Texts: Isaiah 64: 1-9; Mark 13: 33-37

"And when I looked and saw these four princes of punishment, Desolation and Despoiler and Ruin and Destruction, they were casting lots for the land … and they will have no mercy on the poor and the old....and the veil of silence will sit upon all men, and the earth will sit in surprise and consternation … And they will be cruel and murderers and bloodthirsty and destroyers and a testing furnace for all Christians..." So wrote the Pseudo-Methodius in the early seventh century, one of a number of apocalypses composed during a period of intense political and social upheaval. Although Gog and Magog figure heavily in this response to the Arab conquests of that time, unlike the LaHaye-Jenkins series, there is no "rapture," only destruction, mayhem and a final judgment.

Apocalyptic thinking has a long history, starting well before the text we see in this morning's Gospel reading. Look at the earlier lines from Isaiah, probably written in the late sixth century BCE in response to the resurgence of non-Yahwistic religious practices that accompanied the reign of Cyrus. How often have we personally not wished for some delivery from heaven, as it were, for the troubles that beset us – war, famine, earthquakes, unemployment, down to our inability to overcome our daily struggles? No wonder the apocalyptic thinking of fundamentalism has such a strong hold on people.

The passage we read this morning in Mark's Gospel refers to a world beset by the fall and destruction of Jerusalem in the Jewish wars of 66-70 CE. The characteristic attributed to the Jews by the Lord back in Exodus as a “stiff-necked people” --at that tie referring to the Israelites' propensity to needing forgiveness – could also be attributed to the unwillingness of the Jewish nation after the return from Babylon to give into any kind of conquest that denigrated the worship of the Lord, especially in the Second Temple and Jerusalem. You would have thought the Romans learned from what happened with the Maccabean revolt but conquerors, including present day onees, never seem to learn from history. So the Romans, of course, when the priests objected to pagan sacrifices in the Temple, rather than addressing the issue at hand, sent in troops to quell the unrest that had been brewing for some time over heavy taxation and Roman garrison practices. Events spiraled downward from there and the revolt leaders, flushed by a victory over disciplined Roman troops at Beth Huron, began attacking Roman citizens. Agrippa Ii and his sister Beatrice, brave souls that they were, fled Jerusalem and mayhem ensued.

The revolt was doomed to failure, of course. Vespasian, later an emperor, began a methodical approach to cutting off any possible supply lines and finally Jerusalem itself lay under siege. After it became apparent that Rome itself was in turmoil due to the insanity of Nero, Vespasian left to claim the throne and his son Titus Flavius finished the job. During the last year before the defnses of the city were finally breached, Titus had a trench dug around the city, and anyone caught attempting to flee was crucified. During that terrible year, about 500 persons were crucified daily. The city burned to the ground, the Temple was sacked and destroyed, men slaughtered, surviving women and children carried off in chains – it seemed like the end of the world.

By this time, the early groups of Jesus followers had developed into separate communities, into a church. In his church histories written in 325, Eusebius, states that having been warned by an angel to flee the city, Christians departed to a place called Pella, "beyond the Jordan." There, according to Matthew's version of this apocalypse, they watched the horror of Jerussalem's destruction.

There are several ways to look at this passage. One New Testament scholar commented that the passage was written in response to events that, rather than looking to the end of the world, looks to the end of a world, the world of early Judaism as a temple centered faith. Another commentator notes that the command warning to "Stay wake!" actually refers to the writer's commentary on what will be coming next for Jesus – the darkness of Gethsemane. This short passage cannot be separated from the fantasies of the end of the world which are detailed in the prior verses.

As it became apparent that the world had not ended, by the fourth century the official church line was that this passage in Mark and similar ones in Matthew and Luke were to be read metaphorically. In spite of the official line, events that seem beyond human control lead to continued apocalyptic thinking and writing. Not all of it was God or Christ and the angels coming in glory, however. And not all apocalyptic type writing has been in response to wars and rumors of wars. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who married Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, also wrote an apocalyptic novel called The Last Man, somewhat reminiscent of The Canticle of Leibowitz in that it lays out a society reduced to a level of the dark ages due to war in England and Europe in the year 2092, which, of course, seems closer to us now than it did to her.

The question for us, it seems, is how do we look at the exhortation to "Keep awake!" It means putting aside our wildest fantasies of so-called cures for the problems we face today and, in the words of Rosie the Riveter, rolling up our sleeves and getting to work. Our religious and political landscapes are marked by our fantasies. In spite of the pessimism around us, we really do think that things will get better – almost magically. Black Friday shopping and our spend, spend, spend approach toward life reflects that.

But the Gospel, in spite of what certain persons may say, is not about a fantasy. It is about the real world and how we must respond to those around us, to the problems of the world, which, if we really think about it, aren't much different than those facing Jesus in his time. Then there was a ruling class who oppressed the poor and did not practice justice. Today we have the one percent controlling wealth. Then there were daily injustices; today, we have a judicial system that favors those who can afford lawyers at $400 an hour and a governor who guts legal services for the poor. The list goes on.

We need to stay awake and put our fantasies aside. The world is real. And the promise of God's love is also real. That's no fantasy. We see it at work every day. We see it in people helping people, not just between Thanksgiving and Christmas bat all year round. We see the wonderful possibilities that can occur when we live the Gospel. Then the fantasies beyond our wildest dreams can and will come true. Amen.