Not the End, But New Birth

As human beings we seem to have always been impressed by successful people, large incomes and large and beautiful buildings. We read in Mark 13:1-8, that as Jesus and his disciples exited the temple, one of them looked back, and impressed, said, “look, what large stones and what large buildings!” Jesus, not so impressed, replied, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” Later, as Jesus and his crew were sitting around on the Mount of Olives, Peter, James and John asked Jesus, “when will this happen?” Jesus cautioned them to be very careful about predicting the end. “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.” Good advice to which we should pay attention, even in our day.

Jesus is not prophesying so much as describing the world as it is. Then he calls the disciples, calls us, to look not at the world as it is, but as it can be: to look for the beginning, not the end, to look for birth not death. There are many examples of death and destruction in our day, always have been, always will be: the attacks of September 11, 2001, Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, the current wild fires in California, unending wars in the Middle East, political murders and politics in the USA and around the world,  just to name a few. These rightly cause us despair and could even lead us to believe that the end is near. BUT, Jesus says, “not yet! I have a better plan, and guess what, you are that plan!” 

The Prophet Joel (2:1-3, 12-17) proclaims on behalf of the Lord, “Your young me and women will dream dreams and your old men and women will have visions.” Like the ancient Hebrews, we are called to share in God’s dreams and visions for the world as it can be. Then God sends us to work: to pray without ceasing, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to welcome the stranger, to do unto others as we would have them do to us, to” feed the hungry, cloth the naked, bring release to the captives and proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19) In this we become co-creators with God in bringing about God’s Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

In another time of trials and tribulation in the world, John the Divine wrote words of comfort and hope to the Christians in what we now call the Book of Revelation (21:1-5). “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’

The Peoples of the Earth: Divided and United

The Christian Year is a journey, which, like a Labyrinth or a golf course begins and ends at the same place. No matter what happens in a year of our lives, good times or bad times, joys or sorrows, just as in a round of Golf or walking the Labyrinth, at the end is a new beginning. The Christian year begins and ends and begins again, not with a baby Jesus, that comes later, but with the Cosmic Christ, in mystery and hope.

“Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule.” (Prayer for the last Sunday of the year, Book of Common Prayer, 236.)

And who are the peoples of the Earth who are so divided and enslaved by sin? I answer that question by quoting two songs. First from singer, song writer, and in my opinion, Theologian, Jimmy Buffett in his 1994 song, “Fruitcakes,” and then Donovan in his 1965 hit, “The Universal Soldier.”

First from Buffett: “Where’s the church, who took the steeple, the God’s honest truth is it’s not that simple. It’s the Buddhist in you, it’s the Pagan in me, it’s the Muslim in him, she’s Catholic ain’t she? It’s the born again look, it’s the WASP and the Jew, tell me what’s going on, I ain’t got a clue.”

And thirty years earlier from Donovan: “He’s been a soldier for a thousand years. . .He’s a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain, a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew. And he knows he shouldn’t kill and he knows he always will. Kill you for me my friend and me for you. And he’s fighting for Canada, He’s fighting for France, He’s fighting for the USA. And he’s fighting for the Russians and he’s fighting for Japan, and he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way.”

Kingdoms against kingdoms, peoples against peoples, “my side is better than your side.” Human greed and jealousy and the need to be right and better than the other have throughout history lead to division and enslavement to sin as our prayer tells us. In John’s Gospel (18:33-37), Jesus and Pilate confront each other on the nature of kings and kingdoms and truth. Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king and Jesus replies, “my kingdom is not from this world.” Jesus’ implication is that his kingdom is more important and higher than any earthly kingdom. But we must be careful with Jesus’ statement here: though Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, it is in this world and this world is very important to Jesus, to God: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

If the world is important to God, then what we do on this Earth matters greatly, and we truly become co-workers with Jesus, co-creators with God in bringing about God’s kingdom on Earth. We become the hands and feet of Christ as we work to bring freedom to those enslaved by sin, ourselves included, and to bring together a divided humanity.

We believe Jesus Christ is the faithful witness to God the Creator, the first born of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the Earth. We believe the Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us into the truth Pilate was looking for, and that that truth will restore all things on Earth as well as in Heaven, free us from our slavery to sin and bring us together as one people of God.

Life is Changed, Not Ended

Halloween was just plain fun for me as a child. I could dress up as something spooky, a ghost or a skeleton or some kind of ferocious beast. Halloween is a custom which dates back to pre-Christian Northern Europe, a location where winters are cold, dark, scary and long. The people would thumb their noses at fear of death by dressing up in skins of animals and other frightening figures, asserting their control over evil. As Christianity spread throughout Europe in the fifth century and beyond, Christians adopted this custom to assert belief in victory over fear and death.

This custom evolved into what I like to call, “three Holy Days:” Halloween or All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day and All Souls Day. By the way, the root word for Halloween is the same as the word for Hallowed in the Lord’s Prayer. In this unitive feast we celebrate the victory of good over evil and we remember all those saints of God, known and unknown, who have gone before us, whom we love but see no more. As a seminarian in Chicago, we celebrated by parading around the school block with incense, hymns and prayers, proclaiming that “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me” (Psalm 23), thus acknowledging that in our baptism, “we are buried with Christ in his death, and will be raised with him in his resurrection.

Holy Scripture affirms that life will be victorious over death, good will ultimately conquer evil, and God will be with us always. God proclaims through the Eighth Century B.C. Prophet, Isaiah, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. (Isaiah 25:6-9)

Over eight hundred years later, John the Divine writes on behalf of the Lord, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. ‘See, I am making all things new.’” (Revelation 21:1-6) At the Grave of his friend Lazarus, Jesus weeps, then calls Lazarus out of the grave and tells those with him to “unbind him and let him go.” For God’s people, life is changed, not ended.

When we lose a loved one, as many of us have these past few weeks, we mourn their loss, we miss their earthly presence. But we also celebrate their glory in God’s glory, for we know, as Isaiah, John the Divine and Jesus knew, that “for God’s faithful people, life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens.” (Book of Common Prayer, page 382)