Our End Is Our Beginning
by Jerry Fuller, OMI
- King Hussein was for many years the beloved King of Jordan. Hussein was a good friend to the U.S. who once spent six months at the Mayo clinic for cancer treatment. Afterward, he piloted his own plane back to Jordan. The report of that return in the Associated Press is quite remarkable. PLO chief Yassir Arafat was among the tens of thousands of Jordanians who braved freezing rain to welcome Hussein home. Bedouin tribesmen slaughtered sheep and camels along the roadsides to offer their thanks for Hussein's safe arrival. Several members of the royal family wiped tears from their eyes. In the bustling, narrow streets of Amman, shopkeepers offered sweets and spiced black coffee to passersby and a folk troupe twirled swords and played bagpipes. Jordanians had begun celebrating the return of the king long before he arrived. Some Jordanians braved rain to dance in public parks where loudspeakers blared out "Hashmi, Hashmi," a popular Jordanian song honoring King Hussein's descent from Hashem, the grandfather of Islam's Prophet Mohammed. Hundreds of dignitaries joined more than one million people - one-third of Jordan's population - in the nationwide festivities. In Amman's exclusive suburbs, buildings were adorned with huge Jordanian flags and strings of flashing lights. "Your return home is like the return of the soul to the body," beamed one banner in the capital. Radio and television talk shows were swamped with calls from Jordanians declaring allegiance to the king. "Whatever we do, it will not be enough to express our love and respect for the king", one housewife said. [i]
Our end is our beginning. Only if we consider our end, where we are going, can we really begin to prepare for our King. Our end tells us that we face nothing but destruction and ruin if we have not lived a life preparing for our King. But if we believe and live our King, then we inherit the words in today's gospel: "When these things begin to happen, stand up straight and raise your heads, for your ransom is near at hand" (Luke 21: 34) and "Pray constantly for the strength to escape whatever is in prospect, and to stand secure before the Son of Man" (Luke 21:36).
We don't like to consider these end times, for they frighten us. Our temptation is to focus on the merciful and forgiving Jesus. But if we were to do that to the detriment of what that Jesus is saying to us in these liturgical end-of-the-year readings, we could rightly say when we stood before him: "Lord, why did you not warn us?"
Only when we're ready for death can we begin to live.
- It has already been a long night. A soft light glows like twilight
throughout the bedroom. Her children sit quietly in the room and hall
outside, taking turns coming in and holding her hand, carefully wiping her
forehead and face, speaking softly in whispers, barely able to choke back
their tears: Is there anything I can do for you, Mom? It's O.K., Mom.
We're here. We love you."
The doctors could do nothing more for her. Her illness had run its course. But this night's long vigil actually began many months before with the final diagnosis. After the shock and the tears and the anger came acceptance. She put her financial affairs in order and made clear her wishes regarding final arrangements.
Once she was ready for death, she started to live. Her family became the center of her days. With gentleness and compassion, she healed family rifts, restored friendships, and sought forgiveness for the slights and embarrassments that litter every life. Though weakened in body, her spirit soared.
Now the final moments of their vigil. By morning, all would be completed. With mumbled prayers on their lips, tears in their eyes, her family cradled her in their love as they commended her to the God who breathed life into her soul seventy-eight years before.
- Not too far from Madisonville, Tennessee, is a notorious spot on the
Interstate. It is dangerous because of the fog that sometimes surrounds
the banks of the river and covers the bridge and contiguous highway for a
mile or so. One morning several years ago, driver after driver drove his or
her vehicle unsuspectingly into the fogbank at high speed. The drivers
realized too late that they could not see, and before they could slow
down they crashed into unseen obstacles.
Crunching metallic sounds filled the air and fires broke out. Screams pierced the dense atmosphere, shadowy and terrifying. It must have seemed like hell to those in the midst of the confusion and turmoil. Indeed, it would become for some of the injured a living hell, and for those who were killed, it was their time to meet their maker. Few of those whose lives were affected would have given any thought beforehand to preparing for such a catastrophe. Mostly they went about their lives unaware of what lay ahead.
Tragedy is a part of incarnation, of life. A minister, Thomas H. Troeger, brings out this point well. He says:
- I wake this morning to a television report of five people murdered in a
fast food restaurant, and then I open my newspaper and read that two robbers
shot a four-year-old girl in the chest when her mother could not silence
her crying. My wife and I shake our heads and mutter a prayer, but then go
on our way to our work. I turn on my E-mail, and my first message is that a
dear friend's brother has been found beaten to death in his office. This
time I break into tears and sobs.
The intensely personal nature of the E-mail message breaks open my heart and releases the full fury of grief and sadness that was touched but not mobilized by the morning litany of terror in the news. The weight in my soul compels me to see the incarnation of Christ in a new way. God in Christ moves into an intensely personal relationship with the evil and violence of this world. I think: O Logos, do not become flesh,do not be born of Mary, do not send the angels to the shepherds, do not lay the little child away in the manger. Call it off before it is too late, before you endure this brutal bleeding world. Stay high and mighty and powerful. Train your troops of angels, train the whole company of heaven and send them swooping down to stop the violence, the terror, the evil. Then in the silence of my heart I see as never before that incarnation means a refusal to keep a safe distance between heaven and earth, between eternal good and mortal evil.
If we are to be godly people we will have to follow the pattern of the incarnation, risking all for love, refusing to keep our distance from the brutality of this world. God is as vulnerable as a child in a stable, as vulnerable as a child in a super market whose mother cannot stop her from crying in the presence of robbers. This may not be the all-powerful God we sometimes pray for, but it is the God who redeems us. [iv]
- "...we were at work in
trench. The dawn was gray around us; gray was the sky above; gray the snow in the
pale light of dawn; gray the rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad,
and gray their faces. I was again conversing silently with my dead wife,
or perhaps, I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings, my
slow dying. In a last violent protest against the hopelessness of imminent
death, I sensed my spirit piercing through enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend
that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious
'yes' in the answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate
purpose.
At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the miserable gray of a dawning morning in Bavaria. Et lux in tenebris lucet - and the light shineth in the darkness. For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed by, insulted me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me. I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very strong that she was there. Then, at that very moment, a bird flew down silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had dug up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me." [v]
References
[i] The Associated Press, 1/19/99, as quoted in Dynamic Preaching 15
(4): 64 (Seven Worlds Corporation, 310 Simmons Road, Knoxville TN 37922), Dec
2000.
[ii] Connections, First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2000 (MediaWorks,
7 Lantern Lane, Londonderry, N.H. 03053-3905), Dec. 2000.
[iii] Paul Witte, "Because we cannot know," Markings Readings - 3, First
Sunday Advent, December 3, 2000, (The Thomas More Association, 205 West
Monroe St. -- Sixth Floor, Chicago IL 60606-5097), Dec. 2000.
[iv] Thomas H. Troeger, "Collapsing the distance between heaven and
earth," Lectionary Homiletics, 12 (1): 1 (Lectionary Homiletics, Inc., 13540
East Boundary Road, Building 2, Suite 105, Midlothian, VA 23112), Dec. 2000.
[v] John Shea, Starlight, p. 164, as quoted in Susan R. Andrews
Lectionary Homiletics, pg. 7.
(Comments to Jerry at padre@tri-lakes.net. Jerry's book, Stories For All Seasons, is available at a discount through the Homiletic Resource Center.)