You may have noticed that for a few weeks now, the titles of my weekly reflections have had mention of Apocalypse in them. You may be thinking that I am starting to sound like one of those Hellfire and Brimstone types. Maybe that is true. However, unlike in the movies, Apocalypse biblically carries a different definition than just the end of the world. Apocalypse comes from the Greek meaning ‘uncovering’ or ‘revealing.’ Apocalyptic literature speaks to the revealing of God’s plan or designs for the world or God’s intention to make right. This lands at the heart of created existence, where this ‘making right’ is contested or in a state of conflict. The Apocalypse or revealing is where God’s Kingdom coming to make the world righteous is in conflict with the powers of sin, death and the devil – forces that we experience in this world that are in opposition to God’s great love for us. 

Phew…

With that understanding of Apocalypse, we pick up with John the Baptist. Who is speaking to the crowds who have come out into the wilderness to hear him and be baptized for repentance and the forgiveness of sins. This follows with the long history of Israel seeking out prophets sent by God in times of crisis and seeking to repent of the ways in which God’s people have turned away from God. John is standing in a role they know and can identify from the Scriptures, and they are seeking to repent just as good people of faith should. 

Yet, they don’t quite get there. John isn’t just preaching repentance like the prophets of old. He is also preaching the coming of another, a Messiah. 

The crowd responds peculiarly. They ask John, “What then should we do?”

They ask this three times: “What should we do?”

In a time of crisis, when the world feels like everything is falling down around them, when the powers are threatening to crush them, when the future feels terribly uncertain, they want to know what they can do. Each of John’s answers is unsatisfying. 

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

In a time of great uncovering and revealing the deep and uncomfortable truths at the heart of our existence, the apocalyptic conflict between God’s making right and the powers of sin, death and the devil that we can feel palpable in our world… the answers to our wonderings of, “what should we do?” have proven equally unsatisfying.

Maybe that is the point. It seems to be John’s point. Maybe what we need to do isn’t the chief issue. In this moment of Apocalypse, what we do just might be secondary to our salvation. The uncovering of what is really happening to us as God’s people is still in process, still being made known to us. But as we turn to the second half of Advent, I am sure it has something to do with the One we are waiting for, the One who is coming. 

The Messiah is on the way.