My Eschaton

Lent 2B. 20150301. HNEC, Panama City, FL

The Coming of the Son of Man. MK 8:31-38

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Lent, I am remembering, and contemplating eternity; and I shall speak of it, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. You may be seated.

Who, who is this Son of Man of whom Jesus often speaks? Inevitably in my mind it whirls visions of Daniel 7. Apocalyptic, Daniel’s dream, he is told by the angel when it’s all over, is a vision of the eschaton, the end of time when God’s kingdom is established on earth under the reign of God’s regent. In his vision Daniel encounters God, the Ancient of Days; and then his dream, which has become Bible prophecy for us, the Word of the Lord, introduces that regent, whom he calls “k’bar enash” --

“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, k’bar enash one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

“And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14 KJV)

Whether because the music and words are so majestic, or emotionally because of powerful and beloved memories, I am not sure; but a lifelong favorite is a hymn we call (by its tune name) “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate,” in our Hymnal, number 370, a hymn of the Holy Trinity --

I bind unto myself today, the strong Name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same, the three in one and one in three.
I bind this day to me forever, by power of faith, Christ’s incarnation. His baptism in the Jordan River, his death on cross for my salvation.

And a verse especially and most powerfully for me, perhaps because of youthful memories of singing it lustily while looking out over white sand and across the sea beyond the horizon and into my own unknown, the verse -- as a youth -- a child -- speaking as a child, understanding as a child, thinking as a child -- before years, decades and half-centuries of living through what life and love and the world and time do to us -- this verse --

I bind unto myself this day,

the virtues of the starlit heaven,

the glorious sun’s life-giving ray,

the whiteness of the moon at even,

the flashing of the lightning free,

the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,

the stable earth, the deep salt sea,

around the old eternal rocks.

That powerful conversion hymn that I sang in my youth -- when it seemed that life and love could not but go on forever, and to make the most powerful observances of Trinity Sunday, and especially for me personally at my ordination as priest among people who loved me so dearly that the Holy Spirit spoke powerfully to me through them, music so moving and magnificent, powerful words that are said to have come from St. Patrick himself, a song of Ireland, the hymn is to me the essence of eternity as God the Father anoints the Son of Man and sends him forth, his dominion an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. That is eternity.

That is eternity, a theological notion beyond space and time, that has no beginning and no end. Eschaton, the End of Time, either my time or all time, has no meaning, force or power in or over Eternity, the deep salt sea, around the old eternal rocks.

Earth Abides. Nothwithstanding The Road, Earth Abides.

But it does not -- abide.

This week I did something that emotionally struck me down. I gave away my telescope. My beloved telescope. I would not have sold it, but a friend suggested I offer it to the Junior Museum -- the Science and Discovery Center. I took my grandchildren there often when they were small - and also to the Junior Museum in Tallahassee, especially Nicholas and Kristen. So this week, after delaying for weeks, I put it in my car, took it there, and they were delighted to have it. It was part of me, part of my life since 1964, and driving away from it was emotional trauma. Genesis One is only words on a page, you see, but God’s creation is real, and you can look at it and touch part of it, and I discovered Creation with my telescope,

roamed the universe, went to the moon, circled Saturn with its rings,
watched entranced the moons of Jupiter as they move back and forth along their straight line plane on a flat disk that is actually a circular orbit around that giant planet,
found galaxies of all shapes.
One clear, cold, pitch black night half a century ago, after some research about when and where to look, I found the planet Neptune, a tiny green disk so far away in the eastern sky, it’s too dim for the naked eye.
My children and grandchildren used my beloved telescope for science projects.

Looking, as Eucharistic Prayer C says, at galaxies and stars, beyond this fragile earth, our island home, I realized that eternity is beyond human knowing. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved over churning chaos. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. (Gn 1:1f). But there’s a puzzle, you see, a puzzle in that --

If the conundrum bothers me, pointing out sagely, chuckling knowingly, as Bible sophomores are want to do, that the “P Writer” of Genesis One has God create light before creating the sun and the moon (and the stars), if that bothers me, then as J. B. Phillips wrote, Your God Is Too Small. When God speaks, light bursts forth -- light and life, being, essence -- and somewhere untold eons beyond the Word, come sun and moon, the stable earth, the deep salt sea, and the old eternal rocks.

But I have looked and seen the great immensity. I have peered into the heavens by telescope, and seen that the rocks are NOT eternal, and neither am I:

I am dust and to dust shall I return.

I am Waiting for Godot. In some absurdist theater of time and space, I am Estragon waiting for God’oh -- the Lord God of my fathers, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ.

With those who love Jesus, I am waiting for my Eschaton, and the coming of the Son of Man in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels.

TW+