Rev Joan Van Becelaere

Reprinted from the UUJO Blog, posted on April 30, 2020

Some say we are at a time of Apocalypse.  Frankly, I hope we are. The word Apocalypse doesn’t mean what many think it means.  It does not mean the End or a Cataclysm.  Rather, in the Greek, it means “unveiling” or “revelation.”

When our present Apocalypse is understood as “unveiling,” we can then ask the right questions: What does this pandemic unveil? What have we refused to see about ourselves and the precarious world we’ve built, a world that now stands exposed and tottering in the harsh light of this unasked-for revelation? If we permit this crisis to expose the fissures of our failing world, this pandemic will have served as properly apocalyptic and prophetic purpose.

But John was also a prophet and he pointed to a new future.   arrival of a New Heaven and a New Earth.  The image he painted was built on ancient Hebrew prophetic hope for a future of justice and true community.

If we are able to awaken to what is unveiled in this apocalyptic moment, perhaps we will make our way forward into a changed new world rather than shore up the miseries of the old one.