Advent: A Clash of Kingdoms

        The last couple of weeks I have been watching a series of videos featuring author Diana Butler Bass and noted process theologian Tripp Fuller talking about Advent as reflected in each of the four gospels. The discussion of Matthew (last week) and Luke (next week) center on their birth narratives, but today I want to talk about how Mark, who has no birth narrative, relates to Advent.

        As you know, Advent means “coming,” and by this measure Mark has a great deal to say on the subject. Only he is not talking about the birth of a baby. His Jesus bursts onto the scene fully grown, getting baptized by John, spending time in conflict with Satan in the wilderness, and beginning his preaching career all in the space of eight verses or so. The coming, then—the advent—that Mark concerns himself with is the coming of the commonwealth of God, as we see in Jesus’s signature proclamation: “The time is fulfilled, and the [commonwealth] of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15).

        At the time that Mark writes his gospel, “good news” (or “gospel”) has a specific meaning. For us, gospel is a strictly religious term, but in the first century it has profound political resonance. It is the good news of the Roman emperor’s victories in battle and his bringing of peace to the world. Part of the good news is that the emperor is the “Son of God” and the “Savior” of the world. What Mark does in appropriating these terms is to subvert this imperial meaning and reapply the terminology to Jesus. He, not Augustus or Tiberius or Vespasian, is the true Son of God, the real Savior, and his gospel of peace through justice is far superior to the empire’s gospel of peace through victory and domination.

        The proper response to this proclamation of the true gospel, according to Jesus, is twofold: repent, and believe in the good news. And to repent has three elements: turn around, defect, and pledge. To turn around is to make a complete change in the direction of one’s life. To defect means that one withdraws one’s allegiance from the empire. And to pledge is to give one’s loyalty to the new king. Mark’s version of the gospel therefore represents a clash of kingdoms—there’s the kingdom of Caesar, with its ethos of greed and violence, and there’s the commonwealth of God, which is founded on principles of openness, sharing, and justice.

        The choice we must make—during this season of Advent and at all times—is which kingdom we will choose. Will we go along with the imperial version of things that in our contemporary society is typified by endless consumption, acts of aggression on American soil and in foreign waters, and digital distractions whose purpose is to keep us docile and easily controlled? Or will we give our allegiance to the commonwealth of God that calls us to welcome the stranger, defend the vulnerable, and walk the way of the cross, which means to put our lives on the line for giving our complete allegiance to God?

        No one said it would be easy. Or rather, if someone said it would be easy, they were lying. Jesus presents an uncompromising challenge and invitation. If we come over and join his side, we are risking being ostracized, vilified, and called a traitor. In extreme cases we risk arrest and incarceration. In recent incidents you have probably heard about, a couple of ministers of this true gospel got shot with pepper bullets for standing on the side of justice. But the alternative is to go blithely along with the current of the imperial culture, whistling and skipping our way down the path of destruction.

        God is calling us this Advent to recognize not only the time but also the nature of Christ’s coming. He comes not just as a cuddly infant we can sentimentalize and ultimately ignore, but as a fiery preacher with an uncompromising message: in this clash of kingdoms, you must choose your allegiance.

        Help us, God, to choose wisely.