The First Sunday of Advent: Hope and Death

Hope, love, joy and peace. For the past century or so, those have been the four main themes of Advent. But Diana Butler Bass, in her most recent newsletter The Cottage, explains that during the Middle Ages the Church focused on four different themes: Death, judgement, heaven, and hell. The Middle Ages, which lasted from the 5th century to the 15th century, was a time of turmoil and rapid change. It saw the fall of the Western Roman empire, ecclesiastical splits, conquests and counter conquests, the rise and fall of numerous emperors, kings, and popes. It was a time of crusades, famines, and the Black Death, which would kill between 75 million-200 million people. It was a time of change, bewilderment, and pain for all, but especially for the ordinary person whose individual stories of suffering are often forgotten or glossed over.

The little I know of the Middle Ages makes me think, yeah, I can see why the Church would focus on the themes of death, judgement, heaven and hell. I also understand why many churches have chosen over the last century or so, to instead focus on themes of hope, love, joy, and peace. The second set of themes is more uplifting and optimistic. The first set of themes is simply put a bit of a downer. But I do not necessarily see the two themes as being completely diametrically opposed. I believe there is room to consider both the more uplifting and hopeful aspects of Advent as well as the vast amount of pain and suffering the season entails. In fact, I think 2020 has done a great job of encompassing both sets of themes: hope and death, peace and judgement, joy and heaven, love and hell. So much of our human existence often includes both extremes, that focusing one theme over the other feels incomplete. During the next four Sundays of Advent, I will be writing reflections entwining the two separate set of themes.

First Sunday of Advent: Hope and Death

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.

Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his 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. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he[e] 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. - Mark 13:24-31

2020 has seen a lot of death in all its forms. Worldwide over 1.4 million people have died of COVID 19. In the United States that number stands at over 272,000. This holiday season hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of people worldwide will be facing the reality of empty chairs at the dinner table. In the cruelest of fate, loved ones are often left to grieve the deaths of their loved ones alone. After all, having a large in person funeral, risks the possibility of leading to even more funerals. As a result, those mourning are having to grieve in isolation without the physical comfort of friends and family.

Death has taken on other forms as well. Millions of people have seen their life savings vanish, and their dreams of building a self-sustaining business or owning their own homes become unattainable as they struggle to survive. Others grieve the plans they had so carefully made-visits to family and friends across the country and the world, adventures that had been years in the making suddenly become impossible to embark on, and career plans that finally seemed to be coming together only to fall apart as the world we know it collapses.

During this first Sunday of Advent, millions of people around the world find themselves asking the question, “what does hope, in the midst of all this death and suffering look like?” There’s a tendency, when trying to focus on hope-to want to ignore the reality of death. To minimize the pain death brings and make it much more palpable. Hope is too often confused with positive thinking. If we could only focus on what’s good in our lives, then our anguish and misery would somehow go away.

But I don’t think that’s true. I think that hope requires confronting distress and despair head on. I think it requires an acknowledgement that things suck right now. That things will continue to suck for the next few weeks or months, at the very least. But hope, unlike despair doesn’t stop at acknowledging how bad things are now. Instead it looks to God’s continued presence and the belief that these painful and agonizing moments will not last forever.

Growing up, I viewed Mark 13:24-31 as a sort of checklist of events that needed to occur for Jesus to physically return and take all the good Christians to heaven. It was sort of a game to try and figure out which events in history corresponded to what Mark and the Book of Revelation depicted. In church we tried to figure out, ok was there a specific event in history where the moon did not shine? If so, when did that happen? All in an attempt to prove that Jesus would return soon and we needed to prepare ourselves spiritually. But what if, instead of interpreting this passage as a call to try and predict the end times, we view this passage as a call to keep our eyes open for the suffering in our midst and God’s promised presence?

The gospel of Mark was written either right before or right after the fall of the second temple. The fall of the temple was a traumatic event for the Jewish people-including the small group of Jewish people that were following Jesus. Their world had fallen apart. The temple was the center of religious Jewish life and a physical marker of God’s presence. And for that center of life to be threatened with destruction or actually destroyed was beyond comprehension. Jewish people, including the followers of Jesus had to try and make sense of what had just occurred or was about to occur. This passage, assures 1st century followers of Jesus that God had not in fact abandoned them.

And neither has God abandoned us. To be sure, God calls us to be alert to the pain and suffering around us. We shouldn’t pretend that things are normal. This isn’t the time to hold large parades, festivals, or parties. God calls us to be aware and take notice of the agony and death that surrounds us. But God also reminds us that God is with us. And it is in God’s presence that the intersection of hope and death lie.