With A Bang Or A Whimper?
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Readings
For Sundays In Advent, Christmas, And Epiphany
Back in 1925, T. S. Eliot wrote the poem, "The Hollow Men." It is an indictment of a whole generation of people whose lives are empty because they seem to believe nothing. They have been only a "paralyzed force, gesture without motion." They have accomplished nothing: they are the product of the dry intellectuality of modern life. Eliot describes them this way.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw
They are not "lost violent souls" but only hollow men. The last lines of the poem describe the way in which, for them and for so many of our own desiccated generation, the end of life comes:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.1
Today's challenging text anticipates God's plan for the end of our world, as we know it. It will be interesting to discover if T. S. Eliot's view correlates with the portrait Holy Scripture paints of the conclusion of this world's history. Will it end with a bang or a whimper?
Modern scientists are unanimous in their assumption that our world will one day cease to exist. Just how this will happen is an open question. Many opinions are being voiced in the scientific community. In our look at Saint Peter's "pre-scientific" explanation of this event, we wonder what we'll find. Surely one who lived before the "Copernican revolution," and almost 2,000 years before the advent of atomic and hydrogen explosives, could know nothing of the basic structure of the universe and its potential for almost unlimited power if those elements were somehow released. Or could he? Perhaps today's message will shed some light.
Think with me. First of all, how it all began.
Surely if something must end it must also have had a beginning. For Peter's understanding of this origin we look back at verse 4 of our chapter where he explains: "All things continue as they were at the beginning of creation." Please note his words: not development, not eternal existence, but creation: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1 NIV).
Without entering the realm of scientific investigation, what are the biblical affirmations respecting the origin of the universe?
The first certainly is this: The world with its harmony and orderliness and rationality and all the teeming life that crowds our planet came into existence through the creative activity of an Almighty God.
Secondly: The goal and crown of the divine activity is focused on man; man made in the image of his Creator, and endowed with the capacity of holding fellowship with his Maker. These affirmations have nothing to do with the manner, that is, with the "how" of creative action. Such things are the prerogative of science. Religion concerns itself with providing answers to the questions: "Whence?" "Whither?" "Why?" These are the fields of inquiry with which the Bible is concerned. John Dryden, who lived in the seventeenth century, voiced it well when he wrote:
This is a piece too fair
To be the child of chance and not of care
No atoms casually together hurl'd
Could e'er produce so beautiful a world.2
To paraphrase a word of Christ to those who look out upon this unutterably profound universe, "He that has eyes to see, let him see; and he that has ears to hear, let him hear." Elizabeth Barrett Browning laid the options before us as clearly as possible in her "Aurora Leigh":
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries ...3
The Christian heart -- and mind -- is content in assenting to Peter's understanding of the earth's origin: "In the beginning God."
Then Peter moves on to discuss the end of all things: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed" (v. 10).
Here we must tread softly. Peter discribes this event using apocalyptic terms, terms familiar to his original readers but somewhat perplexing to us. We sometimes use the phrase, "It's the end of the world," and, when we do, our minds coincide with Peter's. Whether Peter's words are accurate (for he does use some interesting ones!) history will determine; this morning we only have time to outline them briefly. And here they are.
This event is certain, Peter says. All of sacred scripture and human experience either predicts it or senses the ultimate reasonableness of it. Man cannot continue to defy all the moral principles inherent in the universe without a day of accounting arriving at last. That is certain! It will be sudden. Peter writes: "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night" -- a thief doesn't announce his arrival at our homes. He comes suddenly. It will be solemn -- can anything be more solemn than these words: "The heavens shall pass away with a great noise ... the elements shall melt with fervent heat ... the earth and all the works therein shall be burnt up"? To us who live in the atomic age, some of these statements sound strangely familiar; they sound as though they might have been written in the year 2003 rather than almost 2,000 years ago. An unknown college student tried to describe a cataclysm like this, when she wrote:
When you hear the sound and see the flash
Don't duck under the nearest table,
'Cause there won't be any table;
Don't pull the tablecloth over you,
'Cause there won't be any tablecloth;
Don't throw yourself flat on the floor,
'Cause there won't be any floor;
And don't, under any circumstances, try to leave the city,
'Cause there won't be any city left to leave.
Simply pause for a moment to adjust your shroud
And make your way leisurely to the nearest cloud.
These words were written with tongue in cheek, surely. But they do give us pause. Perhaps you are wondering, "Why would pastor choose a text like this for his sermon when all of us are happily anticipating the arrival of another joyous Christmas celebration?" I'll tell you why. I've chosen it for the same reason Peter wrote the words centuries ago: not to intimidate those who read or hear his words but to urge upon them a quality of life that ought to characterize sincere Christians whether they look forward to a blessed Advent season or anticipate the end of the world! However, it is rather interesting to note that when we read the Latin version of this Epistle, each time it speaks of the "coming" of the Day of the Lord, it always uses the word "Adventus" to translate our word "come" or "coming." So, you see, Saint Peter is not far removed from the blessed season in which we find ourselves!
Finally, what is the type of life that should be expressed by those who look forward to the things Saint Peter describes? Verses 11 and 14 make it clear.
A key word in these verses is "strive." It means "to be zealous, to be eager." What is it that we are to be zealous about? Peter does not hesitate to tell us: "Lead lives of holiness and godliness ... be found by him at peace without spot or blemish." What a garland of Advent graces to carry with us during these sacred days! What an amiable influence my life and yours would be if these graces were in evidence as we travel toward another Christmas celebration. Think of them, they are five in number. The first two describe qualities directed outward, toward those around us; the last three describe personal attributes, those experienced inwardly.
Those features directed toward others are holiness and godliness, both of which are plural nouns suggesting a multiplicity of action. In other words, the Christian's life exhibits not one but many holy and god-like behavior patterns.
The personal attributes, peace, spotlessness, and an unblemished mind-set or disposition, complete the garland. In effect, Peter is telling us the world is enriched and our personal lives are enhanced as these qualities become part of our Advent experience.
It is said that on one occasion a young student rushed up to Ralph Waldo Emerson saying, "Mr. Emerson, Mr. Emerson, the world is going to end tomorrow." To which Emerson responded, "All right, I can do without it!" All well and good, he and we can do without it, because the Lord Christ, through his life, death, and resurrection, has assured us that by trusting him we will one day experience a life with God that beggars description, a life that causes this world to fade into insignificance! Nevertheless, though we can do without the world, the world, whether it knows it or not, cannot do without us and the message of hope our faith embraces. We warmly offer this hope to all who sense the emptiness of life without it. Professor Rudolph H. Harm, from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, often told his students, "The Christian faith takes a person out of this world and puts a person into it." This was not only a striking arrangement of words, but it is completely true. Our Christian faith does take us out of this world. It takes us out of time into eternity, into the mind of God. It is a tragedy to be "earthbound," to have no power in life which lifts us out of our darkness, sorrow, and night into the wonderful joy of the light of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But our Christian faith also "puts us into the world" in a new and deeper manner. When we live in the strength of our Advent hope we do not draw away from the world with its great need, but, fortified by communion with the living Lord who is "out of this world," we go into life to minister to its need in Christ's name. What a splendid halo this wonderful privilege drapes over this year's journey toward another Christmas celebration. May each of us embrace it with joy!
Returning to the question with which we began -- "Will it end with a bang or a whimper?" Dear friends, after listening to Peter, it really doesn't matter, does it? Amen.
____________
1. The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company Inc., 1952), p. 344.
2. John Dryden, "Design" quoted in Masterpieces of Religious Verse (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1948), p. 9.
3. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Aurora Leigh," ibid.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw
They are not "lost violent souls" but only hollow men. The last lines of the poem describe the way in which, for them and for so many of our own desiccated generation, the end of life comes:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.1
Today's challenging text anticipates God's plan for the end of our world, as we know it. It will be interesting to discover if T. S. Eliot's view correlates with the portrait Holy Scripture paints of the conclusion of this world's history. Will it end with a bang or a whimper?
Modern scientists are unanimous in their assumption that our world will one day cease to exist. Just how this will happen is an open question. Many opinions are being voiced in the scientific community. In our look at Saint Peter's "pre-scientific" explanation of this event, we wonder what we'll find. Surely one who lived before the "Copernican revolution," and almost 2,000 years before the advent of atomic and hydrogen explosives, could know nothing of the basic structure of the universe and its potential for almost unlimited power if those elements were somehow released. Or could he? Perhaps today's message will shed some light.
Think with me. First of all, how it all began.
Surely if something must end it must also have had a beginning. For Peter's understanding of this origin we look back at verse 4 of our chapter where he explains: "All things continue as they were at the beginning of creation." Please note his words: not development, not eternal existence, but creation: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1 NIV).
Without entering the realm of scientific investigation, what are the biblical affirmations respecting the origin of the universe?
The first certainly is this: The world with its harmony and orderliness and rationality and all the teeming life that crowds our planet came into existence through the creative activity of an Almighty God.
Secondly: The goal and crown of the divine activity is focused on man; man made in the image of his Creator, and endowed with the capacity of holding fellowship with his Maker. These affirmations have nothing to do with the manner, that is, with the "how" of creative action. Such things are the prerogative of science. Religion concerns itself with providing answers to the questions: "Whence?" "Whither?" "Why?" These are the fields of inquiry with which the Bible is concerned. John Dryden, who lived in the seventeenth century, voiced it well when he wrote:
This is a piece too fair
To be the child of chance and not of care
No atoms casually together hurl'd
Could e'er produce so beautiful a world.2
To paraphrase a word of Christ to those who look out upon this unutterably profound universe, "He that has eyes to see, let him see; and he that has ears to hear, let him hear." Elizabeth Barrett Browning laid the options before us as clearly as possible in her "Aurora Leigh":
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries ...3
The Christian heart -- and mind -- is content in assenting to Peter's understanding of the earth's origin: "In the beginning God."
Then Peter moves on to discuss the end of all things: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed" (v. 10).
Here we must tread softly. Peter discribes this event using apocalyptic terms, terms familiar to his original readers but somewhat perplexing to us. We sometimes use the phrase, "It's the end of the world," and, when we do, our minds coincide with Peter's. Whether Peter's words are accurate (for he does use some interesting ones!) history will determine; this morning we only have time to outline them briefly. And here they are.
This event is certain, Peter says. All of sacred scripture and human experience either predicts it or senses the ultimate reasonableness of it. Man cannot continue to defy all the moral principles inherent in the universe without a day of accounting arriving at last. That is certain! It will be sudden. Peter writes: "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night" -- a thief doesn't announce his arrival at our homes. He comes suddenly. It will be solemn -- can anything be more solemn than these words: "The heavens shall pass away with a great noise ... the elements shall melt with fervent heat ... the earth and all the works therein shall be burnt up"? To us who live in the atomic age, some of these statements sound strangely familiar; they sound as though they might have been written in the year 2003 rather than almost 2,000 years ago. An unknown college student tried to describe a cataclysm like this, when she wrote:
When you hear the sound and see the flash
Don't duck under the nearest table,
'Cause there won't be any table;
Don't pull the tablecloth over you,
'Cause there won't be any tablecloth;
Don't throw yourself flat on the floor,
'Cause there won't be any floor;
And don't, under any circumstances, try to leave the city,
'Cause there won't be any city left to leave.
Simply pause for a moment to adjust your shroud
And make your way leisurely to the nearest cloud.
These words were written with tongue in cheek, surely. But they do give us pause. Perhaps you are wondering, "Why would pastor choose a text like this for his sermon when all of us are happily anticipating the arrival of another joyous Christmas celebration?" I'll tell you why. I've chosen it for the same reason Peter wrote the words centuries ago: not to intimidate those who read or hear his words but to urge upon them a quality of life that ought to characterize sincere Christians whether they look forward to a blessed Advent season or anticipate the end of the world! However, it is rather interesting to note that when we read the Latin version of this Epistle, each time it speaks of the "coming" of the Day of the Lord, it always uses the word "Adventus" to translate our word "come" or "coming." So, you see, Saint Peter is not far removed from the blessed season in which we find ourselves!
Finally, what is the type of life that should be expressed by those who look forward to the things Saint Peter describes? Verses 11 and 14 make it clear.
A key word in these verses is "strive." It means "to be zealous, to be eager." What is it that we are to be zealous about? Peter does not hesitate to tell us: "Lead lives of holiness and godliness ... be found by him at peace without spot or blemish." What a garland of Advent graces to carry with us during these sacred days! What an amiable influence my life and yours would be if these graces were in evidence as we travel toward another Christmas celebration. Think of them, they are five in number. The first two describe qualities directed outward, toward those around us; the last three describe personal attributes, those experienced inwardly.
Those features directed toward others are holiness and godliness, both of which are plural nouns suggesting a multiplicity of action. In other words, the Christian's life exhibits not one but many holy and god-like behavior patterns.
The personal attributes, peace, spotlessness, and an unblemished mind-set or disposition, complete the garland. In effect, Peter is telling us the world is enriched and our personal lives are enhanced as these qualities become part of our Advent experience.
It is said that on one occasion a young student rushed up to Ralph Waldo Emerson saying, "Mr. Emerson, Mr. Emerson, the world is going to end tomorrow." To which Emerson responded, "All right, I can do without it!" All well and good, he and we can do without it, because the Lord Christ, through his life, death, and resurrection, has assured us that by trusting him we will one day experience a life with God that beggars description, a life that causes this world to fade into insignificance! Nevertheless, though we can do without the world, the world, whether it knows it or not, cannot do without us and the message of hope our faith embraces. We warmly offer this hope to all who sense the emptiness of life without it. Professor Rudolph H. Harm, from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, often told his students, "The Christian faith takes a person out of this world and puts a person into it." This was not only a striking arrangement of words, but it is completely true. Our Christian faith does take us out of this world. It takes us out of time into eternity, into the mind of God. It is a tragedy to be "earthbound," to have no power in life which lifts us out of our darkness, sorrow, and night into the wonderful joy of the light of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But our Christian faith also "puts us into the world" in a new and deeper manner. When we live in the strength of our Advent hope we do not draw away from the world with its great need, but, fortified by communion with the living Lord who is "out of this world," we go into life to minister to its need in Christ's name. What a splendid halo this wonderful privilege drapes over this year's journey toward another Christmas celebration. May each of us embrace it with joy!
Returning to the question with which we began -- "Will it end with a bang or a whimper?" Dear friends, after listening to Peter, it really doesn't matter, does it? Amen.
____________
1. The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company Inc., 1952), p. 344.
2. John Dryden, "Design" quoted in Masterpieces of Religious Verse (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1948), p. 9.
3. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Aurora Leigh," ibid.
