ready or not
We remember his death,
We proclaim his resurrection,
We await his coming in glory.
Always rejoice, unceasingly pray, in everything give thanks; this indeed is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you. The spirit do not quench, prophecies do not despise, however test all things, to the good hold fast, from every form of evil abstain.
This is our Second Reading (we used to call it “the Epistle”) for tomorrow, the Third Sunday of Advent, which season remember is not about baking chocolate chip cookies and pouring a glass of milk as we watch and wait for Santa Claus, but about “he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” In the reading, which as usual is unfortunately a snippet because we don’t have the patience to listen to the whole letter, Paul is finishing his letter to his church at Thessalonica by telling them how to live as they await Jesus’ imminent return at the Day of the Lord -- Paul being an apocalypticist who thought that in his lifetime the old world order would come to an end as God ushered in his new kingdom with the -- the Greek word is παρουσίᾳ (parousia, “coming”) -- of Jesus Christ.
It’s an interesting doctrine whose credence may be stretched by peering out at the Milky Way that Paul did not understand. Bubba, who understands no better than Paul but very different, is not fairly seen as a Thomas, but more as a realist. It has been two thousand years, and although “a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night,” comes a point where the scene shifts from Thessalonians waiting for Christ to Vladimir and Estragon waiting for Godot. Who “doesn’t get” Beckett’s subtlety note to pronounce the English name with it’s original French accent -- GOD-oh, not ga-DOH. Paul is called the inerrant word of God, Beckett the theater of the absurd. Paul is not kidding; it is arguable that Beckett is poking fun.
Mindful of Scripture, Tradition and Reason, one may reasonably ask why the liturgical renewal of the twentieth century added the Memorial Acclamation to the Eucharistic Prayer as a theological assertion when modern Christians want to rationalize the faith from the Nicene Fathers’ creedalism back to Jesus’ call to a life of compassion, kindness, generosity, love and sacrifice. I am not sure He would recognize the Church Militant, but we can make this Season what He would make of it.
W