Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was a French army officer whose trial for treason deeply marked the political and social history of France for almost a century. Dreyfus was the son of a wealthy Jewish textile manufacturer who joined the military and rose to the rank of captain. He was assigned to the War Ministry when, in 1894, he was accused of selling military secrets to Germany. He was arrested, convicted and in 1895 was sentenced to life imprisonment on the infamous Devil’s Island, off French Guiana. Public opinion and the press, gravely anti-Semitic, harshly welcomed the verdict and the sentence.
Family and friends of Dreyfus eventually discovered that Major Walter Esterhazy had handwritten a note revealing some military information, signed Dreyfus’ name to the note, dropped it into an office waste basket where a janitor noticed it, and handed it onto higher authority. Esterhazy fled to London. Dreyfus was granted a new trial but was oddly still found guilty so rampant was the anti-Semitism of the day. Only when the French president and the parliament intervened was Dreyfus cleared of all convictions. In 1906, officially to repudiate still rampant anti-Semitism, Dreyfus was decorated with the Legion of Honor. The French Army did not correct its records until 1995.
The Jewish nation is presently at war in the Middle East. The unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust during World War II are rightly but sadly preserved in everyone’s memory. The miserable lot of Eastern European Jewry under the Czars was not quite as pleasant as a Broadway musical portrayed. Much of the Christian world had long dismissed the Hebrew nation as guilty of crimes against the very Son of God himself. Modern history, from Dreyfus to Hitler, has only repeated ancient history. Four hundred years of slavery in Egypt, seventy years of exile in Babylon, assorted raids by Assyria and Persia, and a final dispersal of the Jews from Judea in 130AD by Rome at Masada, certainly justify the many grim passages in the Hebrew Scriptures about distress, dismay, and disaster. Apocalyptic literature, as the Bible’s graphic depictions of woe and misery are often labelled, seems perfectly justified in the light of Jewish history. The Jews have had every right to grieve. Yet the Jews, guided by Scripture, also have had every right to hope.
In this coming Sunday’s Gospel account, Jesus, through the pen of St. Luke, employs similar apocalyptic imagery in preparing his first followers for the fulfillment that his return at the end time will inaugurate. Jesus speaks of heavenly disarray, of oceanic disturbances, of national distress, and of imminent difficulties. Here the Master is echoing the literary techniques of the prophets Joel, Zechariah, Daniel and even Isaiah. These prophets depict the present times as vividly grim: earthquakes, cyclones, floods and cosmic disturbances are graphically highlighted. Yet their view of the future is hopeful: a divine intervention will spark a reversal of history and a restoration of righteousness. The initial depictions of stress and strife will yield to scenes of victory and vindication in the new world to come. Jesus accordingly includes fulfillment following frustration in his later words to his disciples in this Sunday’s Gospel: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is near at hand.”
The Jewish world from slavery under pharaoh through anti-Semitism toward Dreyfus and beyond has endured hard times. Yet true to the spirit of the later prophets they have persevered confident that worldly woe is just a prelude to ultimate satisfaction. Christians too must not be shaken from their belief in the goodness of God when tested by personal setbacks, political turmoil, or profound disappointments. The foundation of authentic and enduring Christian hope is not the world’s history which more often than not is a cheat and a disappointment. Christian hope goes beyond history to rely solely on God’s “almighty power and infinite mercy and promises,” as the traditional Act of Hope wisely professes. Yes, Jesus speaks today of dismay, fright, and shaken powers. Mankind has every reason to be concerned. But Jesus also speaks today of power and great glory and redemption being near at hand. It is such Divine promises that are the enduring source of Christian hope and that must fortify the soul and enlighten the mind and strengthen the heart in challenging and confusing times. Apocalyptic words should not just alert the ear and open the eye; they should provoke confidence and prompt hope in the power and promises of God to resolve all conflicts and restore every breach.
