Unholy Sh+t: Nothing says Merry Christmas like some judgment, and by that, I mean the Apocalypse
For Christmas of my fifteenth year of life, I asked for a sword. Surprisingly, this was not an uncommon request for boys my age. Yes, friends, I am here to admit that I was amongst the ranks of such notable sword owners as Elon Musk or Ben Shapiro. However, my desire to own a sword had a spiritual element to it. At the time, my family was attending a Pentecostal church and I was raised to believe that soon Jesus would return. Nearly every Sunday, we were filled with the fear that, at any moment, Jesus might return.
The new millennium was just around the corner, and for many doomsday prophets, this seemed like a good a time as any for Jesus to make his triumphant return. This was the time of such great apocalyptic fan-fic like Left Behind. The whole of Christendom was filled with a sense of urgency that the Messiah was going to return, and every boy I knew was afraid of two things:
That they wouldn’t have a sword to fight with.
That Jesus would return while they were playing with their, uh, sword.
So my question is, did you want a sword for your Christmas so that you could fight demons in the coming war of the End of Days, or were you normal?
Unholy Sh+t: An Irreverent Bible Study
First Sunday of Advent
Today’s Reading: Mark 13:33-37
Advent, the season of light, where the infant Jesus was born into the world. This is the most lovely time of year. The air is crisp, the leaves have fallen, and twinkle lights are popping up in neighbors around the world. It is the time of year when we think of goodwill toward our fellow humans, attempt to do charitable deeds so we won’t be haunted by the Marley brothers, and the Starbucks red solo cups are ready to send us all to our impending doom. Merry Christmas, y’all! And I don’t know about you, but the first thing I think of when it comes to Christmas is God destroying the world with fire and water! Yet, that seems to be where we begin this Advent Season, with a verse often used by those who wish to usher in the end of the world, also known as eschatology.
No, I am not about to become a crystal boy. The word eschatology is a part of theology dealing with the end. Now, there is plenty of debate about what that really means, so the word covers a great spectrum of theology, from the destiny of the soul to the final judgment. In the modern era, eschatology almost exclusively focuses on the end times and what this really means. What will the final judgment of the world look like, and who will survive it? That question has plagued humankind since we first emerged from our primordial ooze. Since we first became aware of our existence, we began to also question what it would mean for us not to exist anymore.
Jesus talked about the end of the age a lot. Honestly, he has some moments where he seems more fitted for a sandwich board on Times Square than a crown. This particular verse is some of those you’d more expect from some turn-or-burn street preacher than from the prince of peace. Frankly, Jesus has zero chill, if I’m going to be honest. He is hanging out at the temple and preaching, as he likes to do from time to time, and someone casually mentions that the temple is very beautiful. Jesus hits him back with, “Oh, you mean this building? It will be destroyed, and the whole world will be destroyed, and everything you love will be destroyed.”
In classic fashion, Rocky pulls him aside later and asks, “Not that I am worried or anything, but, like, do you know when this is going to happen, the destruction of everything?”
Jesus then goes into a long rant about how the end of times will look. He warns his disciples that they will be arrested and persecuted. Then he rambles on about how there will be other people who arrive that will appear to be Jesus but will actually not be Jesus and that they shouldn’t get tricked by these people. Finally, he goes into some randomness about fig trees because our boy is obsessed with figs. However, if you haven’t noticed, he does not actually directly answer the question of when. So after his private doomsday sermon, Jesus finally shrugs his shoulders and says, “As for when? I don’t know. No one knows.”
That is a pretty big revelation, homie; you might want to let some of your followers know that! It seems like every year, we have at least one apocalypse prediction that takes the world by storm. So how do we know the difference between when Jesus is really coming back and when it's just a false prophet? Well, if you take Jesus at his word here in the good ol’ gospel of Mark, the easiest way to know if someone is full of sh+t is if they tell you that they know when the world will end. No one knows, not even Jesus. Simply saying that they know shows that they don’t know; that’s the joke.
What if I told you that the end of the age has already happened and that Jesus has already returned in glory?
No, I am not about to pull a wild card and tell you that I’ve got front-row tickets for final judgment. What I am about to say is nothing new or novel. It’s just all a bit complicated. So, allow me to contextualize a few things real fast. First, you need to understand that Jesus, John, and Paul did not think the world would last another two thousand years. They believed that they were in the end of the age. It turns out they were right. If your entire world was Rome or Roman territories, then they were right on the threshold of the fall of the Empire and the dawn of a new age. So they weren’t far off at all. Everything they knew would go up in flames, quite literally, at the library of Alexandria, and Nero would attempt to destroy the known world with fire and water.
It is widely believed by many scholars that when John was off doing shrooms on Patmos, he wasn’t writing about literal monsters, angels, and interstellar wars because he thought that is how the end of the world would actually happen but because he was writing in code. Those letters were never meant to be read literally but within the context of an imprisoned rebel attempting to send a message through the prison system to his comrades on the other side. This means that every doomsday prophet attempting to interpret the book of Revelation is doing so without the decoder ring.
When Jesus was talking about all of this destruction, he meant his own body at the crucifixion, and when he talked about his return in glory, he didn’t mean a great battle but a meal. That is correct; for the majority of early Christians, it was understood that the Second Coming of Jesus was the Eucharist, holy communion. The word “remembrance” used at every communion you’ve ever received; it literally means “to recall back” or “to return.” As far as the early Christians were concerned, the apocalypse had already happened, and the great return in glory of the King of Kings was already here at the table.
That leaves us with the question of why we would begin the Advent season with an eschatological verse. It’s a joke, and we are the punchline. The church is reminding us that we missed the mark the first time Jesus arrived, and we are missing the mark again about his return. When Jesus was born, society wanted a warrior to ride into Rome to bring about the destruction of the Empire, but instead, they got a baby wrapped in a wee little blanket, born into poverty, a refugee who would one day ride into the city on a donkey, not a war horse. Jesus didn’t arrive the way we expected him the first time, but surely, the second time, he will destroy all our enemies, defeat the evil empires, and give everyone a unicorn, right?
No, I’m afraid not. That’s our job.
The second coming is just as mysterious as the first. Jesus is inviting us to sit down at the table, enjoy a meal together, and make the choice to love our siblings. At this table, there are no borders or wars or rulers and everyone is welcome. However, until we learn that lesson, we will remain in the tribulation. There will be wars and rumors of wars, and we will fight each other over *gestures broadly* everything.
So, as we gather together this holiday season, whether you are lighting the menorah candle, advent wreath, or yule log, let this light lead us to the table of peace where all can be fed and where everyone leaves their swords at the door.
It's soooooooooo good to read your missives again. It has been a dry spell and the world is further than ever down the drain. Your saying that we are in the tribulation is the smartest thing I've heard in months, and we humans are the cause of all our problems - financially, militarily, ecologically, morally, and all the rest. Your reference to the Eucharist reminded me of those days when I loved the Sunday morning Liturgy, in the church where time and space were transformed to a holy time and space; I don't miss the hour drive in urban traffic to get there nor the crap chanter who started flashing his laser pen in people's eyes, among other things. Anyway, thank you for nudging me to thoughtfully reconsider things, although I still hope I die before the worst of everything happens, as I am a coward.
Father Monk ... I read this short book 20 years ago and had hope for my children. The way things are going now, I weep for my grandchildren.
"Each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water -- the very elements of life.
The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?"
In his #1 bestseller A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled.
Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment's inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.