Better understanding the Gospel

with Marie-Noëlle Thabut

THE APOCALYPTIC STYLE

Jesus had hardly accustomed us to this kind of discourse! Suddenly, his style begins to resemble a whole body of literature that flourished in his time, but is quite foreign to our current mindset. It's important to remember that the centuries preceding the Christian era were a time of great intellectual ferment, not only in Israel, but also in Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia. Divination literature was thriving; in all civilizations, in all religions, the questions are everywhere and always the same: who will have the last word? Is humanity inevitably headed for its downfall? Or will Good triumph? What will the end of the world be like?

Gradually, a style emerged throughout the Near East for addressing these subjects: everywhere we find the same images: cosmic upheavals, solar or lunar eclipses, celestial beings, angels or demons. What is interesting for us is to see how believers, first Jews and then Christians, adopted the forms of this style from their time but infused it with their own message, divine revelation. This is why, in the Bible, this literary style is called "apocalyptic" because it brings a "revelation" from God (literally, the Greek verb "apocaluptô" means "to lift a corner of the veil," "to reveal"). In the sense of "lifting the veil that covers human history."

This kind of language is quite foreign to us today, but in Jesus' time, it was transparent to everyone. It was coded language: on the surface, it speaks of the sun, the stars, the moon, and all of this is about to be turned upside down. But in reality, it is about something else entirely! It is about the victory of God and his children in the great battle they have been waging against evil since the beginning of the world. This is the defining characteristic of the Judeo-Christian faith. It is therefore a misnomer to use the word "Apocalypse" in reference to terrifying events: in the language of the believer, Jewish or Christian, it is quite the opposite. The revelation of the mystery of God is never intended to terrify people, but rather to allow them to approach all the upheavals of history by lifting a corner of the veil and preserving hope.

TO ANNOUNCE SALVATION

Whenever the prophets of the Old Testament want to announce God's great day, his definitive victory over all the forces of evil, we find this same language, these same images. For example, the prophet Joel: “The earth quakes, the heavens tremble; the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their light, while the Lord thunders at the head of his army. His divisions are very great; mighty is the one who executes his word. Great is the day of the Lord, exceedingly dreadful; who can endure it?” (Joel 2:10-11). Or again: “I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, at that time I will pour out my Spirit. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.” The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood at the coming of the glorious and dreadful day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Joel 3:1-5). And in chapter 4: “The sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their light… The Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and the earth tremble, but the Lord is a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the children of Israel.” (Joel 4:15-16).

All these texts have one thing in common: they are not meant to cause alarm; on the contrary, they announce the victory of the God of love. The cosmic upheaval they describe so vividly is merely a metaphor for the complete reversal of the situation; the message is, "God will have the last word." Evil will be definitively destroyed. For example, Isaiah uses the same imagery to announce God's judgment: "The stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened at its rising, and the moon will not give its light. I will punish the world for its wickedness, the wicked for their sins" (Isaiah 13:10). This is the same Isaiah who, a few verses earlier, announced the salvation of God's children: "In that day you will say, 'Surely my God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.'" (Isaiah 12:1-2). And you heard Joel: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved… the Lord is a refuge for his people.” In the apocalyptic style, quite conventional, then, the proclamation of faith is that God is the master of history and the day is coming when evil will disappear. We must not speak of the “end of the world” but of the “transformation of the world,” of the “renewal of the world.”

In the New Testament, which also sometimes employs apocalyptic style, for example in this Sunday's Gospel of Mark, the message of faith remains fundamentally the same, with this clarification, however: the final word, God's definitive victory over Evil, is for right now, in Jesus Christ. It is therefore not surprising that, a few days before his last Passover in Jerusalem, Jesus resorts to this language, to these images: the battle between Christ and the forces of evil is at its peak, and in this text, if we know how to read between the lines, we find a message equivalent to Jesus' words in the Gospel of John: "Take heart; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).