Humans have
a fascination – moth to flame like – with the end of the world. Think of the
end of the world movies of the last twenty years or so. The end comes (or almost comes) by meteor, zombies,
aliens, ecological breakdown, nuclear war, or biological pestilence. And this fascination is not a modern fascination alone. It has has been
like this for thousands of years. And we have real, live apocalyptists doing their 'thing' even now through all manner of cults, messianic movements, political groups, etc. The Bolsheviks
and Nazis were apocalyptic, secular cults. ISIS is their contemporary religious clone.
End-time fascination isn't restricted to the right of politics either. On the day
of the US election I was watching FB and as the news came in that Donnie Trump
was going to win the election FB was overwhelmed with 'the end of western civilisation if not
the world' type foreboding and hand wringing from the progressive green/left.
In the
ancient world it was God who would bring the end through violence. That is one
of the hallmarks of religious apocalyptic. But in today’s Gospel reading,
which sounds apocalyptic because of the violence, the discourse of Jesus is shorn of its divine violence. It is human violence that Jesus is narrating. Terrifying as it is, he does not counsel joining a survivalist group. Instead, it sounds more like his disciples should keep on doing what he has already told them to do. Witness to Christ himself.
