I want you to imagine that you’re living in a City in the Roman Empire at the time St Paul was writing his letters to the Churches, one of which we heard a little bit of as today’s 2nd Reading. (1 Thess 4:13-18) You can see and hear me give this Homily on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox1Jv1cSTP4
Living in that City, you might perhaps, once in your short lifetime, experience something very unusual indeed. And what’s that ? The Emperor himself, the Caesar, the ruler of the greatest Empire the world has ever seen, comes to visit your city. Remember, by the way, that the Emperor is worshipped as a god, and your City, like all the cities, has a Temple to the Imperial Cults, and within the Temple is a statue of the Emperor himself for you to worship. But now, you will not just see the statue, and worship him far away as he is in Rome, now Caesar will be present in person, now you have a chance to see him face to face, and as he passes by in his grand procession with the trumpets sounding you will go down on one knee, you will genuflect before your god. And how do you think that his entrance into your city will be described by those who write up this wonderful event? In the normal way of course. They will speak of how everyone there was taken up into the clouds to meet Caesar in the air. Of course, they didn’t mean that literally. Everyone knew that their feet stayed on the ground, as did the Emperor’s, but that was the way a once in a lifetime event of such glory was described.
Now you can see why St Paul uses this language of clouds and meeting God in the air. It was a language that everyone at that time understood. For it made quite clear that when we Christians die, we are promised the greatest glory that anyone can ever imagine, a glory even greater than meeting the Emperor. Of course, today we would use different images than those ones wouldn’t we, so can you think of what that might be. What has been for you the greatest glory in your life? I was thinking of being at the Last Night of the Proms as a 17 year old, having stayed up all night outside the Albert Hall to be at the front of the queue; or that moment when Genesis played at the Reading Rock Festival in the 1970’s. Probably your most glorious moment will be very different. Maybe the birth of your first child? Or maybe it was the moment when your team won some trophy and you cheered your heart out surrounded by your jubilant fellow fans? Or maybe it was some great family celebration? Perhaps your own Wedding? That chimes in with the many images Jesus gives us of the kingdom of God as a great banquet, or a great wedding feast, as in our Gospel today. (Matt 25:1-13) Whatever the experience, whatever the image, the message is the same. Meeting God when we die will be beyond our wildest expectations; a moment of eternal glory when every tear will be wiped away, and every trouble, every ache and pain, will be no more.
Now remember, that before people like St Paul came with the message of Jesus, those Greco-Romans of Thessalonica would have seen death merely as a journey into nothingness, a fading away into shadows and darkness. The only way to be alive after death was if you were a god like the Roman Emperors. For everyone else, the possibility of becoming a great king, and thus immortal, was an impossible dream. Only the Christians claimed something different, for they claimed that through Jesus they had indeed become as St Peter writes “A royal priesthood… called out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9) Our problem is that we have got so used to the idea of life after death, that we find it difficult to be surprised by the glory that is being offered us. What’s more we cannot see how astonishing it would be to ignore, or be too busy or too unprepared to respond to this incredible glory.
However, I must admit that all the suggestions I have made so far, of images of glory to describe how we meet God when we die, leave me somewhat dissatisfied. They are all images that use worldly experiences, however wonderful, to try to describe something beyond the physical. This is why I think we need to turn to our 1st Reading (Wisdom 6:12-16) to find a very different way of thinking about all this. Here God is described as something similar to what we experience deep within our own minds, something that is described as “wisdom”, that ability we have as human beings to think through all sorts of things, and change our world, It began of course with the first human to think of a rock as a tool for cutting and shaping things; and now we can create enormous buildings or amazing computers all from the wisdom that we have in our minds. Perhaps you remember the words Shakespeare gave to Hamlet? “What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, ….how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god!” Yes, even our own little mind is enormous, immense isn’t it, with so much in it, way beyond our understanding. Indeed, since we cannot fully understand our own mind, let alone someone else’s mind, we might meditate on how many thoughts there are inside each one of us, and then think of the power that created every mind there has ever been.
The writer of our 1st Reading however calls that power wisdom, by which he means not our human wisdom, but the wisdom that is the power which is God at work in us and in the world. Here we have an image of God that makes more sense to me, of God as a great loving creative Mind with a capital “M”. St Paul in his letter to another group of Christians, those in Rome, says as much. He writes “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?”?”…. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen.” (Romans 11: 34 & 36) With that thought in our minds, let’s think of God again, as in that 1st Reading today. Maybe we are surprised that God is described here as “she” and “her”, but why not, for God is not a man or a woman, God is simply God. So let us marvel at all God is. “Wisdom is bright, and does not grow dim. By those who love her she is readily seen, and found by those who look for her. Quick to anticipate those who desire her, she makes herself known to them. Watch for her early and you will have no trouble; you will find her sitting at your gates.”
Comments