“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.  You turn us back to dust, and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals.’  For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.  You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.  For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed.  You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.  For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh.  The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.  Who considers the power of your anger?  Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.  So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.  Turn, O LORD!  How long?  Have compassion on your servants!  Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.  Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil.  Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.  Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands!”—Psalm 90

Psalm 90 is listed for three days in the daily Adventen readings for the Revised Common Lectionary.  One of those days, today, happens to be World AIDS day.  As I read the words of the Psalm over and over, I realize that they address this day perhaps better than any other words out there.  

Zambia has one of the highest rates of HIV infection and AIDS diagnosis in the world.  Hardly a day has gone by since I have been here on which I have not heard about somebody who has lost a loved one to the syndrome, who is in the process of losing a loved one, or is facing the possibility of losing one’s own life.  The language of testing and ARVs is part of everyday discourse.  Aggressive media campaigns for prevention and treatment frequent the airwaves and cover billboards.  Even with such extreme sensitization, though, stigma reigns supreme.  People often die of “being sick” instead of complications related to AIDS.  Partners are often suspicious of each other.  This seems to be in large part because of the legacy of the Church.  Even though churches today are sometimes active in addressing stigma and promoting prevention, the sexual mores and taboos brought by missionaries have left their mark.  As with so many communities in the West, sexuality is demonized and repressed.  People are judged for behavior rather than character.

As a result of the high prevalence, the loss, the fear, and the stigma, there is a general brokenness.  The Psalmist is struggling to cope with a strikingly similar brokenness—a brokenness that does not make sense if we are indeed loved, a brokenness from which God seems distantly removed, a brokenness that feels terminal.  The Psalmist goes through stages so common to the afflicted: 1) seeking a refuge in God that once seemed unshakeable but now seems to be collapsing, 2) questioning God’s wrath and anger, for surely the affliction must be the result thereof, and 3) begging for God to turn back and express compassion and love.

Throughout this entire process one thing is constant: the distance felt between the Psalmist and God.  God views life through an eternal perspective.  The Psalmist is necessarily concerned with mortality.  If God sees one thousand years as one day, how could God possibly be concerned with a life that lasts 70-80 years, a life that makes up the entirety of what we humans know and care about?  If God is operating through the lens of cosmic and eternal justice, how can we humans possibly cope with the resulting anger and wrath?  In the language of the Psalmist, our life is simply a sigh.  

So, in the final stage we see the Psalmist begging for God to meet us at our level.  There is a longing for God to be aware of days and years, not just eternity.  There is a plea for a type of justice that makes sense, for which there is at least a balance between joy and suffering according to the short time of human life.  There is a request for physical blessing, that the fruits of life’s labors might pay off.

In short, the Psalmist—like so many who suffer with HIV and AIDS and like so many who are broken in this world—is crying out for God to understand.  There is an all-consuming need for God’s immanence.

With the coming of Christ we got that immanence.  God experienced the fullness of humanity—mortality, suffering, joy, loss, fear, and everything else in our deep well of emotions and concerns.  God finally understood.  

I imagine that many of us have lost sight of that immanence, that assurance that God does indeed know what we are going through.  With the help of the ever present Holy Spirit, may we practice expectant hope for our very present God.

"This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; in them I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles. First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the godless. But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 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. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen."--2 Peter 3:1-18

I have regularly avoided delving into the Petrine letters, early in life because they were simply never addressed in church and more recently because in my theological training I have fostered an aversion to fire and brimstone. “The present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire.” “The elements will be dissolved with fire.” “The heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire.” This passage is chock full of exactly that—fire and brimstone. I have consistently had great difficulty reconciling my image of God with an image of God-initiated fiery death and destruction for all of Creation. Over the past three months, though, I have been finding that I have given woefully short shrift to the eschatological tradition in the latter books of Scripture. I have been blind to the context, the relevance, and even the hope and liberation of this tradition. On this second day of Advent I am coming to terms with the fact that I must engage it.
Ever since coming to Zambia, I have been immersed in a veritable deluge of day-to-day eschatology. Moon phases, President Obama, national prayers, Pope Francis, animagus snake- becoming prophets, Beyonce, wars in the Holy Land, the Freemasons, international cooperation, Nicki Minaj, public massacres around the world, witches, climate change, and T. B. Joshua—all have been brought up in discussions as harbingers of or participants in the end of the world and the end of history. I usually find myself shaking my head in a bemused manner and refuting the arguments, enforcing the tyranny of rationalism. “This is not my first rodeo with end times ministries,” I say to myself, “I’ve been through this in the U.S as well.” I know how to respond in a way that preserves my fortress of denial.

To be clear, I do not believe that we are in the midst of the end times unless we take a geological perspective and see all of human history as part of the end times. I fully believe that Jesus will come like a thief in the night and that we do not and cannot know when the end times will be. I think this belief is Scripturally sound, and it makes the most sense to me in the depths of my being.
The problem, though, is that after I rationalize I say that it does not matter anyways; we should always be living lives that would fit the command, “Strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish.” 

Although this is a right contention, I stop there and treat it as the end of the discussion. In essence, I declare the latter Scriptural tradition of eschatology meaningless.
I am a scoffer, saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!”

I am learning, though. I am learning to embrace ways of knowing outside of that tyranny of rationalism which has dominated my mind- and heart-scape for most of my life. I am learning from the wisdom of those around me. I am learning from my own experience and growth. I am learning that there is a well of meaning beneath the surface of fire and brimstone.
This past month especially has been a difficult one for me and indeed for the world. Ongoing entrenchment of State-sponsored violence in Syria, Iraq, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Palestine, and the lands occupied by ISIL has led to gut-wrenching loss of life. So-called “developed” countries are creating and enforcing laws of hate to dehumanize and keep out refugees fleeing State violence. Iraq, Lebanon, France, and Nigeria have all suffered public massacres in the name of fundamentalism. Here in Zambia people are becoming more and more desperate because of consistently low values for the local currency and consistently rising prices of staple foods. What has hit me the hardest is the recent release of video showing the gruesome execution of a 17-year-old black male by a white male police officer in Chicago, my beloved city. For powers and principalities, the value of life seems to me to be at an all time low.