The eyes of America were glued on the impending arrival
of hurricane Isabel last week. It was hard to get away from the TV
weather prophets who demanded your attention be centered on the swirling
mass of turbulence in the middle of the TV screen.
We were on alert, and it was an alert that would escalate as the hurricane
sped its way toward the southeastern part of the USA. Something big,
something really big, was going to happen. We knew it was a big storm.
We knew it moved with great deliberation toward familiar places. It
was on the way.
It couldn’t be stopped. Isabel was on the way. We could only
wait.
The nation, and especially the northern and southeastern states of
the nation, were holding vigil. The advent of Isabel gripped us.
We waited and watched.
Isabel came. The tempest raged. The waves crashed. Floods occurred.
States of emergency were proclaimed. Destruction and some deaths were
left in the wake. Lives were changed for ever.
I wonder if this experience was what the medieval liturgists had in
mind about what the final days were going to be like. For them the
second coming of Jesus and the consequential final judgment was a
scary event. The world would end with fire and grave shaking and with
fear and with trembling. You were going to heaven or to hell.
The day was the “day of wrath, the day of ire, day when the
world shall melt in fire, told to David by Sibyl’s lyre.”
I am sure that no one last week thought that the “end draweth
near.” But most people around here in western Pennsylvania watched
with great attention to see how we were gong to be effected by Isabel.
There was even an office memo circulated to remind us to put the garbage
cans away.
The power of waiting stoked by the media giving more updates than
any one person could ever use amazed me. I wonder if there is any
way we could generate a fraction of the intensity of last week’s
waiting and watching into our Advent liturgies.
We would move from the ubiquitous “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
to a sung “Come, Lord Jesus. Marana tha,” which links
the December Advent to the Final Advent. . . . But
without the Armageddon issue, please.
More on this next week.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net
