*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

This time last year I posted The First Sunday of Advent. (Last year December 3, this year, December 1) And about how that First Sunday starts both a new church year and a four-week church season that calls us to look four different directions: “back to the past, forward to the future, upwards to heaven, and downwards to earth.” I added that it’s a time of anticipation, and not just for Christmas. Then I hearkened back to a blog post on Advent in 2020:

The first Sunday of Advent is the start of a new liturgical year, and yet there is a continuity with the end of the liturgical year just finished… One does not have to be a prophet of doom to recognize that this year [2020] has been filled with terrible events… We need God to come and fix a broken world. The season of Advent is about [the] “devout and expectant delight” that God will do that. [Fix a broken world that is…]

Those comments – from a post back in 2020 – showed the blogger was right. 2020 was filled with bad events that presented a host of problems, old and new. They included a just-new COVID epidemic and an Election That Seemed Like It Would Never End. And this time last year I said that 2023 would also present even more daunting problems, but then again – as the Bible says – “man is born to trouble as as sparks fly upward.” And it looks as if – in 2025, the new year starting after this Advent 2024 – the trouble and the sparks promise to continue.

On the plus side, the troubling uncertainty that marked the last year or two is over. In the election just past the Sovereign People made their choice. Which means – by all accounts – that we are about to embark on a new adventure in which the limits of American democracy will be tested. Which makes this a good time for a parable of sorts. That is, a short simple story that teaches or explains an idea, “especially a moral or religious idea.”

This parable takes us back to the Children of Israel wandering in the wilderness. It’s also about how they came up with an early version of “Golden Age Fallacy.” For starters, they were slaves in Egypt for 400 years, and that form of slavery was both “evil in motive and cruel in nature:”

Work may be physically and mentally taxing, but that does not make it wrong. What made the situation in Egypt unbearable was not only the slavery but also its extreme harshness. The Egyptian masters worked the Israelites “ruthlessly” (befarekh, Exod. 1:13, 14) and made their lives “bitter” (marar, Exod. 1:14) with “hard” (qasheh , in the sense of “cruel,” Exod. 1:14; 6:9) service. As a result, Israel languished in “misery” and “suffering” (Exod. 3:7) and a “broken spirit” (Exod. 6:9). Work, one of the chief purposes and joys of human existence (Gen. 1:27-31; 2:15), was turned into a misery by the harshness of oppression.

But later on they changed their view of that harsh misery and oppression. Simply put, they reinvented history because they couldn’t handle the problems that come with freedom.

Simple solution? Blame somebody. As in Exodus 16:3, where they blamed Moses for the fact that they couldn’t handle their new-found freedom. (It turned out harder to handle than expected.) “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Another example? Numbers 11:5, “We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.” And also Numbers 16:13, “Is it not enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? Must you also appoint yourself as ruler over us?”

But they didn’t sit around pots of meat and eat all they wanted. What happened? Those ancient Hebrews may have been the first – in recorded history anyway – to fall victim to the Golden Age Fallacy. Feeling nostalgic about a past that never was. The problem? “Nostalgia is denial – denial of the painful present.” And who falls prey to such fallacies? People who “find it difficult to cope with the present.” (See also Political Lies: Altering Facts and Rewriting History.)

And again, who did the Children of Israel blame for their problems? Moses, the agent of God who delivered them out of slavery. And just to reiterate: They did not sit around pots of meat and eat all they wanted back in Egypt. There were no great quantities of fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and other goodies. They were slaves, and they were given slave rations; just enough to keep them functioning, barely. As such they initially reveled in being set free, but then found out they couldn’t handle it. Being “free” was harder than they thought.

I also wrote in a past post that “a free people doesn’t go back in time, and especially not to a ‘better time that never was.’” Except that in the election just past, the Sovereign People seem to have done just that. So what happens now? In the case of those Children of Israel reinventing history – wanting to back to a time that never was – their journey to the Promised Land from Egypt should have taken no more than 11 days. Instead it took 40 years, 40 years of mostly wandering around in circles, and not just metaphorically.

Oh yeah, there was also that moment, “Woe unto you, Israel! You have sinned a great sin.” I just hope we don’t have to spend 40 years wandering out of this Wilderness we’re entering.

*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

The upper image is courtesy of Advent 2024 – Image Results.

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

“Feast days” are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

Past-post sources on ancient Hebrew whining in the wilderness include On Moses getting stoned, January 2016, and July 4, 2024 – and a “What would have happened?” See also, from March 2017, On Moses and Paul “dumbing it down.”

Past-post sources on Advent include December 2020, Advent, and a “new beginning,” Advent 2021 – “Enjoy yourself,” On Advent ’22, Tradents, and “Scriptio continua,” On Advent 2022 – and St. Andrew, and On Advent 2023 – “Happy New (Liturgical) Year!”

The “evil in motive and cruel in nature” quote is courtesy of The Harshness of the Israelites’ Slave Labor in Egypt. See also The Golden Age Fallacy – Beyond the Rhetoric.

The Sovereign People reference. See Constitution101: The Sovereignty of the People:

The federal government acts like it stands as sovereign in the American system, but that was never intended by those who created it. In fact, the federal government was never meant to serve as anything more than an agent, exercising the specific powers delegated by the true sovereign – the people… While many Americans assume the federal government sits at the top of the power pyramid, it actually belongs on the bottom.

Something to keep in mind over the next four years…

On why the 40 years for an 11-day journey, see Why did Israel spend 40 years in the wilderness? – BibleAsk and Why was Israel cursed with forty years of wilderness wandering?

I borrowed the lower image from the March 2016 post, On Eastertide – and “artistic license.”See also The Ten Commandments (1956 film) – Wikipedia. I was originally going to use an image courtesy of Wandering In The Wilderness Image – Image Results. It came with a page, Take Bread Crumbs: We Really Do Walk in Circles When Lost, which noted “people really do literally wander in circles when there are no visual clues to keep them on track. The behavior has been observed in other animals before, but until recently it hadn’t been studied in humans.” (Interesting.)

I borrowed the caption from the May 2014 post, On Moses and “illeism.” I tried to go back and bring it up to date, but failed. It was just too old, so I left it that way it was, in part so the reader can see whatever progress I may have made and what this platform sometimes does to old images.

*   *   *   *