the Bible was still a boring dud of a spiritual manual for me.
I'm sure it worked wonders for illiterate desert-wanderers 2000 years ago, but I reject the idea that it has meaning or value to me as a modern humanist.
The hidden message in the Bible in my world is that humans seek a master/lord because they prefer to allow others to direct them through the confusion of life.
The Warrior's Path--striking your own destiny without a playbook or a fundamental belief seems to me a more profound journey if I'm right and this is the only life I get to lead.
I am a modern, human man. I do not need a Lord to make my morality function, and I do not need a carrot of heaven to enable me to respect, love and help my fellow humans.
I participated in Bible Study for many years of my life and can discuss any protion of the Bible you wish. Don't expect the same commentary you would receive in Church though, because I give the Bible no special treatment in my analysis or criticism--I read it as I would any book: the Upadishads or Henry Miller.
Everyone misinterprets scripture. Of the 3500 scraps of the New Testament that exist today, not a single one matches up word for word. Maybe that's why there are over 25,000 recognized sects of Christianity. Maybe you'd like to have the hubris to tell me which one has it 'right'.
My knowledge is strong, misunderstanding belongs to those who believe they understand something fundamentally. I am quick to admit my ignorance concerning the Final Ground of Being in the Universe. I don't know. And either do you, but that makes you feel sad so you grasp onto the mythology of ancient, ignorant, illiterate desert wanderers to who you attribute success in solving the most difficult metaphysical riddles in the universe.
occupy bethelehem
maria and joseph during advent were travelling journeying to bethelehem ;
seeking shelter
Sanctuary for the soul
they started OBM occupy bethelehem movement
the political system wasnt kosher
Gold coins from caesar for all
Advent time time to focus on refugees ; prevention of conflict
advent of peace; can politcians reconcile themselves to peace creators being part of the establishment ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukt8eRxz7Us
>and grand promises of a future in which Jesus plays a noticeable role.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6phwZGxnvVg
There is nothing that isn't "dangerous" about any religion because they are all equally absurd.
Praise Jesus and Allah Akbar