Apocalypto

Fr Richard Healey reflects on the darker, apocalyptic themes in scripture that coincide with the onset of winter. Drawing on the stories of Noah and Jacob, he explores the concept of revelation, or “apocalypse,” as moments when God unveils hidden truths in our lives. Fr Richard critiques the tendency to predict the end of the world, emphasising that even Jesus did not know the timing of such events. Instead, he encourages us to maintain faith and trust in God during challenging times, reminding us of God’s transformative love and the importance of being prepared rather than fearful.

00:00:00 I was talking to a friend during the week and he was living here in Sydney for some years, but now he’s gone back to Italy and he was just talking about how much he misses Sydney. And he said, you know, particularly at this time of the year, the the weather begins to become, you know, very dark and cold and foreboding, just that, that experience in Europe of of what winter kind of offers and brings, you know, that is feel the that that darkness kind of closing in over your head. And it’s kind of appropriate that, you know, these readings were given to us by people who were living there in Europe, you know, in the middle of November, as the the darkness begins to to grow more significant, the readings also begin to be darker. There’s this real sense of foreboding that is present. And we often get in these final weeks of the church’s year, these readings that we might call apocalyptic and that whole experience. You know, when you read the book of revelation or the book of the apocalypse, there’s all kinds of of weird stuff that is, is happening in the midst of of all of that.

00:01:17 And unfortunately for so many people, we’re informed more by the Hollywood versions of those events than by actually reading the scriptures in the light of the whole story of the Bible. Because that word that we hear as the revelation or the apocalypse is actually a pretty common word that you find in the pages of Scripture. In the Hebrew, it’s the word galah. It’s like the bird galah. And you find it first in the story of Noah, that after he has survived the flood and he’s planted a garden, planted a vineyard, offered a sacrifice to the Lord, and you’re thinking, everything’s looking good for this Noah character. Everything is shaping up really well. But unfortunately, after growing the vineyard, he decides to partake of the wine and he becomes drunk. And we’re told this kind of weird story. No one’s quite sure exactly what is happening, but his son, the middle son Ham, comes into the tent and he sees that Noah is lying there galah, uncovered. He is naked.

00:02:36 And there’s something shameful about that that we can’t quite kind of capture. And he goes and tells these other two brothers, and they come in and go through this weird ritual of kind of bringing a cloth in, that they walk in backwards and cover him up, and something strange is happening there. And then we get another story much later in the book of Genesis, you hear the story in Genesis 28, where Jacob is finally making his way back to the Promised Land after fleeing from his brother Esau, who was trying to kill him – as you do. And you go to a certain place, it’s again really obscure and and weird that there’s not a description of the actual place just happened to be a place, certain place that Jacob receives this incredible vision of the Lord as they fight in battle. And there’s this wrestling match that continues all night. And when Jacob is reflecting on it a few chapters later, he says, in the middle of that night, Lord, you Galahad yourself to me.

00:03:46 You revealed yourself that sense that there was something that was kind of hidden, something that was a bit obscured, but in that moment that the curtains were drawn back and you were able to kind of see into the experience and the encounter, and it’s what Jesus is trying to offer to us. For example, we read in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew. So when we move from the Hebrew language to the Greek language, we use a different word for this experience send the word that we hear. There the word is Calypso. And Jesus said in this great ecstatic prayer, and he prays to the father, father, I thank you for calypso these things from the learned and the clever, but for apocalypto, for revealing them to me, children, for yes, father, for that it is what it is pleased you to do. We read so something has been calypso. Something has been covered, hidden. But Jesus is wanting to apocalypse or to reveal them to us. He’s wanting to show us the way to the father.

00:04:59 And so when we read from this, what we call the mini apocalypse in the gospel of Mark, the whole of this 13th chapter is taken up with these weird stories about battles and conflicts and things that are going to happen in that day. And it seems that Jesus isn’t quite sure. We hear at the end of the gospel today that no one knows exactly when these things will happen. Not even the son, only the father, we’re told. So if anyone comes to you and says that, hey, I worked out when the end of the world is going to be, and when all these things are going to take place, you should say, oh, so you are God himself, because not even the Son of God knows when these things are happening. So all of these people, and it’s often these little kind of Protestant sects that get excited about these things, calculating and working out the dates of when Jesus will come back and when these things will happen. Jesus himself tells us, no, you will not know when this happens.

00:06:04 All we’re invited to do is to be prepared. But he also says, you know, when these things happen, you know, don’t flee into the mountains. There’s this sense that there’s we’re able to escape in some way. So it’s not the complete destruction of the planet or something like that that he has in mind. Of course, what he’s seeing is the natural course of events. Remember, two of his disciples are sword bearers. They’re part of the the Revolution group. Judas, who is one of the Iscariot, the the sword bearer. And Simon is is also one of these who’s a rebel. So when you have something as mighty and powerful as the Roman army, who is able to move in legions from other parts of the spheres of influence, then you have these little group of brigands who are gathering in the hills trying to disrupt the Romans. The story is not going to end well. There’s going to be conflict and there’s going to be death and destruction involved. And of course, that’s what happened just after the time of Jesus in the year 70, when the Romans came in and completely destroyed and conquered the city of Jerusalem and utterly destroyed the temple.

00:07:20 That wasn’t hard to predict. You know, Jesus wasn’t exercising his full divine power to be able to predict that these kinds of things were going to happen. You can see it. That’s the writing on the wall, that this is what kinds of things happen when humans come into this experience of conflict. But what does Jesus offer to us? This reassurance, this encouragement. The wind. The days do grow dark when things begin to be overwhelming. Will we trust? Yes, we’re invited into that experience of trusting in him, trusting that God has got this whole thing in control, that we don’t have to be overwhelmed and completely bamboozled when the apocalypse, the unveiling, the revealing of these things begins to happen around us, that we can be reassured that the Lord will hold us and sustain us through all these things. So the trust in the one who is desiring to reveal the father’s heart to us, longing that we might experience that presence. Longing that we might be drawing ever closer into that encounter with his love.

00:08:26 In these days, let’s continue to pray for one another and pray that we might experience that transforming love that allows us to hold fast in the midst of whatever persecution the world might throw in our direction.