34th week in Ordinary Time, Dec.1,2006

Scripture: Revelation 20:1-4,11.21:2. Psalm 84:3-6.8 Luke 21:29-33 Today's Psalm and its response started my day of prayer and led me to think about "desire" and "longing" for the joy, happiness, and peace promised to us by our God who is love. This Psalm led me to understand how to deal with the fears about death, the endtime, and judgment which are so strongly stressed in the readings of the last week in ordinary time. The Book of Revelation has some ominous scenes, but they are balanced today by a reflection on the vision of the heavenly places and God's being seated on a white throne. The selection from Luke's Gospel is also about reading the signs of the endtime and knowing when it is near, but we have already learned that even Jesus tells us that only God knows when the end of time is. The victory of the Lamb sacrificed for us is now complete and the beast and Satan are thrown into the fiery pit. God reigns forever and so do those who are with God--the martyrs and those who have give testimony to Jesus and the word of God. The the beautiful scene of a bride descending from the heavens as a new Jerusalem is described by our visionary, John of Patmos. This scene remained with me as I just recently witnessed a beautiful wedding of a former student. She was radiant with joy and beauty emanated from her person as her handsome and strong husband received her hand in the sacrament of matrimony. It helped me to understand the imagery of today's vision of the bride coming down from God to earth. The image or parable Jesus uses in Luke narrative about the coming of the endtime is not as attractive as the one given in Revelation, but it does help us to think about reading the signs of the times and being ready to witness to what Jesus is saying. Often for our prophetic stances this means being counter-cultural in many realms where we are ministers, teachers, and examples of God's revelatory words. The burgeoning of the fig tree becomes a sign that both nature and humanity are being transformed by God and the Lamb of God as history moves progressively toward its final purpose. My prayer led me to quietly and slowly to pray the Lord's Prayer (the Our Father) which emphasizes the reign or kingdom of God throughout its seven eschatological petitions. It is a prayer that perfectly fits the themes for this past week.Amen.