Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 11/12 – (13) “What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us?”

Posted on December 11, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the thirteenth of twenty-six short reflections.

Edward Gibbon begins his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published in 1776) by singing the praises of the Empire at its height (bolding added by me):

In the second century of the Christian Era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government. During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire; and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall; a revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by the nations of the earth.

As the bolding suggests, Gibbon saw the second century CE as a golden age – prosperous, well managed, a model for the future government of the United States with a separation between the legislative body of the Senate and the executive power of the Emperors, a gentle but powerful set of laws, and free travel from the north of Brittania to Upper Egypt, a freedom from piracy on the Mediterranean Sea, over a fair and civilized land. And, as the video from Monty Python from yesterday’s post pointed out, they did not do badly building aqueducts, urban sanitation, roads, and irrigation, and bringing medicine, education, wine, public baths, safety, order, and peace.

Of course, the video is less a claim to definitive Roman history than a parody of left-wing radicals in the UK who disparage the benefits of democracy and the market economy; these were the sorts of people they met while at university in the UK and advocated for Trotsky and Mao.

Back to Gibbon. He was a brilliant historian, an 18th century Thucydides, who did extensive research and set the standard for historiography for another century or two. However, he was a creature of his times – the Enlightenment and the era of the rise of the British Empire. As a child of the landed gentry, he was a part of the upper 5% of the population of Great Britain, and as a backbench Member of Parliament he naturally identified with the ruling classes in the Roman era. He was raised on the untranslated writings of the Greek and Latin authors, and believed that the Roman Empire was the height of civilization from which Europe fell precipitously into the Dark Ages, giving way to barbarians and superstition, and from which the world had only recovered in his time. And he blamed Christianity.

Despite a conversion to Catholicism in his adolescence, and a return to some form of reformed faith a year and a half later, Gibbon was most influences by the Philosophes of pre-Revolutionary France. He came to believe that, after Constantine, the Christian faith diverted Imperial funds into large basilicas and unproductive clergy and monastics, funds that should have been used for defense and economic investment. Christian values seemed to be contrary to the proud, virile values of the Roman Republic and Empire, and so the question was not so much why Rome fell, but why it lasted so long, until 1453, in that vestige of Byzantium. While still influential, his views have been much challenged. The quality of his prose, on the other hand, is still brilliant, and influenced another upper-class historian-politician, Winston S. Churchill.

I suspect that if Gibbon had actually lived in the Roman Empire he might have had a different view. Julius Caesar, like most of the conquering generals of Rome, was responsible for the death of perhaps a million Gauls during his conquest of what is now France. Despite being a patrician, he was essentially bankrupt when he became governor of Cisalpine Gaul, and he built his wealth off of the capture and sale of hundreds of thousands of slaves. The elite of the Empire, some 1.5% of the population, owned half of all the slaves, and roughly half were working in agriculture and the other half in towns and cities; perhaps up to 40% of the population were enslaved. Slaves were considered non-persons, the property of their owners, and there was nothing extraordinary in the use and abuse of slaves for sexual gratification.

Perhaps 25% of the total population of the Empire were citizens, but up until the 3rd Century CE the vast majority of them were on the Italian peninsula. Citizenship suggests to us the right to vote, but the system of the Roman Republic was rigged in favour of the aristocracy, and one had to be physically present in Rome on voting day in order to be counted, anyway. And, of course, half the citizenry, being female, were disenfranchised anyway. After Caesar even the aristocracy lost their political rights, as the emperors were quite literally dictators.

The subject peoples of the Empire did not care for Roman rule, as is evident from frequent rebellions by in Italy, Gaul, Britannia, Egypt, Mauretania, Africa (the province, not the continent), and, of course, Judea. Even when a province became inured to Roman domination they Empire was plagued with the reality that the Romans never quite figured out how to handle the succession of emperors. Thus, Roman history seems to be a never-ending series of civil wars or military revolts, with a dizzying turnstile of short reigns or pretenders, and large parts of the Empire separating for decades and generations before being reunited.

Then there are the taxes. Among the most hated persons in the gospels are the tax collectors. Tax collection was farmed out to subcontractors, and they had a “mark-up” on what was to be collected, so that they might enrich themselves. The taxes required bore little relation to the ability of the province to produce, and so in some places the economy became depressed and the land, quite literally, suffered. Thus, it appears that Galilee in the time of Jesus was in an economic crisis as many families failed to pay their taxes, lost their land, and became unrooted brigands in order to survive.

Life expectancy in the Roman Empire appears to have been low in comparison with other pre-industrial societies. Mortality was especially high in the early years, and the Romans also practiced infanticide and exposure. It has been argued that

Mortality on this scale: (1) discourages investment in human capital, hindering productivity growth (adolescent mortality rates in Rome were two-thirds higher than in early modern Britain); (2) creates large numbers of dependent widows and orphans; and (3) hinders long-term economic planning.

Medical care in Roman society was very much “every man for himself”. Rodney Stark suggests that one of the reasons Christianity grew was that Christians, being enjoined to care for each other and to visit the sick, had, even with the minimal medical care available at the time, a somewhat higher survival rate than their non-Christian neighbours. This growth was compounded by the non-Christian neighbours seeing that more Christians survived plagues and ordinary diseases. This, combined with the Christian prohibition against infanticide and exposure, meant that over its first three centuries, the Christian population grew as a proportion of the population, despite recurrent persecution by the Empire.

We are, of course, impressed by the engineering feats of the Romans. Their buildings, such as the Pantheon in Rome, are astonishing achievements. Some of the aqueducts are still in use, if only as bridges. The roads, built mainly for the movement of armies, contributed to the unity and economic growth of the Empire. Appropriating Greek culture they preserved the classics of Greek history, literature, and drama, as well as philosophy. As a basic substrate of elite medieval European culture, the Romans were held up as the ideal throughout the Renaissance and up into the 20th century.

But I suspect that if any one of us were in the place of our ancestors in the time of John the Divine, circa 69 CE (or 90 CE), we would generally find that life was nasty, brutish, and short. There is a good chance we would have been slaves, used and abused by our owners, and even if free, then without any rights as a citizen, and literally taxed to death. John the Divine experienced exile and persecution, and saw Rome as a tool of Satan, not benefiting its peoples by overbearing in its dominion. He could not imagine any natural alternative to this reiteration of hated Babylon, and so looked towards the intervention of God in the person of Jesus Christ returning as the Son of Man to judge the world.

So, is this justice? Is this something to which we in the 21st century can subscribe? That’s for tomorrow.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 10/12 – (12) Babylon

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the twelfth of twenty-six short reflections.

The Magna Mater, or “Great Mother”, who was originally the Anatolian goddess Cybele. She is very much a fertility god. Here she is seated on a throne, with lion, cornucopia, and a crown that is like a wall. This was made by a Roman artisan from marble around 50 CE. It is now in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

In chapter 17 we are introduced to a woman who is riding the first beast, the one from the sea, who is worshiped by the second beast and who I have in previous posts identified as the Roman Empire. John writes:

[The angel] carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; 5 and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.” 6 And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.

Verse 17 of chapter 17 makes it very clear who the woman is:

18 The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.”

The word translated as “whore” is πόρνης, which etymologically is associated with the ancient Greek work for “to sell”; it remains the common word in Standard Modern Greek for a prostitute or sex worker. However, the focus here is not on sex, as such, but the multiplicity of gods and demigods, foreign and local, that were worshiped in the city; this is compared to the gaudy promiscuity of the woman. In the same way that the prophet Hosea eight centuries earlier in Israel probably did not marry a sex worker, but simply someone who worshipped a God other than YHWH, so the woman on the scarlet beast is a metaphor for the tremendous idolatry and religious depravity of Rome.

As discussed earlier, John then explains who the beast is:

9 “This calls for a mind that has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; also, they are seven kings, 10 of whom five have fallen, one is living, and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain only a little while. 11 As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. 12 And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. 13 These are united in yielding their power and authority to the beast; 14 they will make war on the Lamb

There are several was of trying to understand this. First, John had the vision and wrote it down immediately. Thus, John had his vision in the time of Nero, had witnessed the rise and fall of Galba, and was awaiting some form of Nero to return. Or, perhaps he wrote it down sometime later, and while awaiting the rise of the new Nero, stayed true to the vision, even though several emperors had come and gone.

The key point is that they are making war on the Lamb – and by the Lamb, we also mean the church. John the Divine was writing at a time of persecution, and looked to the return of Jesus to make things right. And this is what happens in chapter 18:

18 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority; and the earth was made bright with his splendor. 2 He called out with a mighty voice,

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
    It has become a dwelling place of demons,
a haunt of every foul spirit,
    a haunt of every foul bird,
    a haunt of every foul and hateful beast.
3 For all the nations have drunk
    of the wine of the wrath of her fornication,
and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her,
    and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxury.”

9 And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning; 10 they will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say,

“Alas, alas, the great city,
    Babylon, the mighty city!
For in one hour your judgment has come.”

This is the central message, then, of the Book of Revelation: the Roman Empire is evil, and it will be judged and destroyed by God.

But was it that evil? As this passage from Monty Python’s Life of Brian suggests, maybe they actually did a lot of good.

Was Rome really deserving of destruction? Was John the Divine just a grumpy, blood thirsty fanatic, or did he have good reason to hate Rome? We will get to that in the next post.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 09/12 – (11) The Second Beast, with Horns Like a Lamb

Posted on December 9, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the eleventh of twenty-six short reflections.

A fierce creature

Yesterday I talked about the beast with ten horns and seven heads, the beast from the sea. There is another beast, but this one emerges from the earth. In chapter 13 we read:

11 Then I saw another beast that rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound had been healed. 13 It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of all; 14 and by the signs that it is allowed to perform on behalf of the beast, it deceives the inhabitants of earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived; 15 and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, 17 so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty-six.

So what is going on here? Who or what is this beast from the earth?

The first thing to note is that it has horns like a lamb, although it talks like a dragon. The second beast is essentially a parody of Jesus as the lamb of God; it claims to be divine, but is not. This is similar and the reverse of what the gospels do, which is to use terms related to the imperial cult of emperor worship for Jesus, phrases such as such as ευαγγέλιον “good news”, παρουσία “coming” or “advent”, Υιός Θεού “Son of God”, βασιλεύς “king”, and so forth. When Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a humble donkey he is mocking the Romans who proudly enter on their horses. So the lamb, this second beast who comes from the earth, is the opposite of Christ – an anti-Christ, if you will.

And what about the number of the beast? This seems to refer to the first beast “who had been wounded by the sword and yet lived”. This may be a reference to the persistent idea that Nero died, but did not die, and would return to claim the Empire. There is a practice in Judaism called gemmatria, which involves assigning number values to letters in a word, phrase, or name, and then adding up the individual numbers to make a sum that is supposedly connected to whatever was originally spelled; this continues to be important in the Jewish wisdom known as Kabbalah. The good folks at Wikipedia have put together a helpful graph that suggests that the number of the beast, 666, represents Nero Caesar (see below).

The number of the beast shows up in some very ancient manuscripts as 616, so any gemmatria would have to account for that. The name Neron Caesar is transliterated into Hebrew. Hebrew does not always bother with vowels, and Neron might also just end Nero. Thus we get the Hebrew equivalent of Nron Qsr or Nro Qsr.

This suggests that John had his vision in the time of Nero, who appeared to kill himself by the sword. I suspect that the visions did not get written immediately, though. Thus the second beast comes, who treats its predecessors as deified beings worthy of worship. I suspect that the second beast represents the Flavian dynasty, and in particular, Vespasian and his son Titus who came after, who might be represented by the two horns. Titus only ruled two years and was succeeded by his younger brother Domitian, under whom Christians were persecuted, the first time since Nero did the same back in 66. So perhaps the horns, if they represent anything, are the two generations of the Flavians.

The mark of the beast may not be a mark, as such, but simply be the use of coins with Nero’s image on it (or that of any other emperor). If you do not “have the mark” – if you do not use coins – then buying and selling things would be difficult indeed.

This is all a bit confusing. Perhaps it was not all perfectly coherent in the mind of John the Divine. But it seems to me blindingly obvious that the Beast is the Roman Empire that he knew, and which had killed Jesus, and had exiled him to Patmos. Tomorrow I’ll talk about the third piece in this puzzle, and arguably the most transparent.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 08/12 – (10) “What Year Is This?”

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the tenth of twenty-six short reflections.

What year is this?

When did John the Divine think he was writing about? The future, for the most part, yes, but whose future? His, only, the era around 90 to 100 CE, or ours, too, some 1900 years later?

The answer is that the visions refer not to his distant future, a future that we share with him, but rather to a future that was particular to his time and circumstances. In other words, in his visions he was seeing the end of the Roman Empire by the direct intervention of God. This is the consensus view of most mainstream scholars.

Why do they say that? The clues are all over the place. John references would have been very obvious to those who first read and heard Revelation. Revelation 13 describes a beast from the sea:

13 1 And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names. 2 And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of its heads seemed to have received a death-blow, but its mortal wound had been healed. In amazement the whole earth followed the beast. 4 They worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”

The beast is the Roman Empire. The explanation is given in chapter 17.

9 “This calls for a mind that has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; also, they are seven kings, 10 of whom five have fallen, one is living, and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain only a little while. 11 As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. 12 And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. 13 These are united in yielding their power and authority to the beast

The seven heads correspond to the seven hills on which Rome was built, but also they represent the seven emperors:

  • 1) Julius Caesar,
  • 2) Caesar Augustus,
  • 3) Caesar Tiberius Augustus,
  • 4) Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (better known as Caligula),
  • 5) Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus,
  • 6) Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, and
  • 7) Servius Galba Caesar Augustus.

The head that appeared to have received a death blow is Nero – after his suicide in 68 CE it was believed that he was in hiding in Parthia – and within twenty years of Nero’s death there were at least three imposters claiming to be Nero. As late as the time of Augustine of Hippo in the 5th century this belief was still held by some. The worship that is being offered to the beast is the worship offered to the Emperor; while initially downplayed in the Latin speaking western part of the Empire by the first emperors, by the time of Caligula and Claudius it was being encouraged in the Greek speaking eastern. Indeed, Caligula sought to set up his own image in the Temple precincts of Jerusalem. And, of course, the Empire was seemingly invincible – it had conquered all the civilized world, it seemed. Rather than explain it by their superior military tactics or ruthless administration, John sees their great power coming from the power given to it by the dragon mentioned in chapter 12.

I am not sure who the kings are that the ten horns represent. Perhaps they are a restatement of the number of emperors. Number Seven, Galba, did not last long – a little over eight months. Whereas all the previous emperors belonged to the Julio-Claudian family, Galba was a general of a noble family, and someone who took advantage of a rebellion in Gaul to take over the leadership of the Empire in June 68. The Praetorian guard overthrew him in favour of a more popular general, Otho in mid-January. The troops of Vitellius, a general on the important frontier of the Rhine, declared him Emperor, and Vitellius marched into Italy and defeated Otho, becoming Emperor in March. Meanwhile, in the eastern part of the Empire, a Roman general named Vespasian was putting down the Jewish Revolt in Jerusalem and Judea. His troops proclaimed him emperor, and with his allies he began to make his way towards Rome. Virellius, after losing a battle with one of the armies supporting Vespasian, tried to abdicate, but his own troops would not let him. Ultimately Vespasian’s armies gained control of Rome, Vitellius was found, and executed. 69 CE, as it was later known, was known as The Year of the Four Emperors.

This takes us up to ten emperors, which may be what the ten horns suggest:

  • 8) Otho
  • 9) Vitellius
  • 10) Vespasian

Alternatively, perhaps John just saw a succession of emperors, some contending for power at the same time, generals whose troops proclaimed them emperor in a bid for power and wealth. This was an unsettled time, and not just for the Emperors and the people of Rome. While Vespasian went to Rome, his son Titus continued the reduction of the rebels in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, which by that time amounted to a siege at Jerusalem. When the walls were breached, the inhabitants were slaughtered, and the Temple was destroyed. As a Jew (or a Christian) this would have been a traumatic event, like having 9/11 take place at the Vatican. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, would have died. Was this the suffering that was to come before the Day of the Lord?

So perhaps John had his vision in 68 or 69 CE, around the Year of the Four Emperors and the conclusion of the Jewish Revolt, with the death of Nero and the chaos that followed. However, he may have taken some years to write the text, just as Julian of Norwich took some years to write down her Revelations of Divine Love. This may have given him time to develop and elaborate it. I will take up what may have been his elaboration tomorrow.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 07/12 – (9) Time

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the ninth of twenty-six short reflections.

We are used to thinking about time in a few ways. One is as duration, the time that is subjectively passing. We understand it as something in which the present becomes the past and the future the present – and yet the past, relative to this present moment, is unchangeable and the future ever inaccessible.

We construct the past. We know our own past, but particular things stand out in our memories. I remember the Berlin Wall falling and the great wave of optimism that swept the world as the Eastern bloc in Europe and South American nations shifted from totalitarianism and dictatorships to liberal democracies and open economies. I still am somewhat in wonder that it, like the Good Friday Agreement and the transition from Apartheid in South Africa, was all so peaceful. I remember smallpox vaccinations. Some of the folk in the congregation at St Thomas, Kefalas remember the end of World War II. Some things were told to us. My paternal grandfather fought in World War I, and I have his diary. My maternal grandmother remembered when Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tomabaugh.

We imagine the future. 2020 is not what I thought it would be in 1980, when I started university. I never thought I would live in Greece. I was sure I would keep climbing the cursus honorum of the Anglican Church of Canada. I sure never expected a pandemic, or climate change, or the stagnation in incomes. I was brought up to expect progress, but now we have . . . challenges.

There is clock time, which is “objective time”. Then there is time in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. I have forgotten all my high school calculus, but one thing we did in Grade 12 Physics was work through the equations for special relativity, which demonstrated that, yes, time was relative, and clocks would measure the same events differently if they were in different inertial frames.

Then there is history. I love reading history, but I have read enough to know that histories are subjective and selective. I have read all of Winston Churchill’s volumes on the Second World War, but I know that he left much out, such as the breaking of the Enigma codes, or the decision to allow a famine in Bengal.

The Revelation of John approaches time in none of these ways. In Revelation the past, present, and future are sometimes all present in a single vision, sometimes two of them together. It can all get a bit complex. Jesus in chapter1, verse 19 says to John:

Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this.

This captures the past, present, and future aspect of the visions, and that time is all jumbled together.

John’s initial vision is of the throne of God in heaven.

42 At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! 3 And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald. 4 Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads . . . 56 Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne.

This is, of course, to be read symbolically, not literally. Jesus is symbolically the lamb of God, not a real sheep, whether on earth or in heaven. This is also one freaky lamb, which again should persuade us not to take this literally. But the truth is that this is Jesus, the one who has died and is now resurrected and ascended, and who is to come to judge the living and the dead. So Jesus takes the scroll, and breaks the seals.

Most of what happens with the breaking of the seals, the blowing of trumpets, presumably is in the future – but John sees it in the present. In chapter 12 we read:

121A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. 3 Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. 5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days.

Is this a reference to Jesus being born of Mary? Probably, as he “is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron”, but the description is in very symbolic language. The confrontations of Satan with Jesus – in the wilderness, in the exorcisms, and finally at the cross – are reduced to the challenge of the dragon before the woman and the threat to eat her new born child. The child is swept up to heaven – his resurrection and ascension. The woman, who then seems to be a metaphor for the church, escapes into the wilderness. In historical terms, the church was mainly in the cities, but they functioned like wildernesses. The chapter continues:

7 And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming,
“Now have come the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God
    and the authority of his Messiah,
for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,
    who accuses them day and night before our God.
11 But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony,
for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.

When was there war in heaven? Is this at the time when the “blood of the Lamb” was shed – which is to say, somewhere around 30 CE? Or was it, as John Milton has it in Paradise Lost, something that took place before the creation of the material world? Or is the defeat of Satan something yet to come, or something that is ongoing? It is not at all clear; the answer to all of this could be, “Yes, all of these.”

Thus, while much of Revelation is dealing with future events, it is also dealing with the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection, events that have already happened but which are made present by the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s people and in the sacraments. Time is, as I said, “wonky.”

But what is the future for John the Divine? Was he imagining these symbols and metaphors to refer to things in our future as well, or did he think it would all come to pass soon, and very soon? That will be tomorrow’s discussion.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 06/12 – (8) The New Jerusalem

Posted on December 6, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the eighth of twenty-six short reflections.

Remember Genesis? Not the book, the band. They started off as teenagers in the late ‘sixties doing the usual Beatles covers. Peter Gabriel was the lead singer, and played flute, and his schoolmates Michael Rutherford and Tony Banks played bass and keyboards, respectively. After their first album Steve Hackett joined on guitars, replacing one of their school chums who felt he really did not know how to play well enough. They went through a number of drummers and finally got the jazz trained Phil Collins. This was the classic lineup of the early ‘seventies that, along with Yes and King Crimson, defined Prog Rock back when it was cool.

One of the songs that they did for over a decade was 1972’s Supper’s Ready, which took up a whole album side of Foxtrot, their fourth studio album. As is typical with Prog Rock lyrics, it is a bit opaque, but according to one source it was based on the nightmare Peter Gabriel’s wife had while sleeping in a purple room. The Wikipedia article quotes Gabriel saying that it is “a personal journey which ends up walking through scenes from Revelation the Bible… I’ll leave it at that.” Somewhere I read that it was related to a group of people taking a lot of drugs and one person having a bit of a bad trip.

It’s a lot of pretty bizarre imagery, very little of it actually from Revelation, but the last section goes like this (from a concert in 1976, when Gabriel had left the band and Collins had taken over the singing – remember when Phil Collins had hair? I think Bill Bruford is playing drums, but I’m not sure):

There’s an angel standing in the sun,
and he’s crying with a loud voice
“This is the supper of the mighty one”
Lord of Lords, King of Kings
has returned to lead his children home
to take them to the new Jerusalem

The New Jerusalem is a powerful image, so powerful that a bunch of otherwise apparently agnostic Prog Rockers used it for one of their greatest songs. It has been used by others, of course:

This is William Blake’s poem “And Did Those Feet In Ancient Times” published by that strange poet and printer in 1808 in his book Milton. It was pretty much unknown until Hubert Parry set it to music in 1916; it’s the hymn setting used above in the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Many of us remember that its theme and music played a major part of the Danny Boyle’s opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. As well, it inspired the title of the Academy Award winning “Chariots of Fire.” Over the past century it has become sufficiently popular that some consider it to be the national anthem of England.

Here is what it looked like when Blake engraved and printed it in the preface of “Milton”:

The poem is inspired by the myth that Jesus came to Glastonbury as a young man, as an employee of Joseph of Arimathea, who supposedly was a tin merchant; it was first described in the 13th century. When my colleagues and I would sing it occasionally in the Diocese of Niagara we would always insert am emphatic “No” after the second line.

Of course, Blake probably knew this. His interest was less in the myth than in the establishment of a better England – one less of satanic mills and one more like what is described in Revelation 21 (see below). Blake was inspired by the French Revolution, and while not a fan of the Terror or war, he still wished some of the egalitarian impulses had reached England. So he dedicates himself to the challenge of building Jerusalem in England. This meant that the hymn became an anthem for other Christian socialists as well – regularly sung in Canada at meetings of the CCF and NDP.

John the Divine describes his vision thus:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

This image is not original with John the Divine, though. It comes from Ezekiel, who wrote in the middle of the Babylonian exile, roughly five centuries earlier than John. He describes it at great length in chapters 40-48:

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on that very day, the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me there. 2 He brought me, in visions of God, to the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain, on which was a structure like a city to the south. 3 When he brought me there, a man was there, whose appearance shone like bronze, with a linen cord and a measuring reed in his hand; and he was standing in the gateway. Ezekiel 40.1-3

That same angel shows up in Revelation 21:

15 The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. 16 The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal.

The main difference between Ezekiel and John is that John’s New Jerusalem is much, much larger – a vast home for God’s people who have suffered so much.

Second Isaiah, writing at the end of the Babylonian Exile, picks up on the image of the New Jerusalem, and describes the city as bejewelled in Isaiah 54:

“11 “Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted,
    I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise,
    your foundations with lapis lazuli.
12 I will make your battlements of rubies,
    your gates of sparkling jewels,
    and all your walls of precious stones.
13 All your children will be taught by the Lord,
    and great will be their peace.
14 In righteousness you will be established:
Tyranny will be far from you;
    you will have nothing to fear.
Terror will be far removed;
    it will not come near you.

I do not take this passage literally. This is largely an extended metaphor for a transformation that is beyond words. Why do I say that? Because in Revelation 21.1 it says, “and the sea was no more.” Why would the sea disappear? Does this make sense literally? What does God have against the sea?

The central panel of the stained glass window in the Chapel of The New Jerusalem, Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria BC Canada. A very literal interpretation.

However, if we read it symbolically we see the sea as a symbol. For a landlubber like John, the sea was terrifying and chaotic. When he writes that “the sea was no more” he means that there is no more terrifying chaos. There is order and redemption. In the new creation, however we understand that, mourning, death, pain, and crying is no more.

The New Jerusalem, like the new heavens and the new earth, is something inaugurated by the death and resurrection of Jesus. It already is, was, and will be. What Christ is in his resurrected glory we will become. In the meantime, we work to create a piece of that New Jerusalem, a foretaste of that [lace with the heavenly banquet, here in our green and pleasant land, whether that be England, Canada, or Greece. So let us work out our salvation in fear and trembling, following the one who “has returned to lead his children home to take them to the new Jerusalem.”

Tomorrow I will talk a bit about time in Revelation.

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Comfort Ye

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

A Sermon Preached Online on
The Second Sunday of Advent, December 6, 2020
With the People of The Anglican Church of St. Thomas the Apostle, Kefalas, Crete

The readings used were Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, and Mark 1:1-8.

It is sometimes said by that, “We are called to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable.”

If you had to put John the Baptist in the first or second of those, he would definitely fall into the second category. He was called to afflict the comfortable. After all, if you proclaim a baptism for the repentance of sins, you are going to upset some people. Some are going to say they have no need to repent, because they have not done anything wrong, or, at least, nothing significantly wrong – but I suspect they will still feel somewhat guilty.

Then there are those who reacted to John as a challenge to their authority. This would be the priests in Jerusalem. They ran the Temple there are claimed a monopoly on access to God, and through control of the Temple and influence through their allies among the scribes and Pharisees, they sought to control the behaviour of the common people. They cooperated with the Roman overlords – indeed, the Romans appointed the individual who would be the High Priest – and the priests, Pharisees, and scribes were all hopelessly compromised in collaboration.

So along comes John the Baptist. Who gave him the authority to proclaim a washing away of sins? He was outside their control, but undeniably popular among the people, and so the powerful dared not do anything to him. They did not care for this, but were imobilized by this populist, charismatic, religious leader.

John afflicted Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great and ruler of Galilee and Perea. He pointed out that his marriage to Herodias was incestuous, as she was his half-brothers wife, and she was also Herod’s niece. For this, he was put to death. Affliction has its price.

And so we have people like this today. Martin Luther King is revered today in the United States, but in his life he was hated by many, and thrown into prison. Even good white liberals were ambivalent about his tactics, asking him to leave Birmingham Alabama, to which he replied with his Letter from Birmingham Jail, in which he pointed out that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” Desmond Tutu, revered in South Africa today, was condemned by the white South African government and their American allies such as Patrick Buchanan and Jerry Falwell, alleging that he was a communist sympathiser. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, marched with Extinction Rebellion this past September; was this right? And we have many more examples.

But balanced with this is a message of comfort. From Isaiah we hear:

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!

What the priests and scribes, the Pharisees and King Herod, and ultimately the Roman governor heard was condemnation – but to the people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem it was a message of good news – the forgiveness of their sins, and the advent of the kingdom of God. Similarly, the segregationists and cautious white liberals of the American South, the white supremacists of South Africa and their American supporters, and those ignoring climate change – they all hear condemnation; in their comfort they are afflicted. Yet those who believe in equality, in the care of God’s world, hear good news and a coming liberty.

George Frideric Handel understood this. You can see it in his music.

After receiving the libretto he fashioned The Messiah into one of the most popular pieces of music ever written in the English language. It was first performed in Dublin in 1742, then in London the next year, and I believe it has been performed every year since 1749. It is absurdly popular.

  • There are literally several hundred performances each year at Christmas and around Easter around the world.
  • In December 1993 there were in New York City alone twenty-one performances.
  • There are old-fashioned mass orchestras and choirs of hundreds, more suitable for Wagnerian opera than this piece.
  • There are sing-along Messiahs, where everybody brings a copy of the music and sings along with the organ or orchestra.
  • Starting in the 1970s we saw a move towards “authenticity”, with smaller orchestras and choirs of perhaps twenty, and musicians playing period instruments.
  • More recently we have seen staged presentations, with soloists and choir on sets and wearing modern clothes, rather than the usual white tie and tails (see the first video below).
  • And, of course, because of the pandemic there has been an on-line performance, with instrumentalists and singers all making music over Zoom.

It is a large piece requiring a chamber orchestra, four virtuoso soloists, and a choir. If done in full it usually takes about three hours, including two intermissions.

The beginning of Part One is an instrumental, followed (starting at 3:11) by words from Isaiah 40.1-3, in the Authorised Version/King James Version translation of 1612:

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: . . . The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

This is the recitative, with an unusually rich string accompaniment. The tenor’s line is gentle, reassuring, and calming.

It is then immediately followed by an aria, and the tenor paints word pictures with the music:

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

The way the notes rise on “exalted” makes you feel as though the valleys are being lifted up, and he drops down to sing “low”, the notes for the word “crooked” sound like they bounce around compared to the ones for “plain”, and the rough places sound, well, a bit rough. It is all quite wonderful.

This is a time, I suspect, when we could all use some comforting. It has been a rough ten months. Many of us are missing the opportunities of getting together. We are sad at the departure of friends, some of whom are moving away permanently. We miss our families.

My hope and prayer is that perhaps this year we find that comfort in the Christmas gospel, that the first announcement of the good news about the kingdom of God coming with Jesus will prepare us now for his second coming – whether in the distant future of the Day of the Lord, at the hour of our deaths, or right now, in our hearts. May we see the glory of the Lord being revealed in the lives of God’s people and in the story being told, once again, of a child born in Bethlehem. May the Holy Spirit descend upon us, so that we may ascend high mountains and proclaim the good news we have in Christ Jesus.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 05/12 – (7) Beasts

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the seventh of twenty-six short reflections.

Almost every image in the visions of John in Revelation are derived from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Two of my favourite images are those of the New Jerusalem and the Four Beasts. Let’s deal with the critters today.

Up above are the four beasts from the Sutherland Tapestry in Coventry Cathedral, Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph; I talked about the tapestry two weeks ago in my sermon back then. The four beasts surround the throne of God in the vision that John has in chapter 4, after he finishes addressing the seven churches in epistolary fashion:

1After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! . . .

Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human face, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing,

“Holy, holy, holy,
the Lord God the Almighty,
    who was and is and is to come.”

This passage refers back to two of the prophets: Isaiah and Ezekiel. Isaiah writes about his calling in chapter six of his book, where he has a vision in the Jerusalem Temple:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The Temple, especially the Holy of Holies, was the earthly equivalent of heaven, and so it is not surprising that Isaiah sees God there. There are four seraphs in the Holy of Holies – two standing over the Ark of the Covenant, and two on the cover of the Ark. Below is one artist’s idea of what it might have looked like this, although I always imagined the seraphim looking a little more Assyrian. You can see their six wings if you look carefully.

The four beasts go back to the calling of Ezekiel.

. . . as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God . . . As I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber. In the middle of it was something like four living creatures.

This was their appearance: they were of human form. 6 Each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus: 9 their wings touched one another; each of them moved straight ahead, without turning as they moved.

10 As for the appearance of their faces: the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle; 11 such were their faces.

Their wings were spread out above; each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. . . . 15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. 1the rims of all four were full of eyes all around.

This is pretty weird stuff, but the import of this fantastic image is that the throne of God being carried about by these four creatures. Each with four faces: a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. John in Revelation turns them into four different creatures, each with just one face. In Ezekiel that have only four wings, but Revelation uses the six wings from Isaiah 6.

Christians tried to make sense of what these creatures were in Revelation, and eventually decided that they must represent the authors of the for gospels – Matthew is the human, Mark the lion, Luke the ox, and John the eagle. It is a good answer, but probably not the one John the Divine was thinking of; there is no evidence that John was aware of the four gospels as a set. They may simply represent all creation acknowledging Jesus and worshiping him.

The hymn that the beasts sing comes from Isaiah 6. It is sung in the Eucharist after the preface of the Great Thanksgiving. It also gave rise to this hymn:

1 Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

2 Holy, Holy, Holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

3 Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man, thy glory may not see:
Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power in love, and purity.

4 Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty,
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

As a child I was part of Bethel United Church in Grand-Mère, Quebec, and we sang the first verse of this every Sunday as an introit. It was written by Reginald Heber, sometime between 1807 and 1823 when he was the Vicar of Hodnet, Shropshire. He was consecrated Bishop of Calcutta in 1823 at Lambeth Palace, and after arriving in India in the autumn of that year he died less than three years later. It may seem strange to us, but hymn singing was not a normal part of Anglican worship in the early 19th century; it was considered a mark of Evangelicalism, and was, strictly speaking, not allowed by the rules of the Church of England. Heber’s advocacy for hymn singing did much to advance this now regular part of our services.

The tune is called Nicaea, written by John Bacchus Dykes for the original Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861. I like the harmony, especially the bass part – put it up a tone or three and it makes for a nice descant. It has an unusual metre – 11.12.12.10 – and apart from the tune Nicaea, I am not aware of any tune to which it can be sung.

Tomorrow I will discuss the New Jerusalem.

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Through Advent With The Apocalypse: 04/12 – (6) A Very Jewish Text

Posted on December 4, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

This Advent, in the Year of the Great Pandemic 2020, it seems appropriate to look at The Apocalypse – that is, The Revelation of John. This is the sixth of twenty-six short reflections.

A modern icon of Jesus as the Ancient of Days, seated on the throne of justice, in a mandorla, and with white hair.

When I was young and had not read The Book of Revelation one of my brothers suggested that John was on some kind of drugs and had a psychedelic experience – and probably a bad trip, at that. After reading it, though, it is pretty clear to me that Revelation is actually a creative melding of images and themes from the Hebrew Bible in the context of a charismatic experience of Jesus as the risen Lord. It may not be the kind of thing that my brother or I might come up with, but for John, steeped as he was in the prophets and being inspired by the Spirit, it was a natural result.

As mentioned in earlier posts in this series, John the Divine, author of The Book of Revelation, was influenced by both Paul and the Community of the Beloved Disciple. However, arguably the greatest influences came from the prophets, especially Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. There is hardly an image or metaphor in the whole of the book that cannot be traced back to the Jewish scriptures. Indeed, it is likely that, like Paul and the Beloved Disciple, that John of Patmos was originally a Jew from Judea or Galilee, someone who could read and speak Hebrew at the synagogue, spoke Aramaic to his neighbours, and learned Greek as the language of the colonizing Greeks and Romans.

Jesus is portrayed as the Son of Man ben-‘adam in Revelation. We are introduced to this vision of Jesus in the first chapter:

12 Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. 14 His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.

This echoes the vision of Daniel:

9 As I watched,
thrones were set in place,
    and an Ancient One took his throne,
his clothing was white as snow,
    and the hair of his head like pure wool;
his throne was fiery flames,
    and its wheels were burning fire.
10 A stream of fire issued
    and flowed out from his presence.
A thousand thousands served him,
    and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.
The court sat in judgment,
    and the books were opened . . .

I saw one like a human being
    coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
    and was presented before him.
14 To him was given dominion
    and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
    should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
    that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
    that shall never be destroyed. Daniel 7.9-11, 13b-14

In the gospels we are told that Jesus identified himself as the Son of Man, so the the Christian interpretation is that the one who is “like a human being” is Jesus. The identity of the Ancient of Days in Daniel is less clear; it is God, but which person? In some interpretations he is God the Father. Certain authors in Orthodoxy argue that it is Jesus in his role as the divine judge. In Revelation the two are conflated, and Jesus, like the Ancient One, has white hair and is attended with what looks like flames.

This is but one example of how John uses the Jewish traditions he received. John, like Paul, was Jewish, and knew his Hebrew Bible. Like Paul and the author of the Fourth Gospel, John did not see himself as creating a new religion. Christianity was not a faith replacing Judaism, but rather a continuation and its fulfillment. The extension of salvation to the non-Jews was an exceptional grace that built upon universalizing trends long present in Judaism.

Tomorrow I will note a few more of these images derived from the prophets.

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Resources for Worship on Advent II 2020

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

These are resources for the Second Sunday of Advent on , December 6, 2020. The resources are gathered from a variety of sources and, while assembled mainly for The Anglican Church of St Thomas the Apostle, Kefalas, on the island of Crete in Greece, others may find them useful.

Highway 10 in Saudi Arabia, the longest straight road in the world.

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Greece is still in lockdown and probably will be for the next two Sundays. This means we will be on Zoom for worship on these days, December 6 and 13. We will have our usual Service of the Word at 11:00 am EET (9:00 am GMT) and you can join us by clicking this link or by entering the following into your Zoom application: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Passcode: 010209.

I have prepared a PDF of a Service of the Word for Advent II. You can download it here:

an-order-for-the-second-sunday-of-advent-2020Download

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The readings this Sunday are rich and powerful: we will be using Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, and Mark 1:1-8. Many churches using the full choices from the Common Worship Lectionary/Revised Common Lectionary will also read 2 Peter 3:8-15a.

Reflect

I have written up some thoughts on the Isaiah passage, and its relation to the gospels’ use of it, in a post from last December, Highways in Isaiah and the Gospels which was Day Twenty of “Through Advent with Isaiah.

Father Leonard Doolan of the Anglican Church of St Paul. Athens, has prepared and recorded a sermon for this Sunday:

Pray

Collect
O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power and come among us,
and with great might succour us;
that whereas, through our sins and wickedness we are grievously hindered
in running the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honour and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

(or)

Almighty God,
purify our hearts and minds,
that when your Son Jesus Christ comes again as judge and saviour
we may be ready to receive him,
who is our Lord and our God. Amen.

Biddings
I bid your prayers for the leaders and people of the nations; especially

  • Katerini Sakellaropoulou, President of Greece, and
  • Elizabeth, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and her other realms, and also in her role as Governor of the Church of England;
  • In the European Union,
    • Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission;
    • Charles Michel, President of the European Council; and
    • Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy;
  • for the closing negotiations around Brexit;
  • for the peoples of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland facing uncertainty over the fate of the Good Friday Accord;
  • the peoples of Belarus, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Peru, and Thailand as they continue to demonstrate for democracy and justice;
  • for the maintaining of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and between Russia and Ukraine, Palestinians and Israelis, North and South Korea, and for a final, just resolution to their conflicts;
  • for the President-elect and peoples of the United States;
  • for advocates of Indigenous rights and the adoption and implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
  • prisoners and captives, especially the over one million Uigers being held in detention in China;
  • the over 79.5 million refugees and nearly 4 million stateless person, remembering especially the crucial situation of Greece, and the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”);
  • for a lessening of tensions between Turkey and Greece; and
  • for peace in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ethiopia.

I bid your prayers for the sick and suffering and all who minister to their needs;

  • remembering the 18.4 million active cases of the novel coronavirus, and mourning with the families of the over 1.5 million who have died in the pandemic;
  • for the 1.684 million people in the UK who have had covid-19 or are recovering from it, the nearly 60,000 who have died of it there, and the 97,000 active cases here in Greece, and the families of the over 2600 dead here;
  • remembering those ill with other diseases, and those whose operations have been postponed;
  • all those having issues with mental health;
  • those suffering from addiction, and those in recovery;
  • those who have been affected severely by the economic effects of the pandemic, especially in food services and tourism;
  • and giving thanks for the efforts of researchers in finding vaccines.

I bid your prayers for the Church:

Intercessions
In joyful expectation of his coming to our aid we pray to Jesus.

Come to your Church as Lord and judge.
Help us to live in the light of your coming
and give us a longing for your kingdom.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Come to your world as King of the nations.
Before you rulers will stand in silence.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Come to the suffering as Saviour and comforter.
Break into our lives,
where we struggle with sickness and distress,
and set us free to serve you for ever.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Come to us as shepherd and guardian of our souls.
Give us with all the faithful departed
a share in your victory over evil and death.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Come from heaven, Lord Jesus, with power and great glory.
Lift us up to meet you,
that with Isaiah, John Mark, Thomas our patron and the rest of the Twelve, Paul, Nicholas, Mary of Magdala, Mary your mother, and all your saints and angelswe may live and reign with you in your new creation.
Maranatha: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Silence is kept.

Come, Lord Jesus, do not delay;
give new courage to your people,
who trust in your love.
By your coming, raise us to share in the joy of your kingdom
on earth as in heaven,
where you live and reign with the Father and the Spirit,
one God for ever and ever. Amen.

Sing

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