Homily for the 33rd Sunday
And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’
with great power and glory,
and then 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.
When you see these things happening,
know that he is near, at the gates. (Mk 13:26-29)
The 13th chapter in the Gospel of Mark is called the ‘little apocalypse’. Like Daniel, it uses strong symbolic language to describe what God will do.
What’s the point of this passage and other apocalyptic writings? Some think it’s to scare, but the real purpose is to give hope. It is not written for the comfortable and satisfied. It is written to provide hope to people undergoing some trials. Apocalyptic language is written for the dispossessed, the oppressed, the persecuted, the suffering, and people simply crying out for relief.
There are two hopes in apocalyptic writings – one future and one present. The future hope is that God will one day set things right. God will redeem this world and restore all creation to its original beauty and glory, reuniting heaven to earth as it was in the days of Adam and Eve. The Son of Man will come, the dead will be raised, and our bodies will be glorified, and we will take our place as stewards of God’s creation giving fitting praise and adoration to God through our work. That is the future hope.
The present hope is to help people in any sort of trial at any time – you and me, here and now.
The evangelist Mark was writing to a group of fiercely persecuted Christians, probably in Rome. They were being hunted down, falsely accused, forced to betray their family members, and being fed to the lions. They were experiencing firsthand a tribulation that we can scarcely imagine.
But in addition to persecution, this gospel speaks to people in other sorts of tribulation: those who are experiencing chronic pain, have a life that is falling apart, are weighed down by the heavy demands of caring for another, or feel isolated and abandoned.
Let me illustrate this with a personal story about my time of tribulation. I’ve shared this story with just a few people: my wife, a counselor when I applied to the deacon program, my spiritual director, and the chaplain at Divine Mercy University – so you’re now part of my inner circle.
It was the four worst years of my life. I was a first-year student in High School. I was on the wrestling team and in the band. Both were excellent programs and often won state championships. I was pretty good as a first-year student. The trajectory of my high school years looked promising.
Then we moved. Then we moved again. Then we moved again. I went to four different high schools, and the fourth was newly built and didn’t have a wrestling team or a band program.
Even in the best of circumstances, I wasn’t good at making friends. I depended on my older sibling for companionship. On each move, I lost one. One went off to college. One stayed behind. One got married.
When I was eighteen, my mom died.
In those four years, I lost a promising future, my friends, my siblings, and my mom. I was in a very dark place. It felt like the world had come to an end.
I hear these words through the lens of that difficult time:
In those days after that tribulation, 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. (Mk 13:24-25)
In those days of tribulation, I also felt like the sun and the moon stopped giving out light, and the stars disappeared from the sky. There was no light by day, no guidance at night, and no stars upon which to fix my gaze.
In your darkest hour, you might have felt the same.
When I was studying to be a spiritual director at Divine Mercy University, one of the assignments was to draw a spiritual life map. The technique is to create a drawing that identifies the spiritual highs and lows and marks significant moments where I felt God was most actively guiding me – college, marriage, job, a liberating confession.
I couldn’t do the assignment as described. I looked at the panorama of my life. God has been good. But those four years were like a black hole. There would be no way to put them on the same scale of my other ‘ups and downs’. The paper wasn’t large enough to go that low. So I just did those four years. I had to find out where God was and what God was doing during those years.
I drew one dark cloud with a black marker and included everything I mentioned. Emerging from the cloud were rays of light. These were the people, little angels, that God sent into my life to get me back on track – a young priest who invited me back to church, for instance. I drew little arrows emerging from the cloud and rising to the sun beyond. When I reached the sun, I wrote that because of this down and up movement, I am now a better husband, father, deacon, and beloved son.
With the image of this Spiritual Life Map, listen to these words of Jesus;
And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory, and then 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. (Mk 13: 26-27)
Even in the dark corner of the world I inhabited, God sent his angels to bring me back.
Jesus then offers a short parable. “Learn a lesson from the fig tree.” (Mk 13:28) The fig tree is dormant. The leaves are gone. The bush appears dead. That was me. But there is still life. The branches will become tender once again. The leaves will begin to sprout.
Jesus then offers a statement filled with hope: “When you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the gates.” In other words, when you feel most dead, know that Jesus is near. He is at the gates. He is knocking on the door to your heart.
In whatever tribulation you may be experiencing, if you try to hide in one of the dark corners of the world, the Son of Man will send you angels to find you. When the fig tree feels like it is the dead, lay claim to the promise that “He is near, knocking at the gates.”
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