It's the end of the world
Which isn't all that bad...
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Do you know how, after you've made some horrible mistake, you console yourself by muttering, “Well, it's not the end of the world.” It's like that Monty Python sketch where the guy's arm gets chopped off but it's, “just a flesh wound” because he still has the other arm.
With Advent, it really is the end of the world.
That phrase, though, doesn't mean what we think it means. We think of the end of the world as a worst-case scenario. The word “Apocalypse” stirs up thoughts of destruction and ruin. In the movies it's always the bad guys who are coaxing along the apocalypse, but we have this odd scenario in the Scriptures in which it is the good guys, the Christians, who are cheering on the end of the world.
I wonder if we even quite realize this, how committed the Church is the apocalypse. For weeks now, we’ve been reading Scriptures during Holy Mass and the Daily Office saying as much. Or have you ever considered what the Nicene Creed actually says, the Creed that we all confidently recite? Here's how it ends; “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” In other words, bring on the apocalypse.
In St. John's Apocalypse, there's a confident song of praise sung by the saints, “Come soon, Lord.” It’s an echo of the word maranatha which St. Paul uses in his epistle to the Corinthians when he advises them to stop worrying and arguing so much and, instead, to “wait until the Lord comes.” Maranatha is an Aramaic phrase with two meanings depending on how we break it down into two smaller words, either meaning, “O Lord, come!” or, “Our Lord has come.” The early Christians understood both senses of the word and so do we. Advent celebrates the fact that Christ has already arrived on Christmas and, at the same time, we look for his arrival in the 2nd Coming. It's a bold prayer, “Come soon, Lord.” Cheering on the apocalypse.
The point is that, if we like Christmas, decorating our trees with homemade ornaments, the gifts, the nativity plays, the beauty of Holy Mass at midnight, then we also cheer on the end of the world. The two events cannot be disconnected. Christ arrives in power on Christmas morning for the single purpose of bringing us into the end times.
The Church and her artists have a most amusing historical habit of regularly painting the Final Judgment onto the front wall of the sanctuary right over the altar. The most famous example is the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo's final judgment, a masterpiece every bit as impressive as the ceiling. Catholics know the end of history is coming. They know it, and they like it. Not because we're super-villains who want to see the world burn, but because we desire to be with Christ. The Church is a bride longing to be with her bridegroom, and it is only once we exit the constriction of history as bound by chronological time that we can participate in the fullness of the nuptial relationship. This history in which we live (which really does matter, by the way, because we only make a good ending if we’ve made a good preparation), is authored and gathered up by Christ, and it is only under this aspect of history redeemed and experienced from the perspective of Heaven, the eternal Now of God, that we meet Christ in his fullness.
Before that happens, the veil between heaven and earth must be torn to shreds. It’s a redemptive reception of grace that occurs through sacred liturgy, through God’s action history, and also on a personal level in each of our hearts. The spiritual life is an ever-deepening apocalypse, or unveiling, by which we reveal more of ourselves to God so he can know us and love us. That's not an easy process, this opening up and emptying out so as to make ready for the divine presence. It requires self-reflection, humility, honesty, repentance. We let go of our desires and ego in order to conform ourselves to Christ.
The real difficulty, I suppose (speaking for myself at least), is that this is not purely a process of arriving, this pilgrimage we're on, as if we march straight forward in battle array to victory. The unveiling is a stripping before it’s a building up, and a defeat before it becomes victory. Advent is the celebration of an arrival but also it’s a commitment to leaving.
We know where we're going, but do we ever consider what's behind? What must be laid down in order to make it to the end of the race? Do we comprehend that the advent of Christ is an internal apocalypse for each one of us individually?
We must leave the old self behind, dead and buried. I must destroy my old sinful nature without hesitation. Who I have been, which in the twisted parts of my egotistical mind I thought was so great, is nothing but a lesser version of myself held in thrall to sin. That sin has to be burned away.
There's a word that Gerard Manley Hopkins invented for one of his poems called “Spring and Fall.” In it he writes, “Márgarét, áre you gríeving/ Over Goldengrove unleaving?”
That word unleaving is a description of leaves falling from branches in a grove of trees in autumn. The trees, which were leafed, are now un-leafed. The word becomes a grammatical negation. For the leaves, this is the end. They’re falling to the earth to decompose and be buried, as it were, but Hopkins writes that is an un-leaving. It’s almost as if, in the humiliation of their fall, the leaves have somehow, actually, risen.
For a long time I was puzzled why the poem is titled, “Spring and Fall,” because it only describes a forest in autumn and nothing more. So where does spring come from? It's in the negation. In the departure, there's an arrival. In the end is the beginning. When we fall into the grave with Christ, when we meet our end, he reaches out and picks us up, but he will only do that if we have managed to die to ourselves, if we have given ourselves away for his sake, something springs up just like branches on trees open new buds after a long winter.
All my life, I've struggled with the fact that my happiness and joy can only be defined by accepting boundaries. I must follow God’s will for my life and limit myself for the sake of love. It's a paradox that Christ places before us, as he so often does – the last are first, new life requires a death, humility is glory, love is sacrifice.
I've always been anxious about those boundaries, particularly the limitation of our lifespan, how we find meaning in our daily lives and how, through attachment to sin, we have the tendency to get stuck. If we don't depart from our sins, if we don't welcome Christ into our hearts to destroy what we once were, we will never stand up and walk, never make spiritual progress, never arrive to the place we so very much want to be.
I've been hesitant to confront my ego. I've become attached to it, but sin is paralyzing. We cannot make progress until we leave our disordered desires and unhealthy attachments behind. Who I think I am, in the confusion of my sinful mind, is not actually who I am. I'm woefully mistaken about my qualities and failings. We all are. It's the distortion of sin, and we cannot escape it unless we are bold enough to throw down our idols.
Our Lord is clear; only through the Cross. There is no other way. Allow love take everything away and, turn your heart inside out. Here's what I keep coming back to again and again, each time I hesitate; which of us wouldn't give everything for the one we love? It may feel like the end of the world to do so, but it’s actually the foundation of a new one.
Come soon, Lord Jesus.