The Final Victory
by Fr. David M. Knight
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Thirty-Third Sunday of the Year
Dn 12:1-3/Heb 10:11-14, 18/Mk 13:24-32 (Lectionary 158)
How often do you think about the end of the world? How does knowing how all this is going to end affect your life here and now? Jesus conquered sin and death on the cross. He is already reigning in heaven. But in the time-frame of this earth, evil does not give up without a struggle. And before the final triumph of Christ there will be a final battle. But we do not need to fear:
Your people shall escape, everyone who is found written in the book. Many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, others to reproach and everlasting disgrace.
The liturgy uses Daniel 12:1-3 for a parallel, although Daniel is speaking of the Hellenic (Greek) wars and persecutions of the second century before Christ. Daniel is saying that
despite the terrible sufferings in the eschatological crisis, the elect of God... will be saved. They “shall awake,” come back to life. This passage is remarkable as the earliest clear enunciation of belief in the resurrection of the dead. “Some shall live forever” (literally “unto life everlasting”) is the first occurrence of this term in the Bible.
We are looking to this “final battle” in the Our Father when we pray, “Save us from the time of trial. And deliver us from evil.” This is “the titanic struggle between God and Satan which must introduce the last days.” But if we bring it down to the personal level, we are asking for help in making our final act of faith, hope and love at death. For each one of us the “final battle” occurs at the end of our lives when we are called to speak our final “Yes” to God. This is our final, total act of abandonment.
It is also our final purification. The badly taught, misunderstood Catholic doctrine of “Purgatory” really says nothing more than the general statement: “if we are not ready for heaven when we die, we have to be made ready before we get there; and the prayers of others can help us.” Period. This does not say (though it doesn’t exclude) that “not ready” means we have not “paid” enough for our sins and must be “punished” after death until we do. If we read the great teacher of Christian purification, St. John of the Cross, “not ready” would mean that our faith, hope and love still depend on a lot of human perceptions and motivation, whose distortion or absence can weaken our ability to speak a total “Yes” to God. We are “made ready” by whatever enables us to let go of all human fears and desires at death and abandon ourselves into the arms of our Father as Jesus did: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” We prepare for this moment by everything that helps us grow in faith, hope and love.
The Final Trial
Mark 13:24-32: This chapter mixes predictions about the end of the world and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. Its message—for any catastrophe—is “Don’t panic.” Even if the “sun is darkened” and the “stars fall from the skies,” God is in control. And when the end of the world comes, we will “see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory.” And he will “gather his chosen from the four winds, from the farthest bounds of the earth and sky.” The Greek word for “gather” is the same Matthew and Luke use when Jesus says:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem... How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings...!
This is an image of tender love, security, comfort and peace. And in this world of constant, sometimes unsettling change, Jesus assures us there is something to hold on to: “The heavens and the earth will pass away, but my words will not.”
Final Sacrifice
Hebrews 10:11-18 assures us that in God’s time even our perfection is an accomplished fact: “For by a single offering he has forever perfected those who are sanctified.” The Lamb of God has “taken away” our sins forever.
Insight: Is the total victory of Christ something you draw encouragement from?
Initiative: Prepare for your final “Yes” by constant “yeses” in faith, hope and love.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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