The Four Last Things

 

Last Judgment by Jan Provoost, oil on panel, 1525. Groeningemuseum in Brugge.

Sermon at Parish Mass, the First Sunday of Advent 2021

Jeremiah 33.14-16

1 Thessalonians 3.9-13

Luke 21.25-36

 

“The end of the world is nigh!” You might have seen that, or something like it, on placards waved by street preachers. Or how about these billboard advertisements from America, “Jesus is coming – look busy!”. And, “ ‘Don’t make me come down there!’ – God”.

None of that sounds terribly Anglican. The Second Coming of Christ can seem to be both too big to comprehend, and too abstract and distant to be concerned about. It seems a long way removed from parish affairs. Meanwhile, various sects and cults are left to have a field day with obscure and apocalyptic passages of scripture, confidently predicting imminent dates and lurid disaster-movie endings of the world.

But it is a great mistake to leave the Second Coming of Christ to the errors of fundamentalists and sectarians. It is a vital Christian doctrine. We say that we believe it, in the Creed, and it is the great theme of this first part of Advent, often considered under the heading of “The Four Last Things”: death, judgement, heaven and hell.  So it is good to remind ourselves at this time of year of what the Church believes about the Second Coming of Christ, and how that is set out in the story of Scripture.

The first thing the Scriptures say is that Christ has not gone away. He promises, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The parable of the sheep and goats speaks of Christ present as the one to whom all our actions and choices were ultimately directed, and by which they will be judged. Ephesians speaks of Christ, the origin and end of all things, ascending to fill all things and to gather all things in him. He lives in his Church, which is his body in the world. He is present in the Eucharist in which his self-giving sacrifice is renewed until the end of time.

So how can there be a “Second Coming” if Christ has not gone away? The Biblical word “parousia”, often translated “second coming”, really means “presence”, a kind of intensified royal presence. In Christ’s Ascension his visible presence was removed, but he became present in new ways. Similarly, the Second Coming, the Parousia, will not be a return from absence, but a kind of seeing, a breaking through, of Christ’s royal presence, which has been there all along. At the Ascension the angels say to the men of Galilee, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven”.

The faith of the Church is that we will all see Christ, firstly, at the end of our lives, when our mortal bodies wear out and the veil falls away. “It is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgement”, says Hebrews. Our souls will enter into Christ’s light, and we will see ourselves as we are, and Christ as he has always been, present all along, at every fork in the road.

His light is both truth, which judges, and mercy, which saves. However painful and searching it may be, for all who will receive it, it will be a sharing with Christ in his saving death and resurrection. It will be a sharing, too, with all God’s saints and all the redeemed who already praise God in the one communion of love in heaven. And, although we do not see them, the Church on earth is already one with them in that communion of love, as we celebrate in every Eucharist. One fellowship, above, below.

But what of those who refuse mercy? The scriptures, it is true, have vivid images of eternal punishment, flames that do not go out and worms that never die. But this is imagery, not literal description. We are made for love, and love must be given and received in freedom. Therefore, we have to be free to refuse love. “Hell” is a word we must use cautiously, it has so many misleading associations. It is not devils with pitchforks, but absence, the absence and rejection of love in a soul created for love. Theologians have wisely said that there is nobody “in hell” except those who want to be there, and the only thing keeping them there is their own will. And it may be that, in the end, there will be no-one there at all. Christ is the Saviour, and he knows what he is doing.

Christians also look forward, beyond our individual lives and judgements, to a new heaven and a new earth. This is the resurrection life into which Christ has already entered, a life which is embodied, but spiritual and incorruptible. We believe that this present universe, which is passing away, was created by God out of nothing. Likewise, the scriptures look forward to a new creation in which all will be restored and the mortal will put on immortality. We cannot imagine this, of course – but could we have imagined the creation of this universe, before it happened?

When and how this will come to pass is something known only to God. But, however it happens, the final universal revelation of Christ will also be both judgement and salvation. All creation will see Christ and be drawn into his resurrection life and made new. Scripture tells us that in the new creation righteousness and justice will dwell, in a way that here we can only long and pray for. The “powers” that have been at work behind nations and history will be judged, and Christ will be triumphant.

The Second Coming of Christ, then, is not just about an event in the distant future. It is also, very much, about the principle of Christ’s presence in time and history, and therefore about how we live here and now. How we live, with a consciousness of Christ’s royal presence in ourselves and in all things, a consciousness formed in us through prayer and sacrament and love and service to others. Every eye at last will see him; but can begin to see him by faith here and now as we follow the path of discipleship. This is to live both in the expectation of judgement and in the hope of salvation. And this is the rousing call, and the expectation, and the hope, of Advent.