Permanence

By Deacon Thomas Stephenson

November 18, 2018

It’s hard to believe that we are already more than halfway through November. The snow we received over the last few days has confirmed that autumn is pretty much over and winter is beginning. Just like the calendar year, our liturgical year is also coming to a close, and even sooner, with only two weeks left to the First Sunday of Advent. But we shouldn’t be getting ahead of ourselves, and thinking too much about Advent and Christmas yet. We do still have the next two weeks of this month to continue to remember those of our loved ones and friends who have died. As Father Robert reminded us last week, we should be praying for those who have gone before us, all year round but particularly at this time. We also should be reflecting on the fact that we, too, will one day join them in eternity, hopefully once again being together with them in the presence of the Lord.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away”. What we heard is only a portion of the thirteenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel; in much of the rest of this chapter, Jesus talks about signs of the end times, including the destruction of the temple, which they were observing from the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, across the Kidron Valley. Jesus tells them this majestic structure, which appeared to be so permanent, would be reduced to rubble. And that is what happened; in the year 70 A.D. the Romans demolished the temple, and the rest of Jerusalem, so thoroughly that there was hardly anything left. It was not quite as permanent as they thought, in less than 40 years it had passed away.

Our world is also continually passing away. Usually not in physical destruction like the temple, but eliminated by the passing of time and our own inevitable advancing in age. For many of us, the world of our childhood no longer exists. The world when we were young men and women no longer exists. Those times, those worlds, subsist only in memories. The world that our children and grandchildren are living in now will also eventually pass, to be replaced by other worlds yet to be revealed. Not by a cataclysmic event like the sun being darkened or the stars falling from heaven, but for each of us our world is slowly and quietly slipping away. There is no permanence to the things of this world. Some things may last longer than others, some may be with us our entire lives, but none will be with us forever.

The words of Jesus, however, will never pass away. Unlike the things of the world, those words are always with us, as they have been for almost 2,000 years. And the words of God in the Old Testament have been with us much longer. Jesus’ words are more constant than even the sun, the moon, and the stars; more enduring than the earth itself. And it is our faith, based on those words, Scripture, and the teaching of the Church, which gives us the knowledge, the sure hope, of the salvation that awaits us.

Although we can read the Scriptures and study our faith, these are not just things we learn like any other subject we might study; our faith must be something that we accept and believe deeply. It has to resonate within us, more than anything else we know. We cannot know God independently, relying only on what we feel is right, any more than we could do virtually anything else in our lives without someone guiding us. We need the Church to assist us, with the wisdom of Christ and almost two millennia of experience. The Church teaches what it does because it has been given that authority, that responsibility, by Christ, and it takes that responsibility seriously. The teachings of the faith are presented by the Church in order to lead us to our ultimate goal, our eternal salvation.

Just as it is the responsibility of the Church to present us with the faith, it is our responsibility to accept it and possess it. Our faith, informed by the words of Jesus, can help us to better recognize the true value of things that are eternal, and the relative, lesser value of the things of this world. If we only concern ourselves with the material things and events of our daily lives, we will be missing what is truly important. We need to attend to our current responsibilities; we need to live in this world to the best of our abilities until God calls us to Him. Will we be ready for that call? Are we growing in our faith, growing in holiness, growing in our relationship with the Lord? Are we relying on the eternal words of Jesus, and all of scripture, and not what the passing world wants us to believe? Jesus’ words are timeless; they do not change with the times. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord… you have the words of eternal life.” We must cling to His words; in them we will find peace and redemption.

Christ tells us that He, the Son of Man, will come in clouds with great power and glory; and that He will send out the angels to gather the elect. In the reading from Daniel, we are given an indication of the resurrection of those who have died, when he says that “your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust shall awake”. In a couple of minutes, we will say the Nicene Creed, including the statement “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come”. This is our belief, this is our hope, this is the promise of the Lord. Let us always strive to be found worthy of His promise, that when this world passes away, we may “shine like the brightness of the sky...and like the stars forever and ever”.