By Ched Myers

Note:  I shared the comments below on the gospel reading for the First Sunday in Advent (Dec 3, 2023) as part of Creation Justice Ministries’ “Green Lectionary” podcast.  You can hear my whole conversation with Derrick Weston & Debra Rienstra here. (above image: “All the stars in the sky will be dissolved and the heavens rolled up like a scroll,” Elena Markova, U.S., 2022; image found here)

Apocalyptic texts tend to make churchgoers nervous. In every lectionary cycle, however, the penultimate Sunday of Ordinary Time and first Sunday of Advent turn to what I call the “apocalyptic season” that bridges the end and beginning of the liturgical year. The gospel reading for First Advent always comes from the “synoptic apocalypse” (Mt 24, Mk 13, or Lk 21), before turning to the ministry of John the Baptist in Second Advent. This Year B we have the second half of Mark’s “Little Apocalypse” (13:24-37); the first part occurs at the end of Ordinary time. The lectionary’s brief apocalyptic focus functions to help us look at the “end of the world” as we prepare for it to be “born anew” in Advent and Christmastide.  

Here are some brief thoughts (especially on the underlined phrases) on Sunday’s reading, with our ecological crisis in mind.

Mk 13:24-25:  “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 

For us, apocalyptic images of the cosmos falling apart obviously correlate with the climate catastrophe that is upon us.  Interestingly, the root of our term “disaster” comes from aster, or stars in Greek; we are indeed amidst a disaster. But too often we still apprehend ecological disaster as something happening to us, rather than engineered by us. In fact, the biblical idea of nature in revolt does not actually originate with apocalyptic literature, but with the Exodus liberation story.  In that old wise tale, enslaved Hebrews are struggling for liberation against Pharaoh’s oppressive regime, an obvious mismatch. But the Creator has animated this movement, so Creation aligns against the empire in a series of escalating plagues that ultimately force the tyrant to relent (if you haven’t had a chance to look at my longer piece “Nature Against Empire: Exodus Plagues, Climate Crisis and Hard Heartedness,” go here). This profound framing lies in the background of Jesus’ vision here, and it’s not too difficult to see its relevance for our moment of imperial oppression of both people and Creation—in which we are each and all deeply implicated.    

“The powers in heaven being shaken” (Gk saleuō) connotes a cosmic earthquake tremor —an all too existential phenomenon for us here, having experienced two powerful “shakes” centered just 5 miles from Oak View in the last three months! This prophetic image of the “heavens unraveling” (Isaiah 34:4) echoes across the N.T., reflecting the ancient view that the “Powers above” represented the highest and deepest structures and authorities (a metaphor still used today). As Bill Wylie Kellermann has shown (most recently in his 2017 Principalities in Particular), following William Stringfellow and Walter Wink, it is a political language of longing for what we would call radical systemic transformation.” The deep biblical conviction is that empires are not eternal, despite their pretensions and policies to remain so.  As the writer to the Hebrews puts it, cosmic unraveling “indicates the removal of what is shaken, as of what has been made, in order that what cannot be shaken may remain,” which is to say the “kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Heb 12:27f).

The opening of the Sixth seal in Revelation makes the political correlation even more explicit, citing Isaiah 34 and using the same complex of images as our Mark passage:

the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale; the sky vanished like a scroll that is rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.  Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the generals and the rich and the strong, and every one, slave and free, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains… (Rev 6:13-15)

So for those of us working for a different world, apocalyptic visions of cosmic “deconstruct-ion” represents a hopeful discourse. Disaster for extractive, racist and violent societies can mean liberation for societies on the underside of those systems, as Nicaraguan Ernesto Cardenal pointed out 50 years ago in his epic poem “Apocalypse.”

That said, we must keep in mind in the meantime that the climate disasters driven by overdeveloped societies are affecting poor and marginalized peoples of color first and worst. Which is why those of us still insulated by privileged need to stand with movements who proclaim: “The seas are rising, but so are we” (see e.g. testimonies from a young Muslim activist, Pacific Island youth, a Gulf coast Black Lives Matter panel, and a book chronicling these movements).     

13:26-28  Then they will see ‘the Human One coming in clouds’ with great power and glory.  Then angels will be sent out to gather the elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.  “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.”

It is characteristic of the dialectical nature of Mark’s Little Apocalypse that on the heels of these images of disruption “above” come calls to pay attention to the perennial cycles of our biospheric home: clouds gathering, four winds blowing, a fig tree leafing, seasons turning. It’s always important to remind ourselves how images like these, which are theologically symbolic, are rooted in the natural world. Throughout his ministry Jesus calls us to pay attention to nature to “learn its lessons” about how to be human (see e.g. Lk 12:22ff and my comments here). But our modern socialization into individualism, autonomy and technological supremacy have prevented from seeing or seeking this old wisdom, and thus we continue to be deaf to the increasingly shrill ways that Creation in trying to get our attention. The Greek word apocalypsis means, of course, “to unmask” that which we refuse to otherwise comprehend—and these texts make it clear that nature is God’s primary agent in the hard work of waking us up.

13:29-33  So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the Human One is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.  “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor God’s Messiah, but only the Creator.  Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.

The dialectic intensifies in this closing warning. On one hand, these disasters are indeed taking us to the edge, toward “the end” of business as usual. But on the other, we are strongly cautioned not to spend energy (or theological reputation) trying to calculate the chronology of the endgame (something generations of dispensational soothsayers have openly defied). Jesus’ divine guarantee that “the universe bends toward justice” will not “time-out” (13:31), but the “day and hours” are not ours to know (13:32). Rather, we are to live urgently in this critical historical moment (Gk kairos, 13:33a), as Kairos faith and justice movements have faithfully endeavored to do over the last half century around the world (see a thumbnail sketch here). To make himself crystal-clear, Jesus issues a double imperative: “Be open-eyed, don’t fall asleep” (13:33b; see similarly I Thess 5:2-6). Mark is drawing on an apocalyptic tradition that appears elsewhere in the N.T. as the famous “thief in the night” trope (Mt 24:42-43; Lk 12:39-40; Rev 3:3, 16:15).

To rescue us from spiritualizing, metaphorizing or dismissing these exhortations, a closing parable brings the task firmly back to earth with an everyday scenario:

13:34-37  It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Standing sentry at the threshold was an important and sober vocation in ancient village life.  Whatever else it may mean to keep watch in that liminal space today, it surely entails being available—through the night of history, no matter how dark and dangerous. Public vigils of protest through the current wars on Gaza and Ukraine. Or more personally, my through-the-night vigil in early December, 2017, when my walk outside “at cockcrow” revealed that the Thomas Fire had completely encircled our town. Those weeks were a kairos moment, in which the sorrows of climate disasters seared our conscious-ness in a new, excruciating way, especially when we discovered on Christmas Eve that Grandmother Oak—our longtime “refugia” (as Debra Reinstra calls it)—had been destroyed.  So I’ve come to think of Jesus’ teaching here as an all-hands-on-deck summons, directed not only to Christians, but to every community on earth, because this litany ends with one last refrain: “What I say to you I say to all: Remain awake” (13:34). 

Let us say it plain: At the heart of the gospel is a theology of staying woke.  So let us not shrink from this vocation just because it is demonized and trivialized by adversarial (and biblically illiterate) culture warriors! Jesus calls us to insomniac discipleship, and this chal-lenge should be central in our churches in these apocalyptic times. First Advent’s gospel does heavy lifting to help our “generation” (13:30) embrace this in proclamation and practice.

Ched Myers, an ecumenical activist theologian, is a popular educator, writer, teacher and organizer, committed to animating and nurturing church renewal and radical discipleship, and supporting faith-based movements for peace and justice. Find his blog, many articles, webinars and a few audio recordings at chedmyers.org. You can also find out more about his Life & Activism there. Ched’s books are available for purchase on this site.