Darkness must pass and a new day will come.

Thirty-third Sunday Ordinary Time November 12 & 13, 2022

Mal 3:19-20a Ps 98:5-6, 7-8, 9 2 Thes 3:7-12 Lk 21:5-19

Who likes to celebrate the changing of the seasons within the calendar year? Who here has recently celebrated October Fest or is now currently celebrating or attending some type of Fall Harvest Festival? Or maybe decorating their homes with fall colors and decorations? Later we’ll begin to see Advent and Christmas decorations, and early next year Valentine’s, and so on. It’s kind of what a lot of us do.

These celebrations and decorations commemorate the end of one season and the beginning of another. Likewise, in our Church we celebrate the different Liturgical seasons. Currently we are coming to the end of our current season of Ordinary Time and soon in a couple of weeks we will begin the Advent Season. As part of this transition, as we come to a close of our current season, our readings lean towards end time passages reminding us of the closing of one age and the beginning of another.

If you are a fan of Tolkien and the books or movies about the Hobbits and The Lord of the Rings, you would be aware of four different ages. The First Age: The Elder Days The Second Age: The Rise of Sauron The Third Age: The Age of Arda and the War of the Ring The Fourth Age: The Age of Men

Often in our literature we find reflections of reality. Tolkien, being a Christian novelist, wrote of different ages, which is a reflection of the reality in which we live in. As I thought about this, I thought about what could be the different ages or periods of time from a Christian perspective and I came up with the following.

The First Age: The time before the fall, when all of creation took place and Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. The Second Age: The Old Testament times after the fall with the covenants, the prophets, and the waiting for the coming of the Messiah. The Third Age: The first coming of Jesus the Messiah, where the New Testament fulfils the Old with the Final Covenant and the perfect Sacrifice to reconcile all of humanity. The Fourth Age: The second coming of Jesus and the final resurrection.

We are now in the age between our Lord’s first coming and His second. We live in the new world begun by His life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension, by the sending of the His Spirit upon the Church. But we await the day when He will come again in glory.

It is two the end of this age and the beginning of the next age that our readings today speak to us about.

In the early Christian communities, many believed that the end time was near at hand, and so many refused to work or do anything because they thought why bother if the end is near. Paul addresses this concern in his second letter to the Thessalonians. We don’t know when Jesus will come again, and so we must continue to live and work for ourselves and for our community.

In our First Reading and in our Gospel we hear the words “Lo, the day is coming,” from Malachi and “the days will come” from Luke. Both referring to the end times with seemingly very dark, negative messages of punishment and destruction; about fire, earthquakes, famines, plagues, and persecution. But the message is not all negative and dark, there is also both a message of hope and a challenge for us, so don’t despair.

Our hope is in the Messiah. The last sentence in our reading from Malachi we hear these words: “But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.” Now depending on what translation, we read, we might read the following: “But for you who fear my name, the sun of justice will arise with healing in his wings.” The translation with “healing in his wings” is a more literal translation and the word wings comes from the Hebrew word kânâph.

In the Hebrew culture the word kânâph was also used to mean the four corners of the Jewish prayer shawl, and it was widely believed that the four corners of the prayer shawl of the Messiah had healing virtues. And so, it very likely was this part of Jesus’ clothing that the woman, who was afflicted with hemorrhaging, reached out and touched and immediately healing power left Jesus and healed her. And so, we have hope in the coming of the son of justice with his healing powers. And as we enter into our Advent Season, it is with this hope that we celebrate as we pray in our Psalm today: “The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.” And during Advent we cry out maranatha, O Lord Come!

Where might we today be able to reach out and touch the kânâph of Jesus to receive His healing grace? In the Sacrament of Reconciliation where he forgives us of our sins, renews us, and reconciles us to himself. In the Eucharist, where he comes to us again and again as the Lord of Hosts and the Sun of Justice with its healing rays as he nourishes us with his body and his blood. And so, this is our joy and our hope in our time of struggle as we await his coming in perseverance.

Now the challenge. In Luke’s Gospel Jesus tells us our time of tribulation will lead to our giving testimony. We are called to be witnesses of the truth as we confront all the immoral, amoral, relativistic anti-Christian ideologies of our times. We must rise up and be witnesses to all by our example in the way we live our lives, practice our faith, and in the words we speak. We should not be afraid to speak out about the truth even if it leads to our persecution, and to trust that the Lord, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, will give us the wisdom in speaking with power. We must also recognize that there is still good in this world, which we must acknowledge, celebrate, and give thanks for. That is also part of our witness and our testimony, celebrating the blessings we have and continue to receive.

I leave you with this to ponder from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. It is towards the end of the Third Age that we have the story of Frodo and Sam. It was a time of darkness and tribulation in middle earth, and Frodo was beginning to despair as their mission seemed hopeless, and he says “I can’t do this, Sam.” To which Sam responds with these iconic words.

I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something. That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.