Scripture:
Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrews 10:11-14, 18
Mark 13:24-32
Reflection:
Our gospel today provides an explicit and quite illuminating answer to these very human questions: “What are we waiting for?” “Are we on the lookout for anything?” “Expecting anything?” Many people today are waiting for nothing, expecting nothing, and on the lookout for nothing. They live their days, one after another as if nothing ultimately matters and life will go on forever.
Today’s gospel shows us how false and foolish such thinking is. As we move to the end of the liturgical year, Jesus’ words remind us that we are also moving toward the end of the world. This world, which we assure ourselves will go on forever, will come to a definitive end with a finale that will be impossible to miss. Jesus says, “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”
And yet, the world ends not in darkness and nothingness, not in absurdity and despair, but with the coming-into-fullness of the reign of God. Just when it seems that all light has forever gone out of the world, that impenetrable darkness will be shattered by “‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory.” He “will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky,” Jesus tells us. Truly, something grand and glorious awaits us, something breathtakingly dazzling and awesome, for at that moment all of creation will radiate the love, justice, and goodness of God.
And so, we need to ask those questions again: “What are we waiting for?” “Are we on the lookout for anything?” “Expecting anything?” As the late Passionist scripture scholar Fr. Carroll Stuhlmueller wrote, considering today’s gospel, “There is no excuse for our not being people of overwhelming hope.”
Paul J. Wadell is Professor Emeritus of Theology & Religious Studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and a member of the Passionist Family of Holy Cross Province.