The Hope of Heaven
A reading from Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, by Mthr. Fleming Rutledge
You and I cannot make heaven break in. Unassisted human nature cannot turn the hearts of the children to their parents and the hearts of the parents to the children. Only God can do this. This is a fundamental truth of the Advent message. Unassisted human nature is under the sign of the wrath of God. But light is breaking, brothers and sisters, the dawn is coming. As Malachi foresaw and Charles Wesley adapted in a famous hymn, ‘For you who fear my name the son of righteousness shall rise, with healing in his wings.’ Human nature is unassisted no longer.
However dimly, however imperfectly, heaven is to be mirrored in our lives right now. Now in the time of this mortal life, now in the time of this present darkness…take heart! ‘Look up! Raise your heads! Your redemption is drawing near!’ (Luke 21:28)
Reflection
By Fr. Brian Rebholtz
One of the greatest spiritual challenges Christians face in the United States is what Tim Mackie likes to call, "The Myth of Religious Fulfillment." According to this human-made myth, we all sit at the center of a unique story, and we play the starring role as ourselves! God, we believe, exists primarily to help us complete our story and to bring our story to a satisfying conclusion. This is "The Myth of Religious Fulfillment." When this myth proves false, we get angry. We blame God. We lose our faith. We declare the Church dead and Christianity moribund. After all, if God can't be bothered to ensure the success of our story, why bother with God at all?
Fleming Rutledge reminds us that this "myth" gets the truth precisely backwards. We are not the stars of our own personal story. Rather, there is only one true story and it involves the whole Creation! God, not humankind, is at the center of this story. And every person is called to play a small but essential part as this Divine narrative unfolds. If we can accept this, we will find our true identity and calling in the roles God has created us to play. If we cannot, not matter how successful we may seem in the eyes of others, our "story" will ultimately flop and we will forfeit our true moment of greatness.
Connection
Make time to pray.
The St. Luke's sanctuary is decorated for Advent! Come by this week or next week between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm and make time to pray in our sacred space. When you pray, ask the Holy Spirit to fill you, inspire you and guide you are you seek to be closer to God and to heed His calling upon your life. If you cannot come to the church, set aside an additional time to pray in your home.
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.