A Bit of an Apocalypse

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
November 30, 2025
1 Advent, A
Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122
Matthew 24:36-44

“In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.” (Isaiah 2:2) Isaiah spoke those words of apocalypse to the people of Israel over 700 years before Jesus was born. These are words of apocalypse because they are words of revelation, of revealing. That’s what apocalypse or apocalyptic actually means, revealing. Isaiah was revealing something to the people of Israel, something which couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be known, and was nonetheless true. 

Eventually, someday, at some point in the future history of the world, “God shall judge between the nations, and [the people] shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

This apocalyptic literature, this revealing tells us that eventually, all of our fighting on earth will end. God will bring about this end, and this end of all wars and fighting on earth will also be a new beginning, an age of peace, a time when all people will join together as one, living the lives of love which God created us to live. 

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There are many apocalyptic visions like this throughout scripture, and many of them describe cosmic, enormously destructive events. Earthquakes, wars, fires from heaven, dragons coming out of the sea. All of this destruction comes before the age of peace. There is a most definite ending before the new beginning. So, because of these cataclysmic, destructive scenes in apocalyptic literature, apocalypse has come to mean “end of the world,” but apocalypse actually means “a revealing.” 

Apocalyptic visions show us things that cannot be seen, and they are often written in coded language, using wild images of beasts and monsters to talk about spiritual warfare and using wild images of beasts and monsters to talk about real world enemies. The great whore of Babylon in Revelation, for example, was probably talking about Rome.

So, images describing spiritual warfare which cannot be seen with our eyes. We get these fantastical images to describe it. The ultimate revealing of apocalyptic texts is, God wins. The forces of evil and darkness do not triumph over the light and love of God. 

Apocalyptic stories are meant to give us comfort in times of suffering. The evils of wicked people may harm us right now, but God’s goodness will prevail. The wicked will be punished for their injustice and selfish cruelty, and the victims of the wicked will be comforted and healed. So do not despair too much over the evils of wicked men, and do not be overcome by their darkness. Continue doing the next right thing. Continue following in God’s ways. Continue following in the way of love and service, in the way of repentance and forgiveness. Eventually, all will be made right.

In all of the apocalyptic stories I have heard and read, that is the message I get. Despite whatever problems you face, despite the tyranny of evil men, continue following in the way of love and serving, repentance and forgiveness. Eventually, all will be right. That’s a rather beautiful and hopeful message and one that I am glad God has given us.

Beyond that basic message, I don’t have a lot of time for the apocalyptic stories of scripture. They’re really cool, don’t get me wrong: dragons, war, pestilence, the wicked cast down, the lowly raised up, angels at war, swords, fighting. It’s great stuff. My problem with the apocalypses in scripture is when people start trying too hard to figure them out. 

What do all the details mean? What does this particular image represent? Has this already happened? Is it still gonna happen? Earthquakes! Volcanoes! Fighting among the nations! Oh my gosh, we have all of those things happening right now! Run for your lives; it’s the end! 

As I’ve said before, people in every generation since Jesus’ resurrection have believed that the apocalypses of scripture have been about them and their time, and so far, every one of them has been wrong. The world keeps spinning. The sun keeps rising.

When we read apocalyptic texts in scripture and we become fearful of the end, then we’ve missed the point. Remember, Apocalypse means “a revealing.” These stories show us something of God’s ultimate victory over evil and darkness, a victory of love and light.

As Jesus talked about apocalyptic imagery, he talked about the coming of the Son of Man, and he said it would come suddenly and unexpectedly. “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” He was telling us all to be ready for the coming of Jesus, and he made an analogy to a thief breaking into a house. If you knew when the thief was coming, you’d be up and ready to stop him. 

Ok, first thing, no, Jesus is not like a thief. Jesus didn’t use this image to make us afraid of Jesus coming like some horror movie villain with knives for fingers or a weird murderous doll. Jesus just meant that he would come at an unexpected time and so we should always be ready for God among us. 

Always be ready. In other words, quit trying to figure out when it will be. Jesus said he didn’t even know, and if you’re trying to figure out when Jesus will come, you’re missing the point. It’s like cramming for an exam the night before, hoping to pass the test and learning absolutely nothing at all. The point of the class was not to cram for the test. The point of the class was to maybe learn something kinda cool.

We don’t try to figure out when Jesus will come so we can be really, really good for a few weeks or months ahead of time. That’s what we do as kids for Santa Claus. 

“Have you been a good boy this year?” People would ask. 

Uh, crap. Kinda, but it’s December tomorrow. I’ve got 24 days to be extra good to make up for the rest of the year. 

Yeah, Jesus isn’t Santa Claus, and we don’t prepare for Jesus’ coming the way we prepare for Santa or cram for exams. See, in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus told about the judgment of the nations, at the end of time, and Jesus said people were judged by how they treated Jesus when he came among them.

“Dude, you never came back,” the people all said. “We never saw you.” Jesus replied that actually, they had seen him, whenever they saw anyone in need. “Whatever you did to the least of the people among you, you did to me,” Jesus told them. “Whenever you ignored someone in need among you, you ignored me. Whenever you cared for someone in need among you, you took care of me.”

The lesson I take is this: if we’re waiting for Jesus to come back with clouds, and angels, and a big to do so that we can praise him and have a big Jesus rock star party with him, we’re missing the point. If we’re a little more afraid of Jesus coming back, and we’re trying to figure out exactly when it’ll be so we can spend a few weeks or months trying to get in his good graces, we’re missing the point.

“The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” because Jesus is already here among us, all the time. You want to know when Jesus is coming? The next time you have an opportunity to be kind to someone, that’s when Jesus is coming. We don’t always do this very well. 

Yesterday, when I was in a hurry while driving, I hurried around a guy, and he had to wait for me to change lanes. As it turns out, he seems to have been having a terrible day already, because he was pissed. I mean driving up in front of me, breaking, swerving, and pulling up beside me at the light to cuss me out pissed. I didn’t cause all that, but I added to the darkness in his life that burst the dam of all that anger. I wasn’t expecting Jesus in the car next to me, it was just some driver I didn’t give a crud about. Turns out, it was Jesus, deeply in need of any kind gesture, and I ignored him, whipping around him in traffic instead. 

So, as I said weeks ago, don’t prepare for Jesus’ coming by preparing for the end of the world. Prepare for Jesus’ coming by assuming the world is going to go on spinning and the sun is going to rise tomorrow. Be prepared for living. When’ll Jesus come back?  Whenever you see someone in need.

As for all of those generations of people who all thought Jesus was coming again in their lifetimes, in their generations, I said they were wrong in assuming the end was coming, but they were also right. Jesus was coming in their lifetimes and in their generations. The great apocalypse, the great revealing, is that Jesus comes back among us all the time, in every human being you’ve ever seen. 

The great revealing for how we are to prepare for Jesus, for how we are to prepare for the end, the great revealing is there’s always an ending and a new beginning. Sure, there will be an ultimate, final end and new beginning, and that is meant as encouragement for us, believing that evil and darkness will be destroyed by God’s love and light. That is a lovely revealing, but the great revealing is that we get to be the ending of darkness and the beginning of light in each other’s lives all the time. Every time Jesus is present among us, meaning anytime we see any other human, we get to bring them light and love to cast out the darkness and evil.

A Tale of Two Households

Brad Sullivan

1 Advent, Year B

December 3, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Mark 13:24-27

A Tale of Two Households

When Jesus told his parable about the master of a household going away on a journey and leaving his servants in charge of the household while he was gone, telling them to keep awake and be ready for his return, Jesus was talking about how his disciples were to live once he was crucified, as they waited for him to come again at the end of time and restore all of creation.  Rather than try to tease out each drop of meaning from each detail of his parable, I thought I’d expand on the parable and see where it leads, in order to develop Jesus’ point in telling the parable.  I call this “A Tale of Two Households.”

There was a master of a large household, almost like a small kingdom, with herds of cows, flocks of sheep, chickens, a vast and productive farm, and the members of the master’s household, servants and family alike, worked together to keep all of the household going.  All who could worked hard.  Those who could not were cared for by the rest, and even they, those who could not work, cared for the others through their nurture, storytelling, kindness and compassion.  The household had an abundance of what was needed, and they shared what they had with other households when they were in need, without asking for anything in return.  Far away, there was another household which, from time to time, suffered from droughts, and they would send for help from the master’s household.  Help was again given, without grumbling, but gladly, freely, with goodwill and love. 

Then, one day, the master told his household that he would be going away for a while.  He told them all to continue on as they had when he was there, to care for each other, and provide for others out of their abundance.  “Keep awake,” he said.  For a time they did so, but then weeks turned into seasons, and seasons turned into years, and they began to fall asleep.

Some remained dutiful in their tasks while others didn’t see the point with the master no longer around.  They thought they wouldn’t receive their just reward or that the land and property should really be theirs.  Some stopped working.  Others began to elevate themselves above everyone else, claiming to be in charge and forcing some to work for them.

Others wanted to keep a remembrance of the Master and built a shrine to him.  They didn’t really follow in his ways, but they lit candles and prayed for his safe return.  Then of course, they felt the shrine needed to be kept up, and so they enlisted some of those who had stopped working to help with the upkeep of the shrine.  Others found hope in their shrine and prayers, so they brought food and other necessities to the workers of the shrine so that they could keep up their good work.

The household was no longer a place of abundance, but they still thought of themselves as such.  They remembered when others would come and receive from their abundance, and so those who had taken charge sent out people to the other nearby households to demand portions of what they had.  Eventually, the emissaries from the Master’s household began working as overseers in the other households, taking more than they needed from them, keeping some for their own enrichment and sending back more to the Master’s household.  The Master’s household became plentiful again, taking from others to feed itself. 

Then the far away household had another drought, and they sent people to seek aid. The Master’s household was no longer generous, and so rather than give to them without question, they sent another emissary to see the conditions for themselves. They worked with the household there to have better irrigation so the drought wouldn’t affect them as badly.  Being such a good benefactor, the emissary took a large portion of what they produced for himself and for his Master’s household.  After many years, the distant household was very productive, but the condition of the people in that household was worse than it had been before. 

Still, the members of the Master’s household saw themselves as good, kind, and benevolent overseers, bringing prosperity to all.  They even erected shrines to the Master in the other households, the heads of those houses having long been replaced by the emissaries from the Master’s household.  The Master’s household continued to grow and flourish and continued to call themselves a city on a hill.  There were a few who stayed awake, who kept in the Master’s ways and remained generous, encouraging others and sharing what they had, but they were largely not listened to, seen as troublemakers, or admired by some from afar.

Then, the Master returned.  He neither recognized his household, nor almost anyone in it.  Those who kept the shrine thought surely he would be grateful to them, but instead, he asked why they didn’t work at the jobs he had given them and help those around them, or at least share what they were given to help others.  The Master ejected them all from his household, save those few who had stayed awake and kept in his ways, and he invited those from the other households to come and be with him instead.

Now, there is no direct cognate between the old and the new household in the story I told.  You can’t call it Jews verses Christians, some Christians verses others, or even Americans verses Africans or Native Americans.  There is truth in this story which is told and happens over and over.  There is good news in this story and there is warning in this story. 

This story is about how we live in this life and in this world, and the warning is not that those who had fallen asleep were rejected by the master.  That is the obvious truth, the consequence of living inhumanely.  The warning is about the horrors of what happens when we fall asleep.  When we fall asleep, we begin thinking of ourselves without also thinking of others.  When we fall asleep, we worry and fear, we look on others with suspicion.  When we fall asleep, we become less generous, more self important, and can even see ourselves as better than others.  Think of conquest, death and destruction, in the name of bringing Jesus to others.  Think of looking down on others for their mistakes or lifestyles without the compassion of looking deeply to see the human being doing their best, mistakes and all.  When we fall asleep, we tend to assume we are still awake while also assuming, with contempt, that others have fallen asleep.

When we fall asleep, we tend to see ourselves as benevolent benefactors through our charity and good works, while failing to see that some of our own actions, as individuals and as a society, contribute to the need for our charity in the first place.  When we fall asleep, we tend to view God as one who is pleased by our religion and our observance of religious rituals, rather than one who wants us first and foremost to live well toward each other, our religion as merely a tool to help heal our hearts so that we can live lovingly toward ourselves and others.  When we fall asleep we end up fighting with each other over the minutia of our religion, claiming in groups and out groups, becoming obsessed with doing everything just in the right way, rather than remembering that Jesus ate with sinners and told us to share a meal together and to remember him when we did so.

The warning of Jesus’ story is what happens to us and the harm we do when we fall asleep and become the household of slumber.  The good news of Jesus’ story is the first household, the true city on a hill, the household of those who are awake.  The good news is the generosity and love we share when we are awake.  The good news is how we treat one another immediately following a hurricane and flood.  The good news is when we value people more than things, when we value others’ well being over our own absolute security. 

The good news is that Jesus cares about people more than religion, and he desires for us to do the same.  The good news is also that Jesus knows we’ll mess up and he has already forgiven us; so that we are free to love others and live out his household, his kingdom, not out of any fear, but purely out of love for others.  Finally, the good news is that Jesus does not only return in the clouds at the end of time, but he returns daily in face of anyone and everyone around us, calling us to wake up.  Wake, arise, and cast off the ways of the household of slumber, and live again in the household of those who are awake.