A look at the gaps in the lectionary.
This week: the gap between Advent 1B and 2B
The text: none
In the first week of Advent, we jump from Matthew into Mark 13, the Little Apocalypse. For the second week of Advent, we return to the beginning. The very first verses of the gospel.
The move is very much from the end to the beginning—a sensation that ought to make sense given our devotion to resurrection. The end begets a beginning.
This is a concept that we, Christians do struggle to remember, however. That ends are not the end. That life springs from death. That creation lives, dies, and lives. Our own existential fears of death are powerful. But they do not contain reality.
Proceeding to the beginning from the end has a way of kindling in us the spark of new creation that actually comes to us in the incarnation. That this isn’t just the story of Jesus—as if there is nothing of value before or after it. But that it is placed within a story of relationship. Our relationship to God and God’s relationship to us.
The apocalyptic reminder, that there is something far beyond the physical decades of Jesus’s life for us to consider, grants us a kind of new sight of the scripture. And to the gospel itself.
So when we read this week:
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
we hear it with a sense of knowing. Not hearing for the first time. But as if our ears are being opened to us in the hearing.
Yes, this is good news. For us. And for the whole world.