The first recorded teaching of Jesus in the first gospel ever written is a paraphrase: “Time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has dawned. Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15). Something brand new, completely unheard of was approaching the face of the earth, and Jesus could already see the glow. An apocalypse was approaching. To Jesus, there was the past, and then there was the urgency of now. Like his cousin John the Baptist before him, Jesus understood that to survive the transition between the two, one must repent. The old must be discarded and the new embraced. All that was before is of little significance compared to what he saw on the imminent horizon. Jesus did not say what precisely was coming, but when it touched down, everything would fundamentally change.
From the earliest beginnings of Jesus’ ministry there is a dividing line between those who repent and believe and those who do not. This line is not blurry but as stark as light is to darkness. It is a very either/or way of thinking. There are his followers, and then there is everyone else. There is the church, and then there is the world.
The characteristics of “the world” as Jesus understood it are not benign or neutral but cancerous. Metastatically so. Jesus envisions a grim future for his followers. Those who recognize the passing of the times — those who come to repent and believe — will find themselves disowned by everyone. Though they bear a message of good news, the disciples will journey into a world that will do everything in its power to destroy them. They will be arrested, flogged, and put on trial. “Everyone,” he warns, “will hate you because of me” (Mk 13:13).
Beyond the bounds of the frail, fledgling Christian community, there is only suffering at the hands of powers of darkness. This is the continual refrain throughout the New Testament. To be a follower of Jesus is to share in his shame and sufferings. Whether it be one’s family, neighbors, religious leaders, Roman authorities, or Caesar himself, the world is not neutral but hostile to the kingdom of God. Or in the immortal words of Morrissey, “This world is full, oh so full, of crashing bores.”
The either/or worldview of Jesus contained within it a number of profound implications. If the world is the realm of darkness that needs the light of revelation, then the power of sin and the possibility of conversion are evenly distributed. Universal sin and a universal mission. With the arrival of the apocalypse, all human distinctions and values collapse, whether Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free. Everything amounts to nothing in light of the new world dawning.
An apocalyptic worldview, however, is not without its weaknesses. There are hazards to such either/or thinking.
Under the weight of the world’s miseries, Christianity’s us-vs.-them dichotomy can readily justify a retreat from all that threatens to sully the purity of one’s righteousness. Like John the Baptist, one withdraws to their monastic cell of sanctity, watching the world burn while reciting imprecatory psalms of holy ecstasy. “The godless heathens deserve everything that’s coming for them,” you say, and not untruthfully. But this safe haven is no less perilous, and the door is locked from the inside.
If not a fleeing from the world, the opposite error is equally ruinous. The line between a universal mission and a universal conquest is murky at best. Believing the obstinate world can only be subdued with greater force, the persuasion of the gospel takes a back seat to the law. If people will not willfully do what is best for them, then they must be compelled to do so. Add just a pinch of power to the ecclesial mix, and one readily concocts a recipe for evangelism by the sword or gunpoint. You might deem it a holy war for the salvation of souls, but you lose your own soul in the process.
How can one suffer at the hands of the world without a sectarian retreat from it? How does the church not gather around a holy huddle and sing along with Elvis Pressley, “Make the world go away / Just get it off my shoulder”? And what prevents Christians from conquering the world by whatever means necessary?
To Jesus, the answer was clear, and it is the most important difference between his apocalypticism and that of his forerunner, John the Baptist. Love. Not love from a distance nor a sentimental love that depends upon the worthiness of the recipient, but a love that looks the sinner in the eye and extends to them the opposite of what they deserve. The persecutor is not to be resisted but enabled. If someone takes your jacket, give him your shirt too. If he strikes you, do not fight back. But even more than that, pray for those who do you harm (Mt 5:38–43). Evil is not to be overcome with evil but with grace.
In his teaching about love, Jesus is necessarily specific. He draws upon likely, real-world examples to make his point perfectly clear, lest his hearers misunderstand. Love of enemies looks like losing, it feels like suffering, and it is supremely costly.
These were not empty words from Jesus.
When he was arrested, Jesus healed the ear of one of his captors. He was beaten, whipped, and mocked while the crowds that hailed him as king shouted, “Crucify him.” He did not resist or protest or call upon legions of angels to fight. He said nothing — did nothing — to oppose his persecutors.
Hanging on a cross, his breath became shallow and his heart rate slowed. He could barely lift his head to the horizon, but the fabric of the cosmos was tearing apart all around him. The skies darkened, the stars swirled, and the earth began to shake. In agony, Jesus breathed in judgment of the nations and exhaled a silent word of mercy. The apocalyptic event Jesus long foresaw was finally coming to pass, a love that bears the weight of the world’s sin and does not shrink back. The apocalypse had arrived as a surprise, most especially to those who were paying attention. The long-expected end of history became history’s decisive turning point. Not judgment but grace became the fulcrum around which all of time would revolve.
The either/or of apocalyptic thinking was not dissolved in the death and resurrection of Jesus but fulfilled in a way that holds both extremes together without collapsing. It uniquely opened up a way of relating to a fallen world without obliterating it, denying its ungodliness, or shrinking back. The sinful remain in sin but are to be loved as such without caveats or loopholes. No matter how costly such love may be. Perhaps especially if it is costly.
The world is not to be avoided by withdrawal or vanquished by might. It is not to be feared but embraced, despite its very real slings of arrows. The mercy given by Jesus to his followers is the same mercy given to others. Though the world might be covered in darkness, it is not irredeemable. Every persecutor is just someone else to be forgiven. Every enemy is just someone else in need of grace.
