the End Time

From Luke, but also from Isaiah 65 (Malachi 4 if a parish is on lectionary track 2), the gospel reading for this coming Sunday (scroll down) is an early warning of the Advent Season, stirring excitement that Christmas is here again with warning that the End Time is at hand. "Incoming" in two senses, one quite ominous that we ignore; the other, starting hype before Halloween, as secular as the pagan winter solstice festival it was meant to supplant but doesn't. 

Not a judgment, just a fact. Except for Mr. Scrooge, we more naturally celebrate than contemplate, and I'm okay with that.

Online there's a website for Episcopalians that a post catches my eye now and then. Up too early and dark with a mug of black, this morning I scrolled down it for the first time. Interesting. Lots of prayer requests (if you see a prayer request, someone is hurting, share by pausing to think the name to God). Some typical Episcopal certainties about how liturgy is supposed to be, and how great the old lightbulb was. It also works as a forum, so there's back and forth, and unlike most Comment sections online, I saw no hate or meanness. I did see a lot from relative newcomers to TEC, and from others trying to help them. 

We can be noticed and we can notice ourselves. Not a monolith, we take the Bible variously, some literalist and inerrantist, maybe most not, but we know that diversity about ourselves and no one seems to disdain those who are not like themselves. As with the Bible, same with the nature of Christianity. I think with most it's the love of God; my view is more the Baptismal Covenant and what I used to teach in confirmation classes, that a Christian is a person who, because of believing what the Bible tells about Jesus of Nazareth, strives to live life in a certain way, specifically the Way of the Cross; which is not that God loves me but that because God loves me, I am expected, and expect myself, to be kind. What? chesed, agape, lovingkindness, sacrificial for others. Christianity is a Therefore kind of thing, God loves me, therefore I must love others where in fact my love is how God loves. 

There's always that End Time that's the nature of Advent, which for some centuries the church held as forty purple days before white Christmas just like purple Lent before white Easter. What's the End Time? Is it about salvation, whatever that may be? I don't know, I think we struggle to the top of the hill and look over to see what's on the other side. Contemplating, I don't anticipate "today you will be with me in paradise", I'm more with Paul about asleep in Christ until the trumpet sounds. 

When might that be? At the end of Time when the universe quits expanding, comes to a halt, and goes to absolute zero? IDK, it's the Creator's domain, and I've got more than I can deal with here just being, as Anglican evangelist Bryan Green preached, a speck on a speck.

W

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Luke 21:5-19

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."

They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?" And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, `I am he!' and, `The time is near!' Do not go after them.

"When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

"But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."