Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell; the four “Last Things” are, a bit depressingly, supposed to be what we think about, and I suppose, preach about, in Advent. Most of us, of course, are much more positively thinking about Christmas coming, but either way, it’s a time of expecting and preparation both for the festival by which we remember the incarnation and more elusively, the second coming at the end of time. I hope I will not depress you by reflecting a bit on that expectation of Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. I want to suggest that they are challenging, certainly, but not impossibly so.
We do not exactly look forward to death or the end of time, but we can think about them, and anticipate them in a positive way. Advent is a time to act on the expectation of an end, not just think about it, fear it or hope for it. We have overdone the expectation and it is the present reaction and action that are more the point, and our readings from Luke and Isaiah tell us something about how we may, and should react and about the nature of the Gospel message.
St Luke’s preamble tells us that as far as he can he will recount what actually happened based on eyewitness accounts. Of course, St Luke doesn’t really, or only, do that; he has a distinct, and for most of us generally sympathetic line on the Gospel. He is, however,quite anti-Semitic, but at least it is from a standpoint of understanding Jewish tradition; more appealing for us is his interest in outsiders- the poor, foreigners, children, even women. Like the other Gospel writers a constant theme is how Jesus’ teaching and actions are received- often with a contrast between the wholehearted, simple acceptance of beggars and cripples and the misunderstanding of the educated, those stuck in tradition and the wealthy.
This comes out in the stories of the two annunciations to Zechariah and to Mary (which we did not hear but which immediately follows what we did hear). Luke is doing the ground work, discussing how we should receive the good news he is going to tell us. There are two incredible announcements of forthcoming babies, both by Gabriel but with different reaction; incredulous old Zechariah is struck dumb, as well he might be, but Gabriel tells him it’s punishment for his disbelief. Mary might also be struck dumb but instead just accepts, and the next time we hear her, when visiting Elizabeth, she bursts into a magnificent prophecy, one we heard tonight and can hear every evening of the year, because it encapsulates the Gospel which the child in her womb will proclaim. The contrast is the reaction of a dusty, old and sterile formulaic ritual- with Mary’s young and fertile exuberance; a contrast of mute and passive incredulity and active, revolutionary belief. Luke’s hostility to Jewish tradition is not however complete; Zechariah’s silence comes to an end when even an elderly lady long thought barren and a metaphor for Temple Judaism gives birth to a firebrand prophet. And Zechariah predicts that fiery prophet’s message in the Benedictus, more retrospective than the Magnificat, but setting the Gospel in context, and again it is, appropriately recited every morning.
It’s well known that prophets don’t prophecy in our ordinary use of the term; they tell us about the present world and society and about God’s intentions and his present actions. These may all have consequences for the future, but it’s not plausible, or useful, to think of
Isaiah predicting the coming of Christ. No one makes predictions about events 500 years in the future; what would be the point? We can hardly influence what our successors will do or think 15 or more generations away. Isaiah’s message of comfort is to his contemporaries but it is also timeless; it talks of God’s coming with great might, as St John the Baptist will talk of Judgement coming; in both cases they mean imminently, but also, I suggest, outside the bounds of physical time. “The word of the Lord will stand forever”, unlike the ephemeral experience of human beings who perish like grass. Isaiah, like Luke, is talking to us as much as to the 5th century Israelites in Babylon or 1st century Jews in Judea.
Luke tells us how we should receive the Gospel with a radical and forward looking openness; Isaiah emphasises the immediacy of salvation. How do these messages help us to think about Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell?
Surely the first point is that the “Four Last Things” are not distanced in time of space; they are phenomena and events which matter to us now; they shouldn’t be seen, except in metaphor, as being future events or other worlds. We live with Death, but through the Resurrection can see our own lives as having a significance beyond physical temporality; we matter, to God and to our fellow creatures. Judgement is similarly with us always, in the simple (although easily and frequently ignored) fact that what we do has consequences. The present state of the natural world is alarming evidence enough of that. Heaven and Hell are what we make of our lives, our communities and world. Perhaps they are somewhere we will find after our deaths, but the point of them is here and now.
In contemplating these things and trying wholeheartedly to understand and accept them, we need the openness of Mary, relying on the natures that God has given us rather than often evasive traditions and rituals. Tradition and ritual may often be a useful framework, even a matrix for our thoughts (as I suspect Isaiah’s were, finally, for Zechariah) but the crucial point is our own perhaps instinctive reaction- a reaction like Mary’s which may mean overturning our social structures and cherished values. This may seem alarming, and Isaiah’s comfort is not always so comfortable; it is however, the promise of the Kingdom of Heaven-a promise that is fulfilled and may be realised now. Amen