Ordinary Time

Feb 11 2025

Reflection-Visions of the End

In the 1400s, artists depicted Doom. Jan Van Eyck painted grisly naked bodies, deformed and in torment, with a skull-like figure hovering over them. Hans Memling depicted the Last Judgment with bodies flung about; a demon seizes a helpless man by the ankle and smashes a foot on his neck. The people of Europe had just come through one of the most hellish centuries in memory—war, famine, and bubonic plague had decimated Europe. They had seen dead bodies. They had seen people starve. The artwork reflected that desolation. Where was God in all that tribulation? The mild Jesus of the thirteenth century’s artists was gone. The art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries tended to portray God as harsh, judgmental, and aloof. If you needed help, go ask his mother or one of the other saints. God wasn’t likely to help you.

Where are we now? When we hear Jesus talk this week about tribulations and stars falling from the sky, is this more real than it used to be? Could we be wiped out by war, or famine, or disease? When the prophet Daniel speaks of a “time unsurpassed in distress,” does that feel more like a possibility?

I know a young woman who lost two of her grandparents in one day during the COVID-19 pandemic. The immediate response was, “God, where are you in this?” If desolation goes on for a hundred years, as it did in the fourteenth century, will our perspective of God change? Will we believe that God is likely to help us?

Jesus says that we cannot know the day or the hour of the end. But with the psalmist, we ask for the grace to hang onto a belief in a good end, believing God will not abandon us to Sheol, the land of the dead. God alone is our inheritance!

Consider/Discuss

How has your perspective about the end-times changed since five or ten years ago? Have recent tribulations altered your perception of God? If so, how? If not, why not?
Many recent movies and shows deal with apocalyptic scenarios. Have you seen one that has impacted you? How do the protagonists deal with the end-of-the-world trials that they face? Where is/isn’t faith in God present in those end-times situations? Six centuries from now, how will people look back and see how our artists are depicting the Divine in the twenty-first century?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, from your words, you appear to have a long perspective. While we measure time in days and years, you see things in centuries and eons. If heaven and earth pass away, will your words not also pass away? That is hard for us to envision. Give us your eyesight this day. The end of the world is a scary prospect and we cannot handle that without your help. Strengthen us this day for whatever the future brings. In the midst of our fears, be our Peace. When trials come, be our Rock. No matter what happens, show us the path of life and allow us to glorify you forever.

Feb 11 2025

Visions of the End

The reading from the book of Daniel contains the only clear Old Testament reference to resurrection. The passage is situated in a section that focuses on the persecutions and sufferings of the faithful during the period of Greek rule. In standard apocalyptic language, the oracle foresees the day when God’s armies—led by the angel Michael—will come to the aid of God’s people. Those who have been faithful to God will escape the “unsurpassed distress” that will ensue when God comes to set things right. Those faithful, the “wise,” who have died will awake to live “like the stars forever” (perhaps referring to the heavenly host of angels). The unfaithful, however, will endure the everlasting disgrace merited by their wickedness.

Having established that Christ’s priesthood is perfect and that this priesthood now makes the older system unnecessary, Hebrews goes on to discuss the implications of this for believers. Christ’s sacrifice makes possible not only the forgiveness of sins, but actual salvation. The older sacrifices could atone for sins, but they could not take them away, as Christ’s does. This leaves the believers fundamentally changed, and now they are (potentially, at least) “made perfect forever.” Christ himself is now in the presence of God, not only as intercessor, but as heir and conqueror of all the forces that oppose him, including sin itself.

The Gospel reading is sometimes called the Markan apocalypse, featuring as it does several standard tropes from Jewish apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic thought looked forward to the day when God or God’s Messiah would defeat the evil forces that currently inhabit and corrupt the world. History and the world as we know them will come to an end, a new age will begin, and God’s sovereignty will be recognized by all. The Son of Man, an image derived from Daniel, represents the messianic figure who will bring judgment on the wicked and vindicate the righteous during the final days. The cosmic catastrophe at the beginning of the reading is the sign that the time has arrived, that the world is coming to an end, and a new era is beginning.

Jan 30 2025

All’s Well That Ends Well

The end of the church year directs our attention to what scripture says about the end of time. Two of the words used to describe these texts are not part of our ordinary vocabulary: apocalyptic, which refers to receiving a “revelation” in a vision of something concealed up until now, and eschatological, which points to events of the endtime or final age (the eschaton), when the evil powers make their final struggle with God and are defeated.

These readings have one important point to make: that all will be well. God is in charge, even when it seems that everything is coming to a catastrophic end. As we hear in the first reading today, God has designated the angelic guardian Michael to watch over the people. Such a time will prove that how one lives life has consequences. The book of Daniel offers a word of consolation to the wise and those leaders who championed God’s justice.

In the Gospel Mark’s Jesus speaks of the coming of the Son of Man in great power and glory. While Jesus indicates in Mark’s Gospel that this would happen soon, such was not the case. We continue to wait on the Lord.

When we pray the Our Father we always say, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Someone asked recently why we pray that God not lead us into temptation, finding it strange to think of God doing such a thing. What we pray for is that God not let us fail in the final testing that everyone has to undergo.

Consider/Discuss

Does the idea of an “endtime” have meaning for you?
Do you find comfort in the message of these texts or do they evoke another response?

Responding to the Word

Loving God, you created all that is in the heavens and on the earth; we know our future is in your hands. Help us to entrust ourselves to your mercy and care. Do not allow temptation to overwhelm us, but send your Spirit to lead us into your kingdom, where your Son reigns forever and ever.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

Today’s apocalyptic scene is part of the revelation granted to the prophet Daniel. It depicts the final struggle at the end of time and the subsequent resurrection to a life of horror or one of glorification. The distress is probably that final tribulation that will come to pass before the appearance of the final reign of God. Known as the “birth pangs of the messiah,” the agony preceded the birth of the reign of God. Daniel is told that those whose names appear in the book (the Book of the Righteous) will be spared. They may have to endure the agony of the endtime, but they will escape ultimate destruction.

This explanation of the unique sacrifice of Christ re-interprets an understanding of the Jewish practice of sin offering. The singular status of Jesus the priest and the inestimable value of Jesus the victim set his sacrifice apart from all others. Total and complete expiation has been accomplished through him. There is no need for Jesus to stand and offer another sacrifice. Therefore, he takes his seat next to God in glory. Jesus has decisively expiated all sin and conquered all evil. He has been able to accomplish what the sacrificial system of Israel, despite its preeminence, has been unable to achieve.

Mark describes the character and appearance of the end of time through allusions to earlier apocalyptic traditions. Chief among them are the reference to the tribulations that precede the advent of the new age and the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds. Cosmic occurrences will accompany the distress that will take hold of the world. The coming of the Son of Man in the clouds, an allusion to the mysterious figure found in the book of Daniel (7:13), heralds the advent of the new age. The exact time of the coming of the new age is shrouded in mystery. The lesson to be learned from all this: Be prepared!

Jan 30 2025

A Window on Widows

My earliest memory of a widow was Aunt Lizzie: white-haired, seemingly very old, but kindly. (I was four, so she was probably in her sixties then—how one’s perspective on age changes with time!) She lived with my godmother and uncle, having contributed some of her savings to help them buy a house. My second memory was of Lana Turner playing The Merry Widow in the 1952 movie of the same name. Both were light years away, historically and culturally, from the widows in today’s readings.

The widows in biblical times were imperiled. If they did not have sons who would care for them, their very lives could be endangered. The widow in the first reading has a young son; she is collecting sticks to build a fire to prepare the last of her flour so they can eat and die. When Elijah asks her to prepare a cake for him, she generously does so—which proves to be her salvation. Later he even restores her son to life.

Jesus watches a widow put in her last—literally—two cents in the temple’s coffers. He has previously warned about the scribes who “devour the houses of widows” while reciting lengthy prayers. Some say Jesus is lamenting the foolishness of this widow, like the prophets of the past who railed against the neglect of widows and orphans. But most think he is praising her generosity in giving “all she had, her whole livelihood.” Like her, Jesus will soon put all his trust in the Father.

Consider/Discuss

Do you see the widow in the Gospel as foolish, generous, or in another way?
What would it cost you to put all your trust in the Lord?

Responding to the Word

God of all, you have called to your people from the time of Moses and through your prophets past and present, but most especially through your Son, Jesus, to care for your little ones, for the poor, and the stranger. Help us today to be attentive and active doers of your word.