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.