The Divine Universe

What’s it all about? Such a mixture of money spending, merrymaking and midsummer madness. And it all ends on Christmas Day. We Antipodeans then collapse in a puddle of perspiration and a pile of pretty paper.

Churchgoing Christians call it Advent, preparation time for celebrating the Nativity of Christ. Most of our Christian festivals celebrate past events, but they are intended to project our thoughts towards the future. For many, children especially, Advent is looking forward to the coming of Santa Claus. To most Australians it is the anticipation of holidays. To churchgoing Australians, a relatively minor component of society, it is looking forward to Christmas. But Christmas is the celebration of a past event. In what sense, then, is Advent pointing to the future in any real way?

Many Christians, especially the “born again” kind, look forward to the return of Jesus in the flesh, called the “Second Coming”. There are three or four passages in the New Testament that have given rise to such a notion. Take one dramatic example from Matthew’s gospel.

“Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man with power and great glory. And he will send out his angel with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

It’s Jesus talking. It’s one of the few occasions he uses an apocalyptic style of speaking. Apocalyptic is the name of a kind of writing in Jesus’ time. The nearest modern equivalent is science fiction, where fantastic creatures in fantastic situations present us with an imaginary future, but echoing current events. There is often a moral to sci-fi stories.

Jesus is not trying to leave his hearers waiting with baited breath for the next total eclipse of the sun. He is talking about the future in the broadest sense, but in symbolic language. He wants to say that the good news of the kingdom is not just an invitation to complacent belief in a luxurious afterlife for nice religious people.

The whole idea of the “second coming” is essentially apocalyptic – symbolic language, conveying profound truths about the general course of human history and our relationship to God in Christ. The “second coming” is not a future event; it is already happening. Today and tomorrow and every day is a day of judgment.

“I am with you always,” said Jesus. He didn’t just mean his hearers at that time; he meant everyone for all time. “I will come again,” he also said. And, after his ascension, he came: again and again. He came in spirit at Pentecost, with startling physical phenomena as well. He spoke to Paul on the Damascus road. There have been numberless recorded encounters with Christ since then, and no doubt even more unrecorded ones.

Many encounters are in the midst of a personal crisis. They are challenges but they bring hope, not despair. Sometimes they are not major life crises, just enough to get us in a state. People sometimes experience Jesus coming through particular individuals, often in very humdrum ways. Some particular circumstance awakens us to Christ’s presence, offers hope, salvation.

Jesus’ presence with us is both spiritual and physical. In the Pentecost event it was very spiritual, but physical too. In some cases the encounter is experienced mainly in our minds. We may then think we are just daydreaming, and we discount dreams as unreal and insignificant. That’s an unfortunate modern fashion, partly based on an out-dated understanding of science. The encounter may be scary. It may even seem like a disaster: as God’s punishment or something.

Even in apocalyptic mode, Jesus refers to the sort of calamities that beset humankind throughout history: wars, of course, and what he refers to as the heavens being shaken: storms, extreme weather conditions causing famine, loss, hardship and death, and to the raging sea. Terrifying things happen. People are perplexed and dismayed. But has there ever been a period when such things were not happening somewhere in the world?

We create much of this horror for ourselves. But there is always the hope that we may learn a little more wisdom. In fact, it is in moments of extreme crisis that some new insight or wisdom is often discovered. During the 20th century, a century of unprecedented slaughter, more and more people began to realize the utter pointlessness of war. Since the turn of this century people have begun to realize that we are upsetting the balance of nature so badly that our very human existence is at risk.

But there is the dawning of new wisdom. Not in apocalyptic terms of a man coming in clouds of glory, but in an obscure corner, generally unknown, like the birth of Jesus. At first the obscure Professor Suzuki was mostly ignored. But, as time went by, more and more people began to recognise the validity of his prophetic message. Today people everywhere are deeply concerned, even fearful. In politics and big business there is little movement. But they are so heavily loaded up with wealth and power that this is not surprising. Meanwhile, the whole body of mainstream scientists are trumpeting a prophetic message.

Jesus urges us not to be frightened: “Stand erect! Raise your heads, for your redemption is near.” I don’t think he means some divine intervention. That is the hope only of lazy dreamers living in cloud cuckoo land. God is already here, offering help. We have all we need. The wisdom and knowledge are available. The power of salvation is here. Wisdom and power belong to God, but they are manifest, incarnate if you like, in the real world.

So don’t go looking up into the sky, waiting for some dazzling meteorological phenomenon or extra-terrestrial visitation; listen to Elijah who asked a destitute widow, facing starvation: “What have you in the house?” And with no more than that she found life sustainable for herself and her boy.

It seems sad that the wisest voices seem to be those who give the darkest message. True prophecy has always been like that. It is the false prophets who promise easy solutions and happy endings. And the old prophets of doom always showed the way to prevent catastrophe, as do the present ones.

Jesus said to beware that our hearts do not become obsessed with all the anxieties of daily life, or we will be caught off guard. We really need to care about the big things, because life is not a game. I believe it is better to be outright hostile to God, like an atheist, than to be complacent in some vapid, feel-good religion of false hope.

Be concerned, be alert: the world needs lerts. That is the message of Advent. We are not just looking forward to Christmas but, like Matthew’s wise men, we are on a strenuous journey to find Christ – wisdom incarnate. And we each carry our own particular gifts.