Thirty-third Sunday of the Year (B)

(13-14 November 2021)

As the liturgical year draws to a close – next Sunday will be the last one – the Gospel reading turns our attention to the end of time. Jesus refers to the sun turned to darkness and a moon that loses its brightness. The meeting of COP26, which has just finished in Glasgow, has reminded us how fragile our earth is. We see, if only on TV, the damage caused by raging fires and terrible floods; we are aware of the typhoons and tornados that strike different countries, and we hear of the havoc caused by earthquakes and the eruption of volcanoes. We are living in a time of distress.

Yet the message of the Gospel is one of hope. The Son of Man – a title that Jesus uses for himself – will come in great power. He will send “angels to gather his chosen from the four winds”. We can understand these angels to be all those people, in every part of the world, East and West, North and South, teachers, nurses, doctors, workers in care homes, all who give the best of themselves in the service of their fellow human beings. Such people, even though they may be unaware of it, are acting like Jesus who “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38).

So we are not to fear. We are to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus because from him will come our salvation. He has died for us, and risen from the dead, he wants to share his life with us. He has offered himself for us, once and for all. This is the firm foundation of our hope.

We say in the creed, our profession of faith that we recite every Sunday:  “He (Jesus) will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”. But we do not know when this will happen.  Jesus says this very clearly in today’s Gospel: “But as for that day or hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father.”

 Some of the first Christians thought that Jesus would return very soon, even in their lifetimes, and so they were just waiting for this to happen. St Paul says that he had heard that there were some Christians “living in idleness, doing no work themselves but interfering with everyone else’s” (2 Thessalonians 3:11). He tells them “Please do not get excited too soon or alarmed by any predictions or rumours” about the Second Coming of the Lord (2 Thessalonians 2:2).

This does not mean that we have nothing to do. We are to continue to live according to the teaching of Jesus, to continue to love our brothers and sisters, seeing Jesus in them, to continue learning how to respect the Created Universe which has been entrusted to us.  Paul writes to these Christians, some of whom were tempted to wait passively for the end of time, telling them: “Never grow tired of doing what is right” (2 Thessalonians 3:13). This is the best way to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

After the Consecration we proclaim: “When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again”. May this be a joyful acclamation, an expression of our faith in Jesus, our hope which rests in him, and our love of God and of our neighbour. Amen.