The God Who Saves

Okay, to be perfectly honest, this reading scares me. The sun darkened, the moon without light, and stars fell from the sky. This does not sound like a happy place. It does not seem like anything I would hope for or long for. The readings about the end of time generally cause anxiety for me. The enormity and vastness of the description leave me feeling small and helpless. However, if I can make the desolation described in the reading small enough for my human mind to understand, I will find a nugget of gold.

So, we start small. We all know tribulation in our lives. We have known times when our world went dark, and nothing brought light, sunshine, or hope to our days. Perhaps it was at the time of the death of someone we love, or a breakup of a marriage, a loss of a livelihood, an estrangement, or an ominous medical diagnosis. In those times, the world as we know it is gone. 

Fear and uncertainty are our constant companions. The light of hope goes out in our eyes, and they are filled with tears of desperation. The stars of promise for a future full of hope fall around us. And there is only darkness and loss. Undoubtedly, some of us are walking in this darkness even now. This darkness comes to all of us at one time or another, and sometimes, we know it several times in our lives.

When we feel this loss, God seems very far away. We doubt and wonder how the God we have believed in and loved could leave us in this state. We look inward, not outward. We pull in like a tortoise and hide in whatever shell we can find to protect ourselves from more hurt. Very often, we can only see God with hearts filled with disappointment and anger. We are unwilling or unable to believe in God’s tremendous power and love when we hurt so much. 

The reading says that after all these trials, “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.” 

Sometimes, the hardest part is looking up to see the Son of Man when all we know is hurt. But if we can force ourselves to look up in the moments of hurt, Jesus will be there. He will gather us into his arms and bring us home. I think that means home to peace of heart in our everyday lives. Home to a place of hope. Home to His light, which no darkness can overpower. God will send His angels to soothe us if we allow it to be so. God will fill us again with the promise of hope.

Ahh, so back to the reading. Perhaps our human experiences are a microcosm of the world’s experience. When our world is shrouded in pain and darkness, the human voice will cry out as one. The darkness we experience is just too dark. Some curse the darkness, others dare look up and see our God. God comes to bring peace and joy again. God comes to establish His kingdom once again on earth.

I cannot help but be reminded of September 11, 2001. The sky darkened on a beautiful sunny day, not just in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. The sky darkened over the whole world. In the days, weeks, and months following 9/11, we were a country that looked to God. We looked for solace and direction. We looked for healing and comfort. We looked for God and found God.  God was among us in our heroes, prayers, songs, and embraces. In those days, we did not look for what divided us. We saw only what united us.  God gathered us to himself.

We do not know the day or hour when darkness will overpower our personal lives, our country, or the world. But it will undoubtedly come for each of us and all of us. When it does, we must look not with fear but with joy. We will see our God, who comes to gather us from the ends of the earth and bring us home.

In God’s Unending Love,

Gwen