Fr. Gerard Kelly
In the early Church – in those first few decades
after the death and resurrection of Jesus – people expected the Second Coming
to occur very soon. In fact, they
expected to see the second coming of Jesus in their own life time. This naturally had a great impact on the way
they lived their lives and the decisions they made. If you think the world is going to end soon
you quickly get a very different perspective on life. Things that were once important become less
important, and things that had been ignored suddenly become very important. We all know, of course, that the world did
not end in those few decades after Jesus, and we know that he has not come back
to earth. Those people soon came to
realise the same thing.
This created new problems for them. They began to ask questions about God –
particularly wanting to know what God was doing. God seemed to have gone silent, seemed to
have forgotten them. Evil things were
still happening. They came to realise
that the time they were living in was no different to any other time. People still suffered and died, natural
disasters still occurred, political and civil strife was still raging in some
parts of the territory, and violence still occurred in the streets. This raised questions for them about Jesus
and his message. Jesus had preached the
coming reign of God and had called for repentance and conversion. When he preached the Beatitudes he had told
them that with the coming reign of God people would be blessed. They were now asking where this reign was. Where is God?
In this situation they began to reflect on the
sayings of Jesus like the one we have heard today. These are very difficult sayings to
understand, and it is easy to misunderstand them. We need to look for the central message that
they are giving and not read them as some scientific statement about the world
and its future.
In very imaginative terms, these sayings speak
about the confusion that will precede the end time. They are not sayings about when the end time
will occur. In fact, just the opposite! Jesus says that no one knows the day or the
hour. This is why these sayings were so
important for the early church, which had been expecting the second coming in
their own time and were disappointed that it was not happening. These sayings were meant to help shift their
focus from worrying about when the end time might occur to how to live in the
present time. These are sayings that
give encouragement in the face of challenges and difficulties.
The basic image of the Son of Man coming on the
clouds with great power and glory was meant to remind them that God had not
abandoned them. Here was a vision of the
future where God would visit them. For
this reason, they had every reason to be hopeful and confident. It is this vision that now shapes their lives
and their choices. They shouldn’t become
overwhelmed by the confusion, or evil, or strife they see around them, nor should
they shut themselves off from the world hiding in the knoweldge that Jesus will
be back soon. Rather, they should live
in the world, and play their part in giving witness even now – and no matter
how imperfectly – to what the reign of God will look like.
That is why these readings have been so
influential over the centuries. Every
generation, including our own, finds itself asking questions about the way the
world is, or the way the church is, or the way society is, and wanting to know
where God is in all of this. Our world
probably suffers no less than earlier generations from natural disasters,
political and civil strife, institutional corruption, and bad behaviour. People still feel hurt when they are badly
treated or misunderstood, even by people inside the church. Many around us are looking for reasons to
still believe in God. And of course,
there are those who will use any excuse not to believe in God. Even those people who think that Jesus was
simply a good moral teacher and that his teaching is worth following often
don’t believe that God can make much difference.
This is why the message of today’s readings is
still there to be heard. This message is
meant to re-kindle the vision of God’s reign.
At certain times that reign can seem imperceptible, just like the
mustard seed that Jesus spoke of elsewhere.
But he told us that the mustard seed grows into a great bush. The message of the readings encourages us to take
hope, and to let the promise of Jesus shape the way we choose to live now. So, while these readings are not trying to
predict the second coming of Christ, and are warning us not to become
distracted by these thoughts, they do ask us to think of the second coming on a
much larger canvas, and to recognise how it can have an impact even now. The readings thus not only encourage us, but
also invite us to rely on the Holy Spirit so that we live even now, thinking
and behaving like God, so that his kingdom will be visible in us and we can show
the world what is possible when people welcome the gospel of God.
