Word to the Wise
Friday, November 28, 2008 - Friday in the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
[Revelation 20:1-4, 11-21:2 and Luke 21:29-33]Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
I once heard a wonderful story that I think will help us to understand the words from the Book of Revelation and Jesus' words about last things in the Gospel of Luke. The setting is the open range. Just as the song, Home, Home on the Range, says it, the deer and the antelope and buffalo were peacefully grazing and playing. Then a cowboy rides up on his horse and sits there looking at them. He then proceeds to swear at them and calls them the mangiest and ugliest bunch of beasts he ever laid eyes on. He then rides off. One of the antelope turns and says to one of the buffalo: "You know? I think we just heard a discouraging word!" The Book of Revelation is just the opposite. It seeks to bring an encouraging word to a very hard situation. It's not "pie in the sky, by and by" or the giddy optimism of the song, "Happy Days Are Here Again!" but the encouragement that comes from faith that endures. God will triumph over the evil that threatens. God will unite heaven with earth in a new world of a new Jerusalem! One of the most important things we can offer one another is encouragement! I think most of my campus ministry years and much of my retreat preaching have been and continue to be centered around offering an "encouraging word" to those who find their lives beleaguered and hard and have no idea where to turn next! Perhaps the core virtue here is HOPE! Hope doesn't leave it all to God but enters into a true partnership of life with God to bring about something new in life. By becoming human in Jesus Christ, God offers the ultimate hope that humanity has not been abandoned. There will always be the negative cowboys with a discouraging word. In faith, we can talk louder than they can and live better lives. AMEN