The First Sunday of Advent Year C

The First Sunday of Advent

Luke 21.25-36

Gaze on all the climate change nightmares we read about – mountains sliding into rivers, icebergs breaking off from the Antarctic mass; rising sea levels and waves breaching sea defences, and winds that upend ancient oaks. Is this the final cataclysm that Jesus describes, when God’s power will overwhelm our trite existence? Gaze on these scenes, as frightening as Dante’s depiction of hell, or as alarming as Michelangelo’s judgement paintings. Are we about to bring these to life? We may have forgotten the fear of hell which plagued the people of the Middle Ages, but we still know the anguish of nations suffering hells of our own making...