The Future, What Does it Hold?
The midterm elections are over and all the politicans and pundits are telling us what happened and what it means. Of course the range of interpretations about what it means are nearly as multitudinous as the number of commentators!
When things change, people react and this reaction often includes anxiety. Anxiety is plentiful these days in America and uncertainty, it seems, is paralyzing, but not for the talkers who just keep right on talking!
People are naturally interested in, and concerned about the future and consequently there is always a good market for authors, speakers and forecasters who are happy to tell us about the future....our future.
The season of Advent is about the future too. As the Christian year moves through the last Sundays of the season after Pentecost and into the new year with the First Sunday of Advent, we hear the forecasters of the Scriptures share with us their version of the future. They do not deal with deficits, or unemployment rates, or taxes: they offer no trends or prognostications. They do give us a vision that can both frighten and arouse hope.
They tell us that what God had in mind, when the whole enterprise started, will come to fruition. Human history is the possession of the God of history and is also the arena of his activity. They tell us there will be judgement, that is, we will face God to account for the conditions our sinful human behavior has brought about. They tell us it will be a dark day when God comes to judge the earth, and with righteousness to judge the world and the peoples with his truth. They tell us to repent, to turn away from our ways to God’s and to prepare for his coming. “Do it now, don’t put it off,” they say.
But scripture also tells us that the One who comes to judge us is the One who has already come to redeem and deliver us. He is the One who loves us, even unto death... his death. He is the One who continually comes in Word and Sacrament, Bread and Wine, kind deed and kindly words spoken to others. He is Mary’s child, born to us, for us, among us, like us, yet not like us. And therein lies our hope. We are overcome by the drear and darkness of sin, but as St. John tells us, He is the Light that is even now coming into the world.
The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not, cannot, will not, overcome it. This may not be the Good News you are looking for today, but over the long run, it’s the only Good News there is.
Thanks be to God!
When things change, people react and this reaction often includes anxiety. Anxiety is plentiful these days in America and uncertainty, it seems, is paralyzing, but not for the talkers who just keep right on talking!People are naturally interested in, and concerned about the future and consequently there is always a good market for authors, speakers and forecasters who are happy to tell us about the future....our future.
The season of Advent is about the future too. As the Christian year moves through the last Sundays of the season after Pentecost and into the new year with the First Sunday of Advent, we hear the forecasters of the Scriptures share with us their version of the future. They do not deal with deficits, or unemployment rates, or taxes: they offer no trends or prognostications. They do give us a vision that can both frighten and arouse hope.
They tell us that what God had in mind, when the whole enterprise started, will come to fruition. Human history is the possession of the God of history and is also the arena of his activity. They tell us there will be judgement, that is, we will face God to account for the conditions our sinful human behavior has brought about. They tell us it will be a dark day when God comes to judge the earth, and with righteousness to judge the world and the peoples with his truth. They tell us to repent, to turn away from our ways to God’s and to prepare for his coming. “Do it now, don’t put it off,” they say.
But scripture also tells us that the One who comes to judge us is the One who has already come to redeem and deliver us. He is the One who loves us, even unto death... his death. He is the One who continually comes in Word and Sacrament, Bread and Wine, kind deed and kindly words spoken to others. He is Mary’s child, born to us, for us, among us, like us, yet not like us. And therein lies our hope. We are overcome by the drear and darkness of sin, but as St. John tells us, He is the Light that is even now coming into the world.
The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not, cannot, will not, overcome it. This may not be the Good News you are looking for today, but over the long run, it’s the only Good News there is.
Thanks be to God!
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