Is it the End of the World?
The metaphor of apocalypse powerfully speaks to present-day societal anxieties.
Several years ago, a member of the congregation I served asked if I would officiate at a relative’s wedding. I agreed as a favor, even though I had some concerns based on rumors I had heard. When I showed up at the severely in need of renovation beach hotel, I received news that the ceremony would be delayed while the groom secured a sound system. After the groomsmen assembled a makeshift sound system, I stood in the main hall awaiting the wedding party’s arrival. After a few minutes and some scurrying back and forth, the couple arrived with their attendants and processed into the hall as the lyrics from an R.E.M. song blared, “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” I smiled and thought, what a curious way to enter a marriage. Years later, I learned the couple split up.
Early December in the Western Christian tradition, the season of Advent begins with selected readings addressing the coming end of the world. Many people associate the month of December with Christmas or Hannukah, so this first Sunday in Advent seems out of place to many. But adventus in the Latin means the coming, which is a reference to the in breaking of the infinite into the temporal.
