Praise the Lord! The End of Faith as It's Beginning | A Sermon on the End
A sermon preached at St. George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, on the Fifth Sunday after Easter.
Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time for war, a time for peace (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).
And so it goes. The third chapter of Ecclesiastes offers this wisdom on time, particularly as it is experienced seasonly. As it shapes and is shaped by our existence and our lived experience. And yet, we rarely experience time so simply.
Time is complicated. To ask the internet “What is Time?” is to open yourself up to somewhat destabilizing discussions of spacetime, multiverses, and theories on the fundamental nature of time, which are, to my mind at least, completely confusing.
At its simplest, time is what the clock reads. At its most complex, it becomes the stuff of cosmic visioning. At its most confusing, it is non-existent.
At least, according to Julian Barbour, a British physicist, who makes a claim of time that “is as simply stated as it is radical: there is no such thing.”[1]
And yet, we experience time. We have too little it. Too much of it. We are on borrowed time. We have plenty of time. There was that one time. You say that all that time. Where has the time gone? I am running out of time. It is time.
The book of Revelation knows something of time; situated here on this the fifth Sunday of Easter, it calls to mind end times.
Writ small, it speaks of our end. Of yours. And, of mine. Often read at funerals, it breathes the promise of rest and relief over the body of the dead and speaks to us who mourn: See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away’ (Rev. 21:3-4). At funerals, this speaks to the mystery of God’s purposes and our smallness in the face of them. It is Good News. As one preacher reflects, “God’s will is to make God’s home with us. And when God is at home with us, there will be no more death, weeping, or suffering.” [2]
Writ large, it speaks of our end. Collectively. The End. In church speak, we call this the eschaton. For the religious, the final event in the divine plan. For the believing and unbelieving alike, the end of the world. Theologian Barbara Brown Taylor notes that,
“if you want a beatific vision of God’s end-game for creation, there is no better place to look than the last two chapters of Revelation. . . . [The horror of earlier chapters has passed away] And behold, there is rejoicing . . . as the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and all the saints of God make their way to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” [3]
The End. Whether its your end or my end or the end of the world, this end is one that we have not yet encountered. Like so much of what is unknown, it may provoke fear, even as it promises what is good.
The end time image of Revelation, of course, is placed alongside our Gospel. In it, we are thrust backwards. The Lord is Risen, indeed. Our alleluias are still well met, and yet here we are asked to recall a moment prior to Jesus’ crucifixion.
In it, Jesus makes his farwell to his disciples: Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ (John 13:33). These words are sacred, not just because they are spoken by Jesus, but because they are final words, words spoken by someone who isn’t long for this world. As such, they have a certain sacred economy. There is not enough time for any more words above those that must be spoken. Time is running out. The end is near.
Isn’t it?
Of course it is. The cruxifixction awaits. We here in the future know that to be past. It will be done. And, yet, it is not the end after all. Because, Christ’s resurrection is the undoing of death, the undoing of that which was the end.
The Resurrection: the event in which the end meets its end. The Resurrection: the promise that always we begin again.
As if in response to this, our appointed psalm rings out: Praise the Lord! All created things; Praise him. Sun and moon and shining stars. Praise him. Sea monsters and things lurking in the deep. Praise him. Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds. Praise him. You. And me. Praise him. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. Praise the Lord! (Psalm 148).
Here is an invitation to a chorus of praise ringing Eternal. A joyful beckoning to join all of creation in praising God: Creator and Redeemer. This invitation awaits all of us. All we need to do is be who we were meant to be.
One commentary on this psalm notes that “when we lift our voices in praise to God, the name we utter identifies the One whose reality is the deepest truth about the universe and about every life.” [4]
Yours. And, mine.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 21:6).
My end. Your end. The end. It is God.
This is the reality. For this time. For all times. The new heaven and the new earth is simply where God is, where God is with us. See, the home of God is among mortals (Rev. 21: 3). God who is both beginning and end. Who stands beyond time. For the one who is both Alpha and Omega cannot be held by human limits. Before and after. Life and death. Beginning and end. Past and future. Heaven and earth. These make little sense when held up against the mystery of our faith: Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again.
To confront this mystery, that our end is in God who knows no end, is to rejoice. Praise him! Praise the One who is both Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. The one who in Jesus Christ our Lord made his purpose known: that all things would be united to God. The One who both created us and redeemed us. The One who, as Revelation reveals, makes all things new. The One who acted in time to affect all time to the end of time.
Let us listen now to sacred words, final words, words spoken by Jesus at a time when he was not long for this world. Let us hear them now, in light of the Resurrection Truth:
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another (John 13:34).
Let us live now a love untouched by time. A love that blesses. A love that rejoices. A love that notices God at work in all things.
Praise the Lord! Who was and who is and who will always be “the end of faith, as its beginning” [5]
Amen.
The image above is of a Gamma-Ray Burst taken at the European Southern Observatory. You can find that image at the website in note [1].
[1] https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-09/book-excerpt-there-no-such-thing-time
[2] William C. Pender, “Heaven in the Rearview Mirror,” April 24, 2016, http://www.fpcknox.org/site/wp-content/uploads/sermons/2016/04/Sermon-4-24-2016-Pender.pdf.
[3] Barbara Brown Taylor, “This Way Home,” November 4, 2012, https://cathedral.org/sermons/rev-barbara-brown-taylor-way-home/.
[4] David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feating on the Word: Year C, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster, 2009), 456 (John B. Rogers).
[5] Charles Wesley, Love Divine, All Love Excelling, hymn.
