Our first reading from the Book of Malachi and our Gospel passage from St. Luke today both speak a lot about the end times and how the people should expect there to be different disasters as well as judgment.
Many people use these passages and others to try to predict when the end of the world will take place and they also use them to put forward the idea of a vengeful God who will come back with anger to do away with everyone who didn’t follow God’s will.
Our first reading from the Book of Malachi and our Gospel passage from St. Luke today both speak a lot about the end times and how the people should expect there to be different disasters as well as judgment.
Many people use these passages and others to try to predict when the end of the world will take place and they also use them to put forward the idea of a vengeful God who will come back with anger to do away with everyone who didn’t follow God’s will.
In truth, these Scripture passages point to the reality that this world is imperfect and incomplete and that real happiness, real joy, come from our expectation and hope for the Kingdom of God that is to come.
The great disasters that Jesus predicted in St. Luke’s Gospel all happened in the years following Jesus’ death and they continue to happen and will always happen as long as this world exists.
These passages are not some kind of secret key that will answer the curiosity that most of us have about the end times and our ultimate destiny as human beings and as children of God.
So, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to waste our time worrying about these things or trying to predict when they will happen
What we should be spending our time on is following the great commandments that Jesus gave us: to love God above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
We should spend our lives modeling ourselves after the Apostles and the early followers of Jesus as well as saints and even ordinary people of our time who have truly given themselves to the Gospel call to love, mercy and compassion, to service to those in our world who are most in need.
Some people miss out on the message – even in today’s Scripture passages – that God wants us to live with Him in Paradise, that God is a loving God, who wants His children to truly experience His justice and His healing in this life and in the next, that God desires to reward us for persevering in faith, for acting with love and compassion in His name, despite the difficulties and tragedies that we experience in our world.
Our faithfulness to God and to the call to stewardship enriches not only our own lives but also the lives of others; it brings the love, power, and richness of the life of God to ourselves and to all those we meet. Let us pray, this week, for the courage, strength, and dedication, to always be an active participant in God’s plan for His people. +
