The Message -- for Catholics of Southwestern Indiana
"-Commentary .-. •
year of grace begins: A look to the future
GOspel Commentary for
1996: First Sunday
B: Mark 13:33-
The Church's "year of grace"
with the first Sunday of
Word "Advent" is
a
Latin word adven
-ailing "a -
" presence, an
a destination."
ry transla-
gospels into
chose the word
Usual translation
J
By FATHER
DON DILGER
COLUMNIST
Word "parousia," which
literature became the technical
return of Jesus and the inauguration of
rule over creation. The Church
for this first Sunday of Advent
of the final return of Jesus.
gospel reading is part of Jesus' final
Ospel of Mark. This sermon is
eschatological discourse" because it
intervention in the world. The
derived from two Greek
Word about final things." This
s the thirteenth chapter
This chapter is also called
ause of its similarity to
New Testament, the Book of
13 and Revelation use language
from the Old Testament Book
Mark 13 and Revelation are
Consolation of a community of
persecution and martrydom for
and practices. For Daniel this
community consisted of the pious
Jews of Palestine in mid-second
century B.C. For Mark it is the
Christian community at Rome
which has just undergone a devas-
tating persecution by Ceasar Nero
in the mid sixties of the first centu-
ry A.D. For the Book of Revelation
the persecuted community consists
mainly of the Christian Churches of
that part of the Roman empire then
known as the Province of Asia and
known to us as Turkey. That perse-
cution took place in the last decade
of the first century under Emperor
Domitian.
It was Nero's persecution among other factors
that led to the writing of the Gospel of Mark. It is
only a few years after the persecution that Mark 13
assures the Christians at Rome that what they had
suffered was all in the divine plan that would come
to a climax with the return of a glorious and tri-
umphant Jesus. Borrowing from Old Testament
prophets who spoke of a terrifying "day of the Lord"
when Yahweh would smash the enemies of the Jew-
ish people, Mark writes approximately in the year
70 A.D. He attributes to Jesus statements about
natural catastrophes and manmade catastrophes
including persecution from religious and civil
authorities and betrayal by Christians of one anoth-
er. Mark writes with hindsight but in this way
explains that the horrors that came upon the Chris-
tian Church at Rome were all in the divine plan.
When Mark attributes to Jesus a statement
that Jesus would not return before the Gospel had
been preached to all nations, he reflects what Paul
and others believed had already taken place, that
the Gospel had already been preached to "every
creature under the sky," Colossians 1:23. This'and
the catastrophes of earthquake, famine, war, and
persecution that fundamentalists today always
interpret as signs of the imminent return of Jesus
had already taken place-and were so interpreted by
Mark when he wrote his gospel in 70 AD. And so
there seems.to be nothing new under the sun and
today's fundamentalist interpreters know no more,
about the return of Jesus than did the author of the
Gospel of Mark. Jesus did not return and Luke and
Matthew later corrected the Gospel of Mark in this
matter. Even Mark already admits that no human
being knows the answer.
What therefore shall we draw from the
Church's emphasis on looking to the future on this
first Sunday of Advent? Exactly what today's
gospel-reading tells us: "What I say to you ! say to
all: 'Watch!'" Once we understand that the descrip-
tions in the gospels of the catastrophes preceding
the return of Jesus are no more than borrowings
from Old Testament statements describing the
hoped-for intervention of Yahweh in the triumph of,
the Jewish people, and no more than a description
of what had already happened to civil society and
first-century Christians, we should admit our total
ignorance of the return of Jesus and apply our vigi-
lance to preparing to meet Jesus at our own death.
Let us not look to the sky for Jesus riding on the
clouds but rather into ourselves, our own words and
deeds, as preparation for our final meeting with our
God. For those who lead a good life this meeting is
not a matter of fear but of joyful anticipation, the
kind of joy earliest Christians expressed when they
shouted their prayer: "Maranatha!," i.e. "Our Lord!
Come on/"
Readings: Isaiah 63:16b.17,I9b; I Corinthi.
ans 1:3.9.
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their sixtiethwedding amaiversary with a Mass of Thanks:
giving at 4 p.m. Nov. 30 at St. Joseph Church, Jasper.Adin-
her for the immediate family will follow at the ScIinitzel-
bank in Jasper. The couple was married Nov. 5, 1936, at St.
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Fame inductee, retired in 1985 after 20 years as a school
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