Daniel 12:1-3; Psalm You are my inheritance O Lord; Heb 10:11-14, 18; Mk 13:24-32
As we move toward the end of the Liturgical year, as we approach the feast of Christ the King, our readings point toward the end times.
Daniel tells us " in that time..." and the words on the lips of Jesus direct us toward "those days..."
Both readings direct us to look ahead, look forward, and speak of what will come in the end times.
As we ponder the readings, we get a sense that there will be great upheaval, cosmic distress and disorder. The world is falling apart, crumbling around and lives are being shaken, shattered and torn.
In the history of Christianity there have been many who have focused their attention on the end times, what will come. And numerous men and women who have done so have often lost their focus and shifted from what will come to when it will come.
Many have professed to be in the know, to have the inside scoop, to know when was when; with great fervor, great study, great excitement, great diligence they predicted the end, only to end themselves in greater failure.
Just name few:
992 a group of Christians proclaimed the world would end because the feast of the Annunciation was on the same day as Good Friday; obviously the fervor subsided when 993 came around.
Nostradamus a french astrologer and self-proclaimed prophet predicted the world would end when Easter fell on April 25. This has happen in the year 1666, 1734, 1886, 1943 and again in 2038. Yet, here we are still waiting and wondering.
In 1346 at the onslaught of the BLack Death, the plague that swept over Europe, many believed in to be the beginning of the end. Here we are still alive and still struggling with sickness.
Charles Russell the founder of the heretical sect known as the Jehovah's witness and the Watchtower Society predicted the world to end in 1914, then again in 1918, 1925, 1975, 1995. In fact some 9 times they predicted the world to end and 9 times they changed their prediction.
Even Joseph Smith and Ellen White the founders of two other heretical sects: Mormons and Seventh Day Adventist predicted the world would end in the 1800. The world is here but they are not.
In 1988 a book was written, "88 reasons the world will end in 1988." It was followed by a sequel, "89 reasons why the world will end in 1989."
In the Year 2000, many were crazed for the end times. Water was flying off the shelves as people were anticipating the end of the world as we know it.
A hotel in the Holy Land to take advantage of the craze by offering invites to come watch the world end overlooking the Mt. Olives.
Of course, now we are dealing with 2012, and the Mayan Calendar. Do they really have the inside scoop.
When we focus on the when we lose sight of the what. It it the what will come that is of most importance; when it comes it will come.
What is it that we are waiting for. It is the consummation of history as we know it. God will definitively step in to history and change our lives for ever, for eternity. When life as w eknow it crumbles and the world falls apart, God is breaking in.
This is what the end is about. It is about God breaking into our lives more fully then has already been.
The end times prepares us for this time. Many of us have already experienced our world falling apart. In those moments, God wants to break into our life that we might surrender more readily and be dependent more perfectly.
Here is the good news of the end times.
The fact that we do not know the "day nor the hour" means we are in the know, we have the upper hand. Not knowing the day nor the hour means we have to let this day and this hour be the moment of God breaking into our lives, our city, our world. We have to let this time be the time we take nothing for granted and we live our life fully prepared so as to find our names int he book of life.
The end times gives us a glimpse of what is most certain amidst all the uncertainty.
The Apocalyptic literature as we find it in Daniel and the Gospel is not written to scare us but strengthen us and comfort us. It reminds us of the defining characteristics of Christianity, that we have a future.
We have a future, a future that is not founded on emptiness, a future that does not end in the cold damp ground, but a future filled with real possibilities, a future filled with the fullness of life.
It is this future that makes the present worth living, worth enduring. It empowers us forward.
This is the hope that engenders movement and allows God to break in each and every day no matter when the end will arrive.
The Eucharist celebrate is a foretaste of that breaking forth of God in our lives. Jesus comes to us in a real way to fill our lives with his presence, to strengthen our resolve, to etch our names in the book of life with a life lived in faith.
