Tuesday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time
“Beloved: Wait for and hasten the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire. But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” – 2 Peter 3:12-13
Scriptural references to the “end of the world” have attracted a great deal of attention over the centuries. Despite the Lord’s warning that no one knows the day or the hour – “not even the Son” (!) – people in every generation continue to scan the Scriptures, proclaim that they have broken the ‘code’, and that they have found references to contemporary nations, events and people in places like the book of Revelation. This, for them, ‘proves’ that the End is in sight. In fact, for some, the End can be given a specific year or date.
Such efforts, however, are no more than vanity. Why? As we have seen, they end up trying to contradict the Lord’s own words that no one can know the day or the hour. More than this, they reveal an obsessive desire to be in control – even of the things of God. They reveal a desire to put oneself at the center rather than the Lord, by claiming that “I and I alone” know when the End is coming, and how it will come to pass. It shows a fundamental lack of trust in the Lord, and a willingness to wait upon the Lord’s will.
There is yet another reason. When the Scriptures speak of the “end of the world”, what is this “world” that is ending? Is it the physical universe? We might think so, but the Scriptures don’t say this. In Romans 8, Paul states that all of creation is groaning and in labor, awaiting the revelation of the children of God when it will be freed from its own slavery to sin and evil. At the end of the book of Revelation, after a series of plagues and other intense and violent images that have the feel of an extended “exorcism” of the cosmos, the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven to earth. Earth does not literally cease to exist. Heaven and earth become one.
If the physical universe is to be purified, what “world” will end?
Let’s consider the Old Testament use of such imagery as we see in places like 2 Peter and Revelation. When a prophet, like Isaiah or Daniel, announced something like the fall of Babylon, Assyria, or any other nation that was oppressing the Israelites, they often used imagery like the skies falling and the earth opening up. This did not mean a literal end of the physical world. It did mean an end of a different type of world – any “world” that sets itself up against the love and mercy of God; any “world” that seeks to deny God or to refuse to trust in God.
Let’s consider our own lives. We are confronted, on a daily basis, by two such “worlds” (at least). First, we face the “world” that people mean when they speak of the way life “really is” – a world where those who lie and cheat often succeed; where those who are honest or conscientious often suffer; a world which does not even try to follow the way of the Gospel; a world where signs of the presence of God are hard to see. Secondly, we face an inner “world” of fear, doubt, anxiety, hurt, envy, lust, resentment, and so many other powerful forces that well up from within. These forces try to convince us that we need some crutch, some addiction, in order to survive – even though we know well that the ‘crutch’ or addiction is ultimately very destructive. yet, we can feel as powerless over this as we might feel about forces in the external world that seem to go against us if we try to be faithful to the Lord.
These are the “worlds” that will come to an end by the grace of God.
God’s grace is already present within us, as we face our inner storms and demons – this inner “world” that makes trust, mercy, hope and love seem impossible or at least fruitless. God’s grace is already present in the outer world as well, as even very painful events – even apparent disasters – are transformed into means of blessing, growth and hope. Every time we choose to trust this presence of God and live according to Gospel values – come what may in the outer or inner world – we show that God is trustworthy, as what God has promised for all creation begins to be realized in us who trust.
This is precisely what 2 Peter means by “hastening the day of God”. Not that we make the ultimate End come any sooner, but we, by our trust in God and utter commitment to God, begin to experience that “day” even now. The powers that are opposed to love, hope and trust lose some of their grip on us. We begin to live, more and more, as though the End has already come. For indeed Jesus himself told us that the Kingdom of God is near, even in our midst. If the grace of God can transform us even now, then we can trust all the more that the love of God will overcome all in the End.
Maintaining this undivided trust in God, in the face of these inner and outer “worlds”, is not easy. We will often feel tempted to look for a “Plan B” – which then becomes our addiction, our way of compromise with the inner and outer “worlds”.
We see one example of this in today’s Gospel reading (Mark 12:13-17). Jesus is challenged by Pharisees and Herodians by a question they ask him: should we pay the census tax to Caesar or not? The very fact that we have Pharisees (who claimed to be champions of the Law of Moses and of the holiness of Israel) and Herodians (whose first commitment was to the Roman puppet king Herod Antipas) alerts us to the possibility of compromised or divided hearts here. When Jesus asks to see a denarius (the coin used to pay the tax) and his questioners oblige, their divided, duplicitous spirit is all to obvious. The denarius had on it an image of Caesar and an inscription proclaiming Caesar to be “Dominus et Deus” (Lord and God) – a violation of the First Commandment, in the very Temple area itself. God’s supposed defenders were themselves divided, hedging their bets on who or what God really was/is. It was the ultimate failure of the Pharisees and Herodians to truly trust God and love God with all their being which led them to hedge their bets, compromise themselves, and then react strongly to the One who would never compromise His own trust in the Father.
Is it not that way with us as well? Is it not out own failures to trust God fully and unreservedly that leave us vulnerable to every anxiety, doubt, temptation and sin? It is not this failure to trust that makes us lash out – in ways that surprise us – against those who DO so trust God?
The “worlds” that will end are all the “worlds” – outer and inner – that set themselves up in opposition to the mercy and love of God. The “world” that will endure is the world God has intended from the beginning – a world that can already be tasted and felt in the hearts of all who trust God now. May this strengthen our trust. May it encourage us to take every risk necessary in order to love God and live this kind of life guided by God’s Spirit.