33 Sunday - Gospel Reflection

Adventus! People get very excited or agitated when they speak or hear about doomsday preaching. In fact, this has become one of the popular topics for preaching today. Movie world presents us with various thoughts and description of the end of the world through earthquakes, cosmic downfall, giant meteorites and interplanetary warfare and other similar ones, that are frightening as they are and more so convincingly presented as if the end is actually near. What does this indicate about the direction and thoughts of the world? Are we at the crossroad? Are we craving for a new world order? Or are we are indeed obsessed with the collapse of the world for we are obsessed with the thoughts of a new world order? Could it be a sign of crisis of a civilization where all things falling apart giving ways to new world order?

Over the centuries, from time to time people from all over the world have predicted some kind of end world scenarios, sometimes with dates and time spelled out clearly. Yet, when the world arrives at that juncture, it simply passes through. The most obvious and strange thing is that when Jesus himself declared that no one knows the hours or the day, somehow someone down the street will conveniently predict the exact date of the coming of the Lord. How can this be! The language or the manner the end of the world is presented or spoken of today is rather gory and frightening, thus causing anxiety. It is a language of misery! It depicts that everything will be wiped away – no hope, no future and those who are ‘prepared physically to confront this situation will survive’. In contrast, the weak, the poor and the less fortunate will certainly perish. Quite inhumane! Isn’t it?      

Jesus, on the other hand, uses apocalyptic language rather than language of misery when he speaks of the futuristic event. This apocalyptic language is found in many books of the bible such as the book Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah, and of course not forgetting the book of Revelation. We need to discern carefully the difference nuances found in the biblical apocalyptic language (used by the prophets and later Jesus) from the doomsday language of misery which sprung from the modern interpretation and the implication of the biblical apocalyptic language. In the biblical world, apocalyptic language generally describes the fate of nations under the sovereign hand of God. Apocalyptic prophets like Isaiah, Daniel and others would use certain images describing passages describing hills melting, mountains being cast into the sea, the sun darkened and the moon turning to blood to show how the permanent things do not last and would come to end with the reign of God. This biblical language should not to be taken literally in its totality. It is a metaphorical and rhetoric speech meant to raise the awareness of the people of the precariousness of life as compare to the reign of God. It is awakening calling not to the end to come but focusing on the vision and the manifesting power of God. Inspired Apocalyptic language expresses the theme that God holds the future of humanity though how uncertain it may be sometimes. Hence, with our submission to this vision, certainty of God’s power and His reign, we remain victorious, we become wise and we are indeed strengthen, even in times of uncertainty. Therefore, in this sense, apocalyptic language is Israel’s theological sentiment of the reign of God actively penetrates and permeates our history.

Jesus, living in the midst of the great expectation of the coming of the Messiah, the one who would liberate Israel, used this apocalyptic-prophetic language as part of his expression of the reign of God. Jesus’ insertion of end time, the final point or commonly known as the Omega point, within the framework of God’s reign gives added eschatological tone to his apocalyptic-prophetic language. His language is prophetic for he speaks with authority from God. His language is apocalyptic because he reveals the hidden reign of God permeating history. His language is eschatological because for him the End does not end in itself but ends in God’s reign.

We are at the last liturgical Sunday – next week, it is celebration of the feast of Christ the King. Thus, the Church invites us to look at the passing world as it converges towards the final point, which is the reign of God. For all of us, whether it is in our lives or in our faith proclamation, we are called to speak the language of hope, the language of utter conviction in the reign and power of God, the language that liberates and sets us free from all anxiety and fear, the language that dispels the darkness and brings light and newness. These are the languages of Jesus – prophetic, apocalyptic and eschatological. We are called to be his voice, speaking his languages to the broken world, hence, bringing a difference.