Sunday, November 27, 2011

Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. (First Thessalonians 5:11) 

Advent begins with reflections on the end of human history, and a reminder that it not only Christ's first coming as a child that we are preparing for, but his second coming as "lord of lords." In my notes for our parish newsletter, I recently wrote some reflections about eschatology. I suggested that a "theology of the end times" that is rooted in stirring up more fear and anxiety is not of Christ. I was writing about Mark 13, the gospel reading for this day from the Eucharistic lectionary that we'll hear in worship. But I think the same insight applies to these words that Paul wrote to the Church in Thessalonica.

Francis of Assisi, we are told, was asked one day while hoeing a row of beans what he would do if this were the day the world was to end. Francis very calmly responded, "I think I'd like to finish hoeing this row of beans." 

All created things have a beginning and an end: human beings, institutions, nations… only God is immortal. Only God is without beginning or end. Everything else, even the sun and moon and stars, will one day come to an end.How then, should we in the Church contemplate endings? I think the first day of Advent is a cosmic version of the first day of Lent, when we remember that we are dust. The whole cosmos is dust! 

What do we do in the face of that reality? We get busy living! We keep encouraging each other! We build up the Body of Christ! We do the work God has given us to do!  

As you are already doing! 



(Rich Simpson)