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Thirty-Third Sunday - Mark 13:24-32
November 19, 2006

"Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again."

This is the ten-word acclamation of the mystery of our faith that we often recite at Mass after the Consecration of the bread and wine. For the next two weeks, which are the last two weeks in the liturgical year, the scripture readings focus on the last part of that acclamation: Christ will come again. They look toward the end of time and the return of Jesus Christ in power and glory.

We experience time in two ways. On the one hand, time seems to be circular. There is the seemingly endless cycle of days and nights. They, in turn, form the cycle of the seasons which go around and around. We feel, as the song says, as if we're on a carousel of time.

But we also experience time as an arrow. Our life begins at birth and, like an arrow in flight, it moves forward on a path that eventually comes to an end. We, like Christ, will die. It is our hope that we, like Christ, will rise again. And what we believe is that our resurrection will occur when all of creation comes to the end of its journey through time.

Jesus tells us that no one knows when the end of time will come, just as most of us don't know when our own end will come. That's why it's important for us to work constantly on following Jesus along the path that he has revealed as the true way to life in God's kingdom.

We live in the "between times." That is, we live between the time when people could see Jesus walking on the roads of Galilee with his disciples and the time when all will see him come again in glory with his angels. There is a natural desire to see God, to see Jesus Christ, with our own eyes, both to be reassured that God is real and to know more clearly the way that God wants us to follow.

Even though Jesus is not present to us today in the same way as when he lived 2000 years ago, it would be a mistake to think that he is not with us. For Jesus has remained with us, and will continue to do so until the end of time, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It's not possible for us to travel through time like Michael J. Fox did in a modified DeLorean sports car in the movie "Back to the Future." So we can't go back and see with the eyes in our head what Jesus was like when he walked on the earth. We can, though, with the eyes of faith, "see" Jesus today in prayer and through the scriptures.

Imaginative prayer, for example, lets us participate in the events of Jesus' life. We can, in reading the scriptures, sit with Jesus and his disciples on the shore by the Sea of Galilee, after he had risen from the dead, while they ate next to a charcoal fire. Or we can listen to Jesus as he walked with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, explaining the scriptures to them and revealing himself when he blessed and broke the bread for their meal.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is also present to us in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. And Jesus has said that he is present whenever two or three are gathered in his name, which is exactly what we have done here this day.

The apocalyptic scenes of the end of the world are not intended to paralyze us with fear. Rather, they are intended to reassure us that God is present at all times, working to bring about a new heaven and a new earth. And it is God's desire that we follow Jesus Christ so that we may be among those gathered into his kingdom. That is why we can joyfully and hopefully proclaim together the mystery of our faith: "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again."