Anticipation

Anticipation

Rev. Dr. Wilfredo J. Baez

Advent 1: November 30, 2014

The scripture today points to the imminent return of the Son of Man.  When will this happen?  The scripture says soon.  What it doesn’t say is exactly when and where.  Many have speculated about when, where and how this would take place.  The evangelical fictional series “Left Behind,” with its references to rapture is an attempt to address the return of the Son of Man.  It sets up a dangerous false divide between us and them and good and evil; between an elite elect who are privileged for heaven and an ignorant masses who are doomed to suffering. 

There are Christians who are preparing for the Great Armageddon, the Cosmic Battle between Good and Evil.  They take this metaphorical tale literally and are gathering up weapons, food and supplies to protect themselves from the onslaught of unsaved masses who will come to take what belongs to the saved.  In the hands of the religious right this idea promotes class and racial warfare.

Who is this “Son of Man” that is to come?  In the biblical Book of Daniel, we are told, “One like a human” will come from God.  This human one will combat and destroy the Beast.” This Beast was historically identified as Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Greek Empire and later as Nero and the Roman Empire. Both of these Empires were identified as invincible and were unjust domination systems whose characteristic were to trample and then control their enemies. 

The conservative argument is that there will be signs that those days will be identified by.  There will be great suffering, the sun will be darkened and the moon not give light, stars will fall from heaven and the heavenly powers shaken. This is meant to be a metaphor, not a description of what will literally happen.  Progressive scholars have argued that this happened already with the fall of the Hellenistic Greek Empire under Alexander’s sons and the conversion of Rome from Paganism under the Emperor Constantine. Today, conservative Christians, when the believe it is happening, count global warming and climate change, great natural disasters and wars as signaling the end of days, as if God is punishing human beings for their sins.   The conservative idea is that God is destroying the world.  Of course, God promised- in the story of Noah, that God would never destroy the world with an event like the flood.  God’s promise intends any kind of destruction, not only a flood.  The Progressive perspective is that God is cleaning house: God is going to overthrow the Beast and Evil Empire and its unjust dominative system and replace it with a Beloved Community and its just collaborative system.  God isn’t going to destroy the world.  God is going to redeem it.  Enough of this socio-political analysis! Let’s jump to a personal one.

What if, this scripture is talking about us, as individual human beings and as community?  What if the “Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” is the Spirit of Christ rising up in us and among us, becoming in us and transforming us into a unified Body of Christ, a just collaborative system or way of being individuals and Church?  What if we are being called to a new way of being human, individually and collectively, a way of transforming reality by choosing the way of life modeled by Jesus?    What if the angels gathering up of the elect from the four winds, the ends of the earth and the ends of heaven are gathering us up with all of our resources, internally and externally, organizing us as the unified Body of Christ, the just collaborative system or way of being individuals and community, the new way of being human and new way of transforming reality in the way of life that Jesus has invited us into?  What if we are at the very gates whereby the way of the Beast, the  invincible and unjust domination system, is collapsed and replaced by the way of the Son of Man, the human and just collaborative system of heaven on earth; the replacement of a violent and unjust system with a non-violent and just one. 

What is this Evil Empire, Beast unjust dominative system and how is it active in our lives?  Assign the empire or beast an imaginary color and symbol.  What are some of the strategies of this Evil Empire – its ways of thinking, speaking and acting towards others?  Hold this imaginary symbol in your left hand.  Observe its color intensify, the symbol growing and experience yourself using these strategies.  What are you thinking, saying and doing?  Clutch this evil empire in your fist. Think to yourself:  “Evil Empire; Beast!”  Feel the color and symbol of the Evil Empire Beast and all of its strategies seep out of your left hand and drain into the earth until your left hand is empty.  Release your hand.

What is this Human One, Beloved Community just collaborative system and how is it active in your life?  What is the color of this Human One Beloved Community and what is the symbol of this Beloved Community?  What are the strategies of this Human One Beloved Community - its ways of thinking, speaking and acting towards others? What are you thinking, saying and doing when you live in this Human One Beloved Community.  Clutch it in your right fist.  Think to yourself “Human One: Beloved Community!” Recall the color and symbol of the Beloved Community in your right hand.  Recall its strategies. Experience yourself using those strategies – in your thinking, speaking and acting towards others.  Let that color intensify and feel that symbol in all of its texture and shape.  Squeeze your right hand.  Now let the color and symbol and all of the strategies of the Beloved Community enter through your skin into your blood supply and circulate throughout your entire body until your right hand is empty.

Now, hold both of your hands in front of you, our left hand empty, drained of the color, symbol and strategies of the evil Empire, all drained completely into the earth and your right hand full of the color, symbol and strategies of the Beloved Community.  Intensify your experience of the Beloved Community and at the height of your experience, take your right palm and place it over the left and clasp your right and left hands together, the experience of Beloved Community, its color, symbol and strategies being shared between your right and your left.   Experience yourself now, like the human one, Jesus, representing and sharing in Beloved Community with others, that experience always accessible to you in the present.

Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all of these things have taken place.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not.”  The transformation Evil Empire to Beloved Community began with Jesus.  It continued with   Constantine and continues with us today as the Body of Christ.